Extra usage and spend caps
Extra usage is the opt-in way to keep automation running past your plan’s included automations. It is off by default, only the billing owner can turn it on, and it bills only for outbound automations — a reply, a DM, a like the product sent for you. Hiding, deleting and approving never bill, at any volume, opted in or not. This page covers the switch, the rates, the spend cap, and exactly what shows up on your invoice and in your inbox.
If you have not read How automation billing works yet, start there — it defines the automation, the allowance, and what happens at 100% without the opt-in.
The opt-in: the flip is the consent
Section titled “The opt-in: the flip is the consent”Extra usage can only be switched on by the billing owner — the person who holds the account’s billing, which on a team workspace is not necessarily whoever carries the “Owner” role. Flipping the toggle is the consent: there is no separate “I agree” step, and the card records who enabled it and when, right beside the control (“Enabled by name on date — the flip is the consent”). No deploy, checkout, webhook, or background process can turn it on for you.
If you are not the billing owner, you do not see a greyed-out toggle — you see who manages extra usage and a Nudge button to ask them. A control that would only refuse is not shown to you.
Two situations block the toggle itself:
- Trial — extra usage starts once you are on a paid plan. During the trial, automation simply pauses at the trial’s 700-automation allowance.
- Payment past-due — during the 7-day past-due grace window, extra usage is paused until your payment method is updated. Your plan’s included allowance keeps working normally, and nothing new accrues.
The rates
Section titled “The rates”Past your plan’s included automations, each further outbound automation is billed at a fixed per-automation rate, set per plan. Extra usage is deliberately priced above the plan itself: sustained overage means upgrading is the cheaper path, and the app tells you when that crossover happens (see the email ladder).
The three rates are the published prices — a whole number of cents each, and the same number your invoice is raised at:
| Plan | Included automations / month | Rate per outbound automation past the allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Base | 1,000 | $0.05 |
| Pro | 5,000 | $0.03 |
| Premium | 25,000 | $0.01 |
What is and is not billable
Section titled “What is and is not billable”The split is by what the action does, not by how many of them ran:
| Never billed — defensive | Billed past the allowance |
|---|---|
| Flag — hides the comment (Flag is the hide) | Reply — posts a public reply |
| Delete — removes the comment where supported | Private reply (DM) — DMs the comment’s author |
| Allow — approves, and un-hides if hidden | Send message — DMs a recipient |
| Promote — internal marker, no platform change | Like — likes the comment |
| Reply with AI — runs the model to draft a reply |
An AI draft is an automation, so past your allowance it accrues at the same per-automation rate as everything else in the right-hand column — one charge per generation, from a Workflow or from the composer’s Generate AI draft button alike, whether or not you send what it wrote. Sending it afterwards is the reply’s own charge, not a second one for the draft, and a generation the provider failed to produce accrues nothing.
Also never billed, at any volume:
- Comments and DMs arriving. Ingestion is unlimited and unmetered. Receiving, reading and analysing are free — there is no allowance on them to exceed.
- Anything a human did. Manual approvals, rejections, hides, likes and DM replies typed in the composer are your work, not the product’s.
- Anything in observe-only mode. A shadow-mode Workflow sends nothing and never calls the AI model, so it bills zero however much it matches.
- Webhook deliveries and notification emails. The card’s “What counted, and what didn’t” explainer itemizes these at $0.
- A send the platform refuses, or a generation that fails. The charge lands when the platform accepts the action. A reply blocked by an expired token bills nothing, and neither does an AI draft the provider could not produce.
Plan changes are prospective. Changing plans mid-window changes the rate for automations from that point on. Charges already accrued are never re-priced.
The spend cap
Section titled “The spend cap”The billing owner can set an optional dollar cap on extra-usage accrual:
- At 80% of the cap you get an alert (the card shows the exact dollar figure the alert fires at).
- At 100% of the cap automation pauses. See What happens when processing pauses for exactly what a pause means — ingestion and manual moderation keep working.
- With no cap set, automation never pauses for spend. Instead, a milestone email goes out at every $25 of accrual as a safety rail.
The prefilled cap is not arbitrary: it is exactly the price gap to the next tier, so the moment the cap is reached is the moment upgrading would have been the cheaper path. On Premium — where there is no larger plan to step to — the prefill is a suggested ceiling rather than a derivation. Change it or remove it at any time.
Two edge cases the app confirms out loud rather than doing silently:
- Lowering the cap below what has already accrued pauses automation the moment you save. The app shows the two numbers side by side and asks you to confirm with Save and pause.
- A cap of $0 is rejected — it would pause automation immediately. Remove the cap instead if that is what you want (removing the cap means uncapped, not zero).
What the meters and invoice preview show
Section titled “What the meters and invoice preview show”The Extra usage card in Account Settings → Billing & Usage renders two two-segment meters, because the two halves of a usage bar mean opposite things here:
- Your allowance. The first segment is the metered automations inside your allowance; once you are past it, a second segment appears for what is beyond. The footnote reads “$0.00 — allowance never charges”: at any volume, the allowance itself is free.
- What you’re billed for. Shown only when extra usage is on: the automations billed past your allowance (count × rate), your accrued total, and — if you set a cap — how much of the cap is used.
Neither meter counts a hide, a delete, or a comment arriving. If your numbers look lower than the volume in your Inbox, that is the meter working correctly.
Beside the meters, the Next invoice panel previews what you are about to pay: your plan line, an Extra usage line (N automations × your rate), and the total. It is metered daily from your usage ledger — never a surprise at invoice time. Past invoices live separately in Billing history.
Disabling is not a refund
Section titled “Disabling is not a refund”Turning extra usage off stops new accrual immediately. Anything already accrued stays on your next invoice — the card says exactly this next to the toggle, with the current accrued figure. Turning it off and back on within the same usage window does not reset anything.
The emails the billing owner receives
Section titled “The emails the billing owner receives”All money mail goes to the billing owner — the wallet holder — not to every workspace member, and each rung fires once per usage window (so a payer sitting at 85% is not re-mailed every day):
| When | What it says |
|---|---|
| 80% of the allowance, extra usage not in force | You are approaching your included automations (the dismissable in-app notice appears for everyone, opted in or not) |
| 90% of the allowance, extra usage not in force | Pace warning — the 100% consequence is real (the in-app notice becomes persistent, again for everyone) |
| 100% of the allowance, extra usage off | Automation is paused (one email — not “you’re at 100%” followed by “you’re paused”) |
| Extra usage switched on | Confirmation of the opt-in — who consented, and the cap if one was set |
| 80% of your spend cap | Spend alert. Raising the cap afterwards does not re-arm this alert within the same window — the pause at 100% is the backstop that still fires |
| Spend cap reached | Automation paused at your cap, and how to lift it |
| Every $25 of accrual | Milestone note — the safety rail, most useful when you run uncapped |
| Upgrade crossover | Measured over the rest of your window, upgrading is now cheaper than continuing at the extra-usage rate (once per window) |
The two email ladders are exclusive: the allowance rungs (80 / 90 / 100) are emailed only while extra usage is not in force — off, or suspended during the past-due grace. An opted-in payer is past a wall that no longer exists for them, so they get the spend ladder (cap alert, cap pause, milestones, crossover) instead. The in-app 80% and 90% notices are not gated this way — they appear for anyone approaching the allowance.
Related
Section titled “Related”- How automation billing works — the automation, the allowance, and the plans
- What happens when processing pauses — the three pause reasons and what keeps working
- Which actions are metered — the defensive/outbound split, action by action
- Team seats and the seat picker — what a downgrade does to seats
- Webhooks by plan, and the downgrade grace