Budget Controls

Set hard spending limits on your agents. Auto-block when thresholds are hit.

Why this matters

Uber burned its entire annual AI budget in 4 months after giving 5,000 engineers Claude Code access. One SaaS team (35 engineers) got a $50,000 April bill from Claude Code, Cursor, and custom agents combined. Budget controls put a hard ceiling on what any agent can spend — per session, per day, or per month.

Configure a budget

from polaxis import Polaxis

guard = Polaxis(
    api_key="ag_prod_...",
    agent_id="billing-agent",
    daily_budget_usd=50.00,      # Hard stop at $50/day
    session_budget_usd=5.00,     # Hard stop at $5/session
    alert_at_pct=80,             # Slack alert at 80% of limit
)

Or via the dashboard: Agents → Select agent → Budget tab.

Pass estimated cost on each call

result = await guard.evaluate(
    "call_llm",
    {"prompt": "..."},
    estimated_cost_usd=0.05
)

# After the tool runs, record actual cost:
await guard.record_completion(
    tool_name="call_llm",
    actual_cost_usd=0.032,
    duration_ms=1240
)

Polaxis tracks cumulative spend in real time and blocks the next call if the budget is exceeded.

What happens when the limit is hit

from polaxis import BlockedError

try:
    result = await guard.evaluate("call_llm", inputs, estimated_cost_usd=0.05)
except BlockedError as e:
    if e.reason == "budget_exceeded":
        print(f"Daily limit reached: {e.details['spent_usd']} / {e.details['limit_usd']}")

The agent raises BlockedError with reason="budget_exceeded". Your code decides whether to fail gracefully, notify the user, or queue for the next day.

Budget types

Type	Config key	Resets
Per session	`session_budget_usd`	Each new `Polaxis()` instance
Per day	`daily_budget_usd`	Midnight UTC
Per month	`monthly_budget_usd`	1st of each month

All three can be set simultaneously. The first limit hit triggers a block.

Set budgets via API

PATCH /api/v1/agents/{agent_id}/budget
{
  "daily_budget_usd": 100,
  "session_budget_usd": 10,
  "alert_at_pct": 75
}

View spend in the dashboard

Dashboard → Budgets shows:

Current spend per agent (today, this month)
Spend rate over time
Blocked calls due to budget limits
Per-tool cost breakdown

Soft alerts before the hard stop

Set alert_at_pct to get a Slack notification before the limit is hit:

guard = Polaxis(
    api_key="ag_prod_...",
    agent_id="research-agent",
    daily_budget_usd=100.00,
    alert_at_pct=80,  # Slack alert at $80 spent
)

The alert gives your team time to intervene before the agent stops cold.

Getting Started

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Budget Controls — AI Agent Spending Limits & Cost Caps

Budget Controls

Why this matters

Configure a budget

Pass estimated cost on each call

What happens when the limit is hit

Budget types

Set budgets via API

View spend in the dashboard

Soft alerts before the hard stop

​Budget Controls

​Why this matters

​Configure a budget

​Pass estimated cost on each call

​What happens when the limit is hit

​Budget types

​Set budgets via API

​View spend in the dashboard

​Soft alerts before the hard stop

Budget Controls

Why this matters

Configure a budget

Pass estimated cost on each call

What happens when the limit is hit

Budget types

Set budgets via API

View spend in the dashboard

Soft alerts before the hard stop