Budgets

Budgets let organization administrators track AI model spend by agent and by department against monthly amounts they set. Set a warning amount in US dollars to email every organization administrator, or a block amount to refuse further model requests that count toward the budget.

Warning amounts leave requests running. Alert emails and block amounts require budget enforcement to be enabled for your organization. Without enforcement, a reached warning amount is recorded in the audit log but no email is sent.

How Budgets Work

Budget type	What it tracks
Agent budgets	The spend of one agent your organization owns.
Department budgets	The combined spend of the members of one department.

Each budget can have either or both amounts, compared with its spend for the month:

Amount	When spend reaches it
Warning at	Kindo emails every organization administrator. Runs continue as usual.
Block at	Kindo refuses new model requests that count toward the budget and emails every organization administrator.

When both amounts are set, Warning at must be below Block at. You can set a block amount without a warning amount.

Spend Checks

Kindo checks spend about every 2 minutes, rather than after each model request. Warnings and blocks usually take a few minutes to take effect. Requests already in progress are not cancelled, and requests can add spend between checks, so spend can exceed the block amount. A block amount is not a guaranteed cap: delayed spend records or unavailable budget checks can allow further requests.

If you save an amount that spend has already reached, it takes effect after a spend check. Emails follow the same monthly alert rule.

Defaults and Own Amounts

Each budget type has its own defaults. The agent defaults apply separately to each agent without its own budget; department defaults apply separately to each department without its own budget. They do not set a shared organization-wide spend cap.

Setting	Meaning
Default warning at, Default block at	Amounts for every row of that type without its own budget. Neither is set until you enter one.
Own amounts	A row’s budget replaces both defaults and can be higher or lower. Editing one field keeps the other amount as it was, including copying the current default when first creating an override. Later default changes do not change that row.
No limit	No amount for that field, even if a default is set. A row with neither amount has no warning or block.

Monthly Window

Spend accumulates over the calendar month and resets on the 1st of each month (UTC). Warning and block amounts apply to each month separately, so a budget that alerted last month can alert again this month.

One Alert per Amount

A budget alerts once for each warning amount and once for each block amount each month. If you change the amount, higher or lower, the budget can alert again when spend reaches the new amount. Setting it back to an amount it already alerted at this month does not send another alert. Neither does switching between the budget’s own amount and a default of the same amount.

What Counts as Spend

Spend is the cost of AI model usage, in US dollars. It is measured separately from your organization’s Kindo credit balance.

Spend counts usage of Kindo-provided models and of self-managed models. An administrator enters an input and output price when adding a self-managed chat model or another provider for one. Each provider has its own price, $0 counts as a price, and its usage counts at that price. Self-managed model usage never deducts Kindo credits.

A chat provider added without a price counts as $0 until an administrator sets one by editing the provider. An unpriced chat provider shows No price set in Settings → Models, and Kindo refuses to turn it on until it has a price; an unpriced chat provider that is already on keeps running. System One providers take no price and aren’t affected. A price change applies to requests from then on; spend already recorded is not recalculated.

Agent Spend

An agent’s spend includes the model requests it makes while it runs and in conversations with the agent. Background requests made on an agent’s behalf do not count, such as generating its title and description, helping build it in the agent builder, or checking whether a trigger should run it.

Department Spend

A department’s spend includes its members’ model requests: chats, agent runs, API requests, and background requests such as generating titles or helping build agents in the agent builder. Unlike agent spend, it is not limited to an agent’s own requests. Checking whether a trigger should run an agent does not count.

• Requests count toward the department of the member they run as. An agent run started by a schedule, a webhook, or an event from a connected integration runs as the agent’s creator, so it counts toward the creator’s department.
• Each request counts toward the member’s department at the time its spend is recorded. Moving a member to another department applies going forward; spend already recorded stays with the department it was recorded under.
• Spend by members in the Unassigned department counts toward the Unassigned department budget.
• Spend that counts toward an agent’s budget also counts toward the department budget of the member the agent runs as.

The Budgeting Tab

1. In Kindo, select Command Center.

2. Select the Budgeting tab.

3. Select Agents or Departments above the panel.

The Budgeting tab is visible only to organization administrators. Other users do not see budgets or spend amounts.

The tab has a panel for each budget type. Every panel has a Default warning at field. With enforcement enabled, it also has Default block at and a Block at column:

Column	What it shows
Spend	Spend this month, over a graph of spend against the row’s amounts. With a block amount, the graph runs to it and ends in a red wall with a hatched zone past it, where requests are blocked. Without one, it runs to the warning amount and fades out past a dashed line, since spend past a warning is only flagged. The same dashed line marks the warning amount on a graph that runs to a block amount. Beside the figure, the row shows how much is left before the amount the graph runs to, for example $1,760 to block or $478 to warn, or how far spend is past a warning amount with no block amount, for example $22 over warn. Once spend reaches the block amount, it shows the day spend resets instead, for example Resets Oct 1. The figure and graph change color once spend reaches the warning amount, and turn red once it reaches the block amount. Amounts of $10,000 or more are abbreviated, for example $88K. Hover over or focus the graph to see the spend and the amounts in whole dollars, spend as a percentage of the amount, and whether the row uses the default amounts. With no amount set, the row shows No limit and no graph. With a $0 block amount and no spend recorded yet this month, it shows Block $0. Spend is recalculated about every 2 minutes; Calculating spend appears until the first calculation finishes.
Warning at, Block at	The row’s amounts, which you can edit in place. A row using the default shows the default with (Default), for example $1,000 (Default), or No limit (Default) when no default is set.

Use the tabs above the table to narrow the list. A row using the defaults appears under All agents or All departments and Org default, whatever the default amounts are. Every other tab shows only rows with their own amounts. Setting an amount on a row, even one equal to the default, moves it off Org default; resetting it to the defaults moves it back.

With enforcement enabled:

Tab	Rows shown
All agents or All departments	Every row.
Org default	Rows using the defaults.
Warning only	Rows with their own warning amount and no block amount.
Block	Rows with their own block amount, with or without a warning amount.
No limit	Rows set to no limit for both amounts.

Without enforcement:

Tab	Rows shown
All agents or All departments	Every row.
Org default	Rows using the defaults.
Custom warning	Rows with their own warning amount.
No limit	Rows set to no warning amount, including rows with only a block amount.

Search by name, and sort by name, spend, or warning amount. With enforcement enabled, you can also sort by block amount. The list is sorted by spend, highest first, when you open it.

Set Default Amounts

1. In Default warning at or Default block at, enter an amount in US dollars.

2. Press Enter or select outside the field.

3. Review the confirmation and select Save.

Every row without its own budget then uses the default. Rows whose spend has already reached it can warn or block after a spend check (see Spend Checks).

Select the X in a default field to remove only that amount. The other default amount stays as it was, even when enforcement is disabled. Clearing the last amount removes the default.

Set Agent or Department Amounts

Enter an amount in a row’s Warning at or Block at field, then press Enter or select outside the field. The amount saves as soon as you leave the field.

If spend this month has already reached that amount, Kindo shows Spend already reaches this amount before saving. Select Set anyway to save it. The warning or block takes effect after a spend check (see Spend Checks).

To set No limit, select the X in a row’s field or clear the field. This removes only that amount, even when enforcement is disabled or a default is set. The other amount stays as it was. Clear both amounts to exempt the row from both defaults.

To restore both defaults, use Reset to default as described in Update Several Rows at Once.

Update Several Rows at Once

1. Select the checkboxes next to the rows you want to change, or select the checkbox in the header to select every row in the list. In the agents panel, the header checkbox is available once the whole list has loaded (scroll to the end).

2. In the bar above the table, choose one:

   • Enter an amount in Warning at, Block at, or both, and select Update. A blank bulk field leaves that amount unchanged for each selected row. If any selected row has already reached the new amount, Kindo asks for confirmation first: select Set anyway to save, or cancel to leave the rows, the selection, and the amount as they were.
   • Select Set no limit to clear both amounts for every selected row, even when defaults are set.
   • Select Reset to default to remove the rows’ own warning and block amounts so they follow the defaults, including future default changes. If a selected row has already reached a changed default amount, Kindo asks for confirmation: select Reset anyway to continue. Without enforcement, only the warning amount is checked for this confirmation.

A change applies only to the selected rows the table shows. Once it is saved, those rows are unchecked. Selected rows hidden by a tab, search, or filter are not changed and stay selected. To clear the selection without making a change, select Clear in the bar.

You can change up to 1,000 rows at once; with more selected, Update, Set no limit, and Reset to default are disabled. A change applies to every selected row or to none of them: if a selected agent was deleted, or a selected department archived, after the list loaded, nothing changes, Kindo shows an error, the selection stays, and the list refreshes without it.

Agent Budgets

The Budgeting For Agents panel lists every agent your organization owns. Along with Spend, Warning at, and (when enabled) Block at, it shows:

Column	What it shows
Agent name	The agent. Select the name to open the agent in the agent builder, or hover over the info icon to read its description.
Creator	The user who created the agent: You for your own agents, otherwise their name, or their email address if they have no name. Hover over it to see the email address. Filter the list with Creator.

Agents shared with your organization from another organization do not appear in the panel.

Department Budgets

The Budgeting For Departments panel lists every department in your organization that is not archived, including Unassigned. Along with Spend, Warning at, and (when enabled) Block at, it shows:

Column	What it shows
Department	The department’s name.
Headcount	The number of members in the department.

Archived departments are not checked against warning or block amounts, and archiving a department removes its own budget. Restoring it does not bring its own amounts back; it uses the department defaults. To create departments and assign members, see Departments.

When a Budget Blocks a Request

An agent block applies to model requests that count toward that agent’s spend. A department block applies to requests that count toward the runner’s department, including ordinary chats and agent runs (see What Counts as Spend). If either budget blocks the request, it cannot proceed. When both are reached, Kindo reports the agent budget first. If your organization has insufficient Kindo credits too, the credit error takes precedence.

In a chat or agent run, the refusal ends the current turn instead of retrying. You see Agent Budget Reached or Department Budget Reached, with a message identifying the reached budget, its reset date in UTC, and the instruction to contact your org admin to raise it. A request already running can finish; a later model request in the same run can be refused.

In Recent Runs, an agent run that fails because of a budget shows Failed: budget reached. Open the run details to read the budget error and reset date.

For API response formats, see Chat Completions errors, Responses errors, Messages errors, and Agents API errors.

Resume After a Block

Ask an organization administrator to raise Block at above the current monthly spend or remove that block amount in Command Center > Budgeting. If both agent and department budgets are reached, both need to allow the request. Raising only Warning at does not lift a block.

Changes usually lift a block within a few minutes. Blocks also lift when the calendar month resets on the 1st (UTC). Once the block lifts, send the message again or start the agent run again; the ended turn does not resume automatically.

Alert Emails

When spend for the month reaches a budget’s warning or block amount, Kindo emails every administrator in your organization. Each administrator receives a separate email, usually within a few minutes of the spend being recorded, because spend is checked about every 2 minutes (see Spend Checks).

The subject is Kindo spend limit warning: for warnings or Kindo spend limit reached: for blocks, followed by the budget’s name. The block email explains that requests are blocked until the window ends or an administrator raises or removes the block amount. Both emails contain:

• Spend limit: the name of the agent or department that reached its amount.
• Agent created by: on agent alerts, the name and email address of the agent’s creator.
• Warning threshold or Block amount: the amount reached.
• Spend to date: the spend this month when it reached the amount.
• Current window ends: the last day of the month, after which spend resets.

Emails follow the monthly alert rule. Alert emails are sent only when enforcement is enabled for your organization, and cannot be turned off per administrator.

Audit Log

Budget activity appears in the audit log:

Event	Recorded when
Spend Limit Created, Spend Limit Updated, Spend Limit Deleted	An administrator sets, changes, or removes a warning or block amount, including a default, or archives a department that has its own budget.
Spend Limit Alert Triggered	Spend reaches a warning or block amount.
Spend Limit Alert Email Sent	An alert email is sent to an administrator, one event per recipient.
Model Deployment Updated	An administrator changes a self-managed model provider’s settings, turns it on or off, or reorders it. The event lists the changed fields, and its raw data holds their new values and, where Kindo could read them, their old values. An endpoint is recorded by its scheme, host, and port only, never its path or query. An API key is listed by name whenever an update submits one, whether or not it differs, and its value is never recorded.

A self-managed model price change is recorded as Model Deployment Updated, with the new value of each price that changed and, where Kindo could read it, the old value, shown per 1M tokens in the event summary. When an administrator sets a price on a provider that had none, including $0, the event also lists Price set.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
The Budgeting tab does not appear	Budgets are available to Enterprise organizations, and the tab is visible only to organization administrators.
An agent is missing from the list	The list shows agents your organization owns. Agents shared with your organization from another organization do not appear.
A department is missing from the list	Archived departments do not appear. Restore the department in Departments and set its budget again.
Block at does not appear	Budget enforcement is turned off for your organization. On a Kindo-hosted deployment, contact your Kindo account team.
A request is blocked	See Resume After a Block.
No alert email arrived	Check that enforcement is enabled for your organization; without it, no alert email is sent. Check that Spend has reached the warning or block amount; spend is recalculated about every 2 minutes (see Spend Checks). Check your spam folder, and look for Spend Limit Alert Triggered in the audit log. Check the monthly alert rule.
An alert arrived soon after setting an amount	Spend had already reached that amount this month, including when a row was returned to a default it had already reached.
An agent’s spend is lower than expected	Only the agent’s own model requests count, and a self-managed provider without a price counts as $0. See Agent Spend and What Counts as Spend.
A department’s spend is lower than expected	See Department Spend for which requests count and when a member’s spend counts toward a department.

Next Steps

• Create and manage agents
• Group members into departments
• Review governance and controls
• Review the audit log in Security Controls