> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.platform.nora.my/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overage cap

> Cap what you'll pay above your plan's included quotas.

Your plan includes fixed quotas. Overage is what you pay when usage exceeds them. The **overage cap** is your safety valve — once you hit the cap, further usage is blocked so you don't wake up to a surprise bill.

## Setting the cap

**Settings → Billing → Overage cap**:

* **Cap amount** — dollars per billing period. Above this, requests are refused.
* **Notify at** — threshold at which Nora emails the billing contact (default: 80% of cap).

CLI:

```bash theme={null}
# Cap overage at $50/month
nora billing set-overage-cap --cents 5000

# Clear cap — use plan default
nora billing set-overage-cap --clear
```

Only Owners can change this.

## What happens at the cap

When cumulative overage reaches the cap:

* New requests to metered surfaces return HTTP 402 Payment Required.
* Scheduled runs pause.
* Foundry pipelines pause.
* Existing in-flight runs finish normally.
* Chat traffic gets a friendly error message ("This workspace has reached its usage cap; please contact your admin").

The workspace is not archived; nothing is deleted. Usage resumes as soon as:

* The billing period rolls over (usage counter resets).
* You raise the cap.
* You clear the cap (unlimited).

## Cap notifications

At the notification threshold (default 80%), Nora emails:

* Workspace Owners.
* Billing contact.
* Any address in **Settings → Billing → Notification recipients**.

Second notification at 95%. Third at 100% (cap hit).

Add a Slack notification too (see [Alerts](/settings/notifications/alerts)):

```
Trigger: overage_percentage > 80%
Channel: Slack (#nora-billing)
```

## Plan default vs. custom cap

* **No cap set** → uses your plan's default overage limit.
* **Cap set** → your custom value wins, even if it's lower or higher than the plan default.

Enterprise plans typically have no cap by default (you'll get an invoice for what you use). Set one explicitly if you want the safety.

## When to set a cap

* **Free / Team on a fixed budget** — cap at your monthly ceiling.
* **Dev / staging workspaces** — cap low so a runaway script doesn't drain budget.
* **New workspaces** — cap conservatively until you've observed usage for a month.
* **Enterprise on customer contracts** — cap per contract to prevent scope creep.

## When not to cap

* **Production workspaces on unpredictable traffic** — a hit cap means outage. Prefer alerts + manual raise over caps that could black-hole real traffic.
* **Compliance-critical workloads** — where a hit cap becomes an incident. Alert + monitor instead.

## Cap and per-run cost limits

The overage cap is workspace-wide. It's independent of:

* **Flow global max cost** — cap per Flow (see [Flow settings](/cli/flow-settings)).
* **Agent max cost** — cap per Agent (see [`nora agents update --set-max-cost`](/cli/agents)).

Use both for layered defense:

* Per-Agent cap prevents any single Agent from a runaway loop.
* Flow global cap prevents any single Flow from consuming disproportionate cost.
* Overage cap prevents workspace-wide runaway.

## Raising the cap

Owners can raise anytime:

**Settings → Billing → Overage cap → Update**. Effect is immediate. Blocked traffic resumes on next attempt.

Consider setting an alert on cap raises (via audit forwarding, see [Audit](/settings/security/audit)) so finance is aware.

## Cost forecasting

Watching whether you'll hit the cap:

```bash theme={null}
# Current overage percentage
state=$(nora billing state --json)
used=$(echo "$state" | jq '.overage_cents_used')
cap=$(echo "$state" | jq '.overage_cap_cents')
pct=$(echo "$used $cap" | awk '{ if ($2 > 0) printf "%.1f\n", $1/$2*100; else print 0 }')
echo "Overage: ${pct}%"
```

Add to your daily cron for visibility.

## Related

* [Billing overview](/settings/billing/overview)
* [Invoices](/settings/billing/invoices)
* [Alerts](/settings/notifications/alerts) — alert on threshold crossings.
* [`nora billing set-overage-cap`](/cli/billing) — CLI reference.