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A usage limit is a hard ceiling on spend. Once a scope reaches its limit, its requests are rejected until the window resets — no partial service, no overage. Limits are set independently at three scopes, and a request must pass all of the ones that apply to it: A member holding two keys, each under its own key limit, can still be stopped by their member limit. A squad whose members are each under their individual limits can still be stopped by the squad limit.

Periods

Every limit carries a window it is measured over: New limits default to monthly. A limit of 0 means no limit at all, which is also the default for a scope you have never configured.
Windows are calendar-based in UTC, not rolling. A daily limit resets at midnight UTC regardless of when the spend happened, so a team spread across time zones shares one reset moment.

What happens at the limit

Requests from a scope that has reached its limit are rejected with an HTTP 429, and the error names which limit tripped — the key’s own limit, or the member/squad cap above it. The agent sees a rate-limit error and stops; nothing is served at partial quality. Spend through your own BYOK provider keys counts toward these limits as well. A limit caps what a scope spends, not what Edgee bills for. If usage data is briefly unavailable, requests are allowed through rather than blocked. Limits fail open.

Watching a limit before it trips

Set a budget alert on any scope that has a limit, and you get a notification at 50%, 80%, or 100% of it. Member and squad budget alerts are percentages of these limits, so a scope with no limit set has nothing for the alert to measure and the rule stays silent. Members can see their own position — spend so far and the limit in force for them — without needing admin access.

Limits vs routing budgets

Routing strategies also carry a budget, and it does a different job: They compose. A common setup is a routing strategy that steps down to cheaper models as spend accumulates, with a usage limit behind it as the backstop. If you want the strategy itself to stop rather than step down, its Block at 100% setting is the strategy-side equivalent of a limit.

Limits vs credits

A usage limit is a per-scope ceiling. Your organization’s credit balance is the pooled amount available to spend in the first place, and it is tracked separately in Settings → Credits. Running out of credits stops the whole organization; hitting a usage limit stops one key, member, or squad.