Cost Management lets you see how much your organization is spending on AI usage in elvex each month, and set limits on that spend for the whole company, for groups, and for individual users.
Who can use it: Admins and Owners.
Where to find it: open Admin, then Cost Management. The page has two tabs:
Tracking shows spend so far this month, for the company and for each user.
Controls is where you set and review limits.
What counts as spend
Spend is elvex’s estimate, in US dollars, of the cost of the AI model usage your users generate. It is calculated from the models used.
It covers usage from every place people use elvex: the web app, Slack, Microsoft Teams, workflows, and the API.
Usage on your "brink your own key" provider keys counts too. Because it is elvex’s estimate, it may not match your provider’s invoice exactly.
The two kinds of limit
Limit | What it caps | Who it stops when reached |
Company spend limit | Total spend across the whole organization | Everyone |
User spend limits | What one user can spend | That user only |
User limits come in three forms:
a default for everyone,
a limit for members of a group,
and an override for one specific user. See User spend limits for how they combine.
The company limit always applies on top of any user limit. A user who is under their own limit is still stopped if the company limit has been reached.
All limits are optional. With none set, spend is tracked but nothing is blocked.
How a request is checked
Every time someone asks elvex to do something, two questions are asked before any AI model is used:
Is the company under its limit? If the company limit has been reached, the request is stopped, whoever sent it.
Is this user under their own limit? The user’s limit is the first of these that is set: their override, then the highest limit among their groups, then the default. If they have reached it, the request is stopped for them only.
If the answer to both is yes, or no limit is set, the request goes ahead and its cost is added to the month’s spend for both the user and the company.
For example, with a $10,000 company limit and a $50 default user limit:
A user who has spent $50 is stopped, even though the company has plenty left.
If the company reaches $10,000, everyone is stopped, including users who have spent nothing.
When limits reset
Limits are monthly. The month is the calendar month in UTC, so spend returns to $0 at 00:00 UTC on the first day of each month. Nothing carries over.
What happens when a limit is reached
When spend reaches a limit, elvex stops processing new requests for whoever the limit covers until the limit is raised or the month resets.
People see a message explaining that the monthly spend limit has been reached. See What to do when you reach your spend limit.
API requests are rejected with HTTP status 429.
A request that is already running is allowed to finish its current step, so the final spend can end slightly above the limit.
Changes you make to a limit take effect straight away, on the next request.
Alerts
elvex emails a warning before a limit is reached and again when it is reached. See Spend alert emails.
Related
Set a company spend limit
User spend limits
Track spend