Budget Controls & Auto-Shutdown
Set spending limits, alerts, and automatic instance shutdown
Budget Controls & Auto-Shutdown
Set spending limits, receive alerts, and automatically stop instances to prevent unexpected charges.
Overview
Budget controls help you manage your GPU spending by setting limits and receiving notifications before exceeding your budget. You can also enable automatic instance shutdown to prevent overspending.
Setting Up Budget Limits
Navigate to Settings in your dashboard and find the Budget Controls section.
Spending Limits
You can set two types of limits:
| Limit Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Monthly Limit | Maximum spend per calendar month (resets on the 1st) |
| Daily Limit | Maximum spend per day (resets at midnight UTC) |
Leave a field empty to disable that limit. You can use monthly limits alone, daily limits alone, or both together.
Example Configuration
Monthly Limit: $500
Daily Limit: $50
This ensures:
- You never spend more than $500/month
- No single day exceeds $50 (prevents runaway jobs)Email Alerts
Receive email notifications when approaching your budget limits. You can enable alerts at three thresholds:
- 50% Alert - Early warning to review your usage
- 80% Alert - Approaching limit, consider reducing usage
- 100% Alert - Budget limit reached
Alerts are sent once per threshold per billing period. For daily limits, alerts reset each day. For monthly limits, you'll receive at most three alerts per month (one at each threshold).
Alert Email Example
When you reach 80% of your monthly budget, you'll receive an email like:
Subject: Monthly Budget Warning: 80% Used
You've used $400 of your $500 monthly budget (80%). Consider reviewing your active instances to stay within your limit.
Auto-Shutdown
Enable auto-shutdown to automatically stop all running GPU instances when you reach a specified percentage of your budget limit.
How It Works
- Enable the Auto-Shutdown toggle in Budget Controls
- Select your shutdown threshold (50%, 75%, 80%, 90%, or 100%)
- When your spending reaches this threshold, all running instances are stopped
- You'll receive an email notification with the list of stopped instances
Important Notes
- Stopped instances can be restarted - Your instances are stopped, not terminated. You can manually restart them after increasing your budget or waiting for the next billing period.
- Save your work - Any unsaved work in memory will be lost when instances are stopped. Use persistent storage for important data.
- Daily vs Monthly - Auto-shutdown triggers on whichever limit is reached first. If you have both limits, the more restrictive one applies.
Recommended Settings
| Use Case | Monthly Limit | Daily Limit | Auto-Shutdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Projects | $100 | $20 | 90% |
| ML Training | $500 | $100 | 100% |
| Development Team | $2,000 | None | 80% |
| Production Workloads | Set high | None | Disabled |
API Access
Budget settings can also be managed via the API for automated configuration.
Get Budget Settings
GET /api/account/budget
Authorization: Bearer <token>
Response:
{
"monthlyLimitCents": 50000,
"dailyLimitCents": 5000,
"alertAt50Percent": true,
"alertAt80Percent": true,
"alertAt100Percent": true,
"autoShutdownEnabled": true,
"autoShutdownThreshold": 90
}Update Budget Settings
PUT /api/account/budget
Authorization: Bearer <token>
Content-Type: application/json
{
"monthlyLimitCents": 50000,
"dailyLimitCents": 5000,
"alertAt50Percent": true,
"alertAt80Percent": true,
"alertAt100Percent": true,
"autoShutdownEnabled": true,
"autoShutdownThreshold": 90
}Best Practices
- Start with conservative limits - Begin with lower limits and increase as you understand your usage patterns.
- Use daily limits for development - Daily limits prevent accidentally leaving instances running overnight.
- Enable all alerts - The 50% alert gives you early warning to plan your remaining budget.
- Set auto-shutdown below 100% - Setting auto-shutdown at 90% gives you a buffer to save work before hitting your limit.
- Use persistent storage - Always save important data to persistent storage so it survives auto-shutdown.
Troubleshooting
Not receiving alert emails?
- Check your spam folder
- Verify your email address in Profile settings
- Alerts are sent once per threshold - you won't receive duplicates
Instances stopped unexpectedly?
- Check if auto-shutdown is enabled
- Review your budget alerts email for details
- Increase your budget limit or disable auto-shutdown to restart
Budget not resetting?
- Monthly limits reset on the 1st of each month (UTC)
- Daily limits reset at midnight UTC
- The dashboard shows your current spending since the last reset
Need Help?
Contact us at support@packet.ai for assistance with budget configuration or billing questions.