Budgets
Overage policies
When a daily budget is exhausted, the overage policy decides what happens to the next call. Choose one policy per workspace — it applies to the company, team, and project budgets.
The three policies
| Policy | Behaviour | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Hard stop (default) | Once spend reaches the daily cap, every subsequent call is blocked (HTTP 402) until midnight UTC reset. | Strict enforcement — no calls allowed past the limit under any circumstances. |
| Use remaining | The last call that crosses the cap is allowed but only reserves the remaining headroom. Once $0.00 remains, subsequent calls are blocked. | Teams that want to spend exactly to the cap, not a cent over. |
| Overdraft | Calls continue past the cap. Overdraft spend is tracked separately. When cumulative overdraft reaches the overdraft limit, hard block kicks in. | Flexible teams that can tolerate small, bounded overages. |
Hard stop
The default. When the daily budget is fully reserved, the gate returns HTTP 402 with the reason daily_budget_exceeded for every call until the budget resets at midnight UTC.
In-flight calls that were already reserved and forwarded to the provider will complete normally. Hard stop only prevents new calls from being forwarded.
Use remaining
When a call's estimated cost would exceed the cap, Zelyx reserves only the remaining balance. The call proceeds with that reduced reservation. The actual cost may exceed the reservation — if so, the overage is absorbed (the budget goes slightly negative).
Subsequent calls see $0.00 remaining and are blocked until reset.
Example: $50 cap, Use remaining policy
- $48.50 spent. Call estimated at $2.00 arrives.
- Remaining = $1.50. Zelyx reserves $1.50 (not $2.00). Call proceeds.
- Actual cost comes back as $1.80 — $0.30 over reservation. Budget goes to -$0.30.
- Next call sees $0.00 remaining → blocked.
Overdraft
Calls are allowed past the cap. Each over-budget call accumulates overdraft spend. When total overdraft spend reaches the overdraft limit you configure, hard blocking kicks in.
An overdraft alert fires on each call that crosses into overdraft territory. Set up an alert channel to be notified immediately.
Example: $50 cap, Overdraft policy, $10 overdraft limit
- $49.00 spent. $2.00 call arrives → proceeds. Budget: $51.00 total, $1.00 overdraft. Alert fires.
- $51.00 spent. $3.00 call arrives → proceeds. $4.00 overdraft total. Alert fires.
- Continue until overdraft hits $10.00 → hard block for remainder of the day.
Changing the policy
Go to Budgets → Settings → Overage policy. Changes take effect on the next call.