Spend Controls

This feature is in beta. If you are interested in using Spend Controls feature, please send an email to help@obvious.ai.

Spend Controls lets workspace admins set an Obvious Credits budget for the organization, allocate credits to individual users or projects, and define rules that handle credit requests automatically.

You need workspace admin access to configure Spend Controls. Open Settings → Workspace → Billing → Spend Controls to get started.

Set the organization budget

The organization budget defines the total Obvious Credits pool available to your workspace each month.

1. Open Settings → Workspace → Billing → Spend Controls.

2. Under Organization budget, enter a number in the Monthly budget field. This is your workspace-wide credit pool in Obvious Credits.

3. Optionally enter a number in the Default daily throttle field to cap how many credits the workspace can spend per day. Leave it blank for no daily limit.

4. Click Save budget. The Current pool summary below the form updates to show your total, consumed, and available credits.

Tip: Set a daily throttle if you want to prevent a single high-activity day from consuming a disproportionate share of the monthly pool.

Allocate credits to users and projects

Allocations let you reserve a portion of the org credit pool for a specific user or project. When a project pool is set, it spends first before drawing from the org allocation.

1. Under Allocations, open the Scope dropdown and select User or Project.

   • User: A member picker appears. Select the workspace member.

   • Project: A project picker appears. Select the project.

2. Enter the credit amount in the Allocation field.

3. Optionally enter a number in the Daily throttle field to cap daily spend for that user or project.

4. Click Save allocation. The allocation appears in the table below with columns for Target, Allocated, Consumed, Daily throttle, and an Edit button.

To change an existing allocation, click Edit in its row. The form fills with the current values. Make your changes and click Update allocation.

Note: Allocations don't block usage beyond their limit by default. To automatically handle requests when a limit is reached, set up an auto-approve rule.

Configure auto-approve rules

Auto-approve rules let Obvious approve credit overage requests automatically when they stay within the ceilings you define, without requiring admin action each time.

1. Under Auto-approve rules, open the Scope dropdown and select one of the options:

   • Workspace: The rule applies across the entire workspace.

   • User: A user picker appears. Select the member this rule covers.

   • Budget pool: The rule applies to the org budget pool.

   • Project: A project picker appears. Select the project this rule covers.

2. Enter a number in Per-request ceiling. Any single overage request up to this amount is auto-approved.

3. Optionally enter a number in Daily auto-approve ceiling to cap how many credits can be auto-approved per day for this scope.

4. Toggle Enabled to activate the rule.

5. Click Create auto-approve rule. The rule appears in the table below.

To edit an existing rule, click Edit in its row, adjust the fields, and click Update auto-approve rule.

When a user's request falls within the configured ceilings, Obvious approves it automatically. Requests above the ceiling appear in the Pending overage requests section for manual review.

Read the analytics breakdown

The analytics page shows a read-only breakdown of how your org's Obvious Credits are being consumed.

Open Settings → Workspace → Billing → Spend Analytics.

The page displays four breakdown tables:

• Breakdown by allocation source: which pool type (project pool, org allocation, or both) covered each request.

• Breakdown by user: credit consumption per workspace member.

• Breakdown by mode: credit consumption by agent mode: Auto, Fast, Deep, Employee, and any other active modes.

• Breakdown by project: credit consumption per project.

Each table row shows the name, total credits consumed, project pool credits, org allocation credits, and event count. A bar chart in the name cell gives a visual sense of relative consumption.

Request additional credits

When you hit your credit limit, Obvious shows a modal automatically. This section applies to all workspace members, not just admins.

1. In the Request more Obvious Credits modal, check the Obvious Credits requested field. Obvious pre-fills it with the deficit amount.

2. If your workspace has allocations configured, an Allocation or project pool dropdown appears. Select the pool you want to draw from, or leave it set to General allocation.

3. Optionally enter a note in the Justification field explaining why you need the additional credits.

4. Click Submit request.

If an auto-approve rule covers your request, Obvious approves it immediately. If it falls outside the rule ceilings, your admin receives the request in the Pending overage requests section of Spend Controls and can approve or reject it from there.