---
title: "Budget Control"
description: "How to cap AI cost and usage before it surprises finance with Norcaster budget gates, usage limits, and runtime controls."
canonical: https://www.norcaster.com/docs/budget-control
---
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Cost and usage control

# Budget control

Norcaster budget controls cap cost and usage at the platform boundary, before unexpected traffic, retries, slow tools, or agent loops surprise finance.

## Request rate

Caps how many requests can run per minute for a user or deployment before usage spikes.

## Compute ceiling

Limits how long a request can consume runtime resources before it is blocked or stopped.

## Retry amplification

Prevents retries from multiplying cost after provider failures, tool failures, or timeouts.

## Route-level design

Uses cheaper deployments, routers, approvals, and agent iteration limits before expensive branches run.

## Setup path

1. Identify the expensive path: chat model, RAG query, native agent, tool call, or workflow branch.
2. Choose the enforcement boundary: deployment config for direct model calls, or workflow policy nodes before expensive steps.
3. Set a request-rate ceiling for expected traffic plus a small buffer.
4. Set compute and retry ceilings based on your slowest acceptable production request.
5. Use the cost-sensitive enforcement pack as a starting point when you want standard defaults.
6. Test valid traffic and overload traffic, then inspect observability for budget outcomes and cost estimates.

## Examples

### Basic deployment budget

Cap direct provider-backed model calls before unexpected traffic reaches the model.

```
{
  "pipeline_lock": {
    "contract_version": "1.0",
    "mode": "enforce",
    "schema": {
      "strict": true,
      "input_schema": {
        "type": "object",
        "required": ["prompt"],
        "properties": { "prompt": { "type": "string" } },
        "additionalProperties": false
      }
    },
    "policies": {
      "actions": { "on_violation": "block", "emit_event": true },
      "budget": {
        "request_rate_per_minute": 60,
        "max_compute_per_request_seconds": 120,
        "retry_cost_multiplier_ceiling": 2.0
      }
    }
  }
}
```

### Cost-sensitive pack

Use the preset when you want rate, compute, and retry ceilings without hand-writing the full policy.

```
curl -X POST https://api.norcaster.com/deployments/DEPLOYMENT_ID/apply-pack \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"pack_id": "cost-sensitive"}'
```

### Agent budget pattern

Keep native tool-calling agents bounded so a tool loop cannot surprise finance.

```
{
  "agent": {
    "deployment_id": "dep_reasoning_model",
    "prompt_field": "question",
    "max_iterations": 4,
    "tools": [
      {
        "name": "lookup_account",
        "description": "Fetch account context",
        "input_schema": {
          "type": "object",
          "properties": { "account_id": { "type": "string" } },
          "required": ["account_id"]
        },
        "function": {
          "execution_type": "http",
          "method": "POST",
          "endpoint": "https://crm.internal/account",
          "timeout_ms": 5000
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

### Workflow cost pattern

Route cheap classification before expensive retrieval, tools, or stronger models.

```
input
  -> policy_check
  -> router / condition
  -> cheap classifier model
  -> retrieval or tool_call only when needed
  -> final model
  -> output
```

## Finance and platform questions

### Is this billing?

No. Budget gates are runtime controls. They reduce runaway usage, while invoices still come from Norcaster plan terms and the providers you connect.

### Can it stop provider spend?

It can stop requests before provider inference when configured at the Norcaster boundary. Provider-side usage is still governed by your provider account.

### Can I prove what was blocked?

Yes. Observability and enforcement events show budget decisions, run status, trace IDs, and cost estimates where available.

### Does this apply to agents?

Yes. Combine deployment budget policies with agent max\_iterations, function timeouts, retry limits, and approval gates.

## What to verify

- Over-limit traffic blocks or downgrades according to policy before provider inference.
- Retry amplification is capped during provider, retrieval, or tool failures.
- Agent loops stop at max\_iterations and function timeouts are set for external calls.
- Observability shows budget outcomes, run status, latency, and cost estimates.
- Finance understands that budget gates are controls, not a replacement for provider billing limits.