TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What is AI Usage Limits?
• Products Covered
• Key Benefits of AI Usage Limits
• Choose What Happens When an AI Usage Limit Is Reached
• How AI Usage Limits Work Across Your Account
• Pay-Per-Use and AI Employee Plan Behavior
• What Happens When an AI Usage Limit Is Reached
• How Billing Works When an AI Usage Limit Is Reached
• Requesting More AI Usage
• How to Manage AI Usage Increase Requests
• Threshold Alerts
• Monitoring Usage
• Rate Limit Window for Ask AI and AI Studio
• Important Notes
• Related Articles

What is AI Usage Limits?

AI Usage Limits help you control, monitor, and manage billable AI usage across your HighLevel account. You can set monthly spending limits at the agency, sub-account, and user levels, decide whether AI should continue or pause when a limit is reached, and monitor usage as it grows. 

Limits apply to billable AI usage. Usage that is already included in a sub-account's plan is free and does not count toward a limit — only pay-per-use and subscription overage charges do.

Note: By default, no spending limit is set. Sub-accounts and users are unlimited until you enable a limit and enter an amount. On AI Employee plans, extra usage beyond the included allowance starts at $0, so extra usage must be enabled and given an amount before it can be used.

Products Covered

Key Benefits of AI Usage Limits

• Centralized spend control: Manage billable AI usage across your agency from one place.
  
  
• Flexible limit levels: Configure limits at the agency, sub-account, and user levels.
  
  
• Flexible limit behavior: Choose whether AI continues with a notification or stops when the limit is reached.
  
  
• Real-time visibility: Monitor current usage against configured limits.
  
  
• Proactive notifications: Receive alerts as usage approaches key thresholds.
  
  
• Usage increase workflows: Allow sub-accounts to request additional usage when they cannot manage billing themselves.
  
  
• Predictable billing: Prevent billable AI from exceeding an enforced spending limit.

Choose What Happens When an AI Usage Limit Is Reached

Limits are enforced on monthly usage. When a limit is reached, what happens next depends on the setting you choose.

Wherever you set an AI Usage Limit, either through agency defaults or on an individual sub-account, you can configure When the limit is reached.

Important: Every sub-account uses Keep AI running, just notify by default unless you change the setting. If a limit is configured and usage continues past it, that behavior is expected. Select Block AI at the limit when the limit must be enforced.

A sub-account's own configuration overrides the agency default, including the selected behavior when the limit is reached.

Keep AI running, just notify

This is the default option.

AI usage continues after the configured limit is reached, and an alert is sent. The limit acts as a soft threshold that helps you identify when usage needs attention without interrupting client activity.

Block AI at the limit

AI stops when the configured limit is reached. Usage resumes when the limit is increased or when usage resets at the beginning of the next calendar month.

A single setting does not have to apply to every client. You can configure an agency default for most sub-accounts and customize individual sub-accounts when needed.

Note: The two options remain unavailable until a limit is enabled. Without an active limit, there is no threshold for these options to control.

How AI Usage Limits Work Across Your Account

AI Usage Limits follow a hierarchy that lets agencies establish defaults while still giving individual sub-accounts and users more specific controls. Understanding this hierarchy helps prevent unexpected behavior when multiple limits apply at the same time.

1. Agency-Level Default (Top Level)

Agency-level settings establish the default monthly limit per sub-account and per user.

They also define the default behavior when a limit is reached:

• Keep AI running and notify
  
  
• Block AI at the limit
  
  
• These defaults apply automatically to sub-accounts that do not have custom settings.

If you later change the agency default, sub-accounts still using company defaults follow the updated configuration.

Pay-Per-Use and individual AI Employee plans are configured separately because usage limits behave differently depending on the billing model.

Note: By default, no spending limit is configured. Sub-accounts and users remain unlimited until a limit is enabled and an amount is entered.

For AI Employee plans, extra usage begins at $0. Extra usage must therefore be enabled and assigned an amount before billable usage beyond the included allowance can be used.

2. Sub-Account-Level Limits

Each sub-account can have its own monthly AI spending limit.

You can:

• Override the agency default
• Set a custom monthly limit for the sub-account
• Select alert-only or blocking behavior specifically for that sub-account
• View current usage against the configured limit

Key details:

• Limits reset at the start of each calendar month.
• Progress bars show the percentage of the limit consumed.
• Changing any value moves the sub-account to custom settings.
• Select Reset to company defaults to return the sub-account to agency defaults.
• The maximum configurable sub-account limit is $1,000 per month.

3. User-Level Limits

User-level limits let you control billable AI consumption for individual users inside a sub-account. These limits provide an additional layer of control when individual team members should have different AI budgets.

Note: When both a sub-account limit and a user limit apply, the limit with the least remaining allowance takes effect first.

For example, if a user has $2 remaining on a $20 user limit while the sub-account still has $50 remaining on a $100 limit, the user's limit is reached first.

You can:

• Set a default user budget for the sub-account
  
  
• Configure a maximum user limit of $500 per month
  
  
  
  
• Override the default for specific users and set Unlimited user budget as well.
  
  

Pay-Per-Use and AI Employee Plan Behavior

Note: For current plan coverage and AI pricing details, see AI Product Pricing.

If AI stops unexpectedly on a subscription plan, check the Extra usage setting first.

What Happens When an AI Usage Limit Is Reached

The experience after reaching a limit depends on whether the sub-account is configured to continue AI usage or block additional AI activity. Knowing the difference is especially important before enforcing limits for customer-facing workflows.

With Keep AI running, just notify

When the limit is reached:

• AI actions continue normally.
• Usage warnings appear as the limit approaches and after it is exceeded.
• Threshold alerts are sent so you can decide whether the limit should be increased.

With Block AI at the limit

When the configured limit is reached:

• AI actions are paused.
• Users cannot generate new AI outputs.
• The sub-account sees a message titled "[Product] is paused — limit reached".

The options available from that message depend on how the sub-account's billing permissions are configured.

What the sub-account is offered depends on how you have set them up:

AI resumes as soon as the limit is raised or automatically when usage resets at the start of the next calendar month.

Important: If you plan to switch a client to Block AI at the limit, consider notifying them before making the change because this setting can directly interrupt their AI usage.

How Billing Works When an AI Usage Limit Is Reached

Requesting More AI Usage

Sub-Accounts That Cannot Manage Their Own Billing

When a sub-account reaches its limit and cannot self-serve, it can ask you for more.

How it works:

1. The user clicks Request more usage
2. The request is sent to agency admins
3. Admins are notified by email and in the Requests tab in Usage Limits

The sub-account sees the state of their request while they wait:

Note: A declined request starts a short cooldown during which the request button is hidden, so a sub-account cannot re-request immediately. It is a pause, not a permanent block — they can ask again later.

Sub-Accounts That Can Manage Their Own Billing

If a sub-account is allowed to manage its own billing, the request does not go to the agency.

Instead, the sub-account can use the paused message to:

• Increase its own limit
• Enable extra usage
• Upgrade its plan when an upgrade is available

How to Manage AI Usage Increase Requests

1. Go to AI Suite → Plans and Limits.
   
   
2. Click on the Notifications icon.
   
   
   
   
3. Under the Limit Requests tab, review the pending request.
   
   
4. Choose an action: Adjust Limit (approve), Upgrade Plan, or Deny.
   
   
   
   

If you select Adjust Limit,

1. Review the requested limit increase and you can also edit the amount as needed.
   
   
2. Review the newly calculated total limit.
   
   
3. Confirm the approval.
   
   

Threshold Alerts

Threshold Alerts provide early visibility into AI consumption before a configured limit is reached. These alerts help agencies monitor accounts proactively and decide whether usage limits should be adjusted before an interruption occurs.

Important: Threshold alerts require an active limit. If no limit is configured, or the limit is $0, there is no percentage to calculate and threshold alerts are not sent.

Alerts are triggered at:

• 70%
• 80%
• 90%
• 100%

Threshold alerts can highlight users and sub-accounts approaching their configured limits.

Alerts are sent regardless of whether the account uses:

• Keep AI running, just notify
• Block AI at the limit

With Keep AI running, just notify, threshold alerts are the primary signal that usage has approached or passed the configured limit.

Monitoring Usage

You can track usage directly from the Usage Limits page.

Includes:

• Monthly usage per sub-account
• Usage vs limit visualization
• User-level consumption

Rate Limit Window for Ask AI and AI Studio

Note: For more details, explore our guides on AI Studio – Pricing and Ask AI Session Examples & Usage Costs. 

How does the 5 hour window work?

Where can you See the Used Allowances?

AI Suite  (Agency view) > Plans & Limits > Click any sub account or three dots and then Configure Limits > Increase> Check Included allowances & Rate Limit Windows. 

Important Notes

• Limits apply on a monthly basis and reset at the start of each calendar month
  
  
• What happens at the limit depends on your When the limit is reached setting; the default is to keep AI running and send an alert
  
  
• A sub-account is never billed past its limit
  
  
• On subscription plans, the Extra usage toggle can stop AI independently of any spending limit
  
  
• Limit changes take effect immediately; the usage figures shown can lag by up to 5 minutes
  
  
• Maximum configurable limits: $1,000/month per sub-account, $500/month per user

Related Articles

• AI Product Pricing
  
  
• AI Usage Dashboard
  
  
• Fixed-Rate Rebilling for AI Products
  
  
• AI Tools in HighLevel