Budgets#

Look up the rules for budgets, spend limits, cost calculation and billing statements. For the ideas behind them, see Budget and cost concepts. For tasks, see Set a space budget and Split a Team budget between members.

All amounts are in euros (EUR).

Budget hierarchy#

Budgets are set on spaces and cascade down the space tree.

Rule	Detail
The root space has no budget	The root space has no budget field. Setting one, even `0`, is refused. The Organization tab shows the total handed out to its direct children
Effective ceiling	The lowest of the space's own budget and every budget above it. If none is set anywhere in the chain, there is no limit
No unlimited space under a budgeted parent	A child of a space with a budget must have a budget too
Children add up	For each space with a budget, the budgets of its children together cannot exceed it
Tighten only	A budget cannot exceed the ceiling cascaded from the spaces above
Subtree floor	A space's budget cannot be lower than the sum of the budgets of all spaces below it
Team with Fixed allocations	A Team's budget cannot be lower than the sum of its fixed member amounts
Values	On any space below the root, a budget of `0` is valid and freezes spending. Negative values are rejected. An empty budget is not `0`. It means no limit, and applies only where no space above has a budget. Daily and monthly spending limits differ: they must be above zero or empty
Slack	A space's own budget minus the sum of its children's budgets. Informational
Moving a space	Only an Admin can move a space. The moved space and all spaces below it lose their budgets. A Team's member allocation returns to Pool
Deleting a space	Its member allocations are removed with it

What each space type allows#

Space type	Budget settings
Organisation (root)	None
Division or Unit	A monthly budget
Team	A monthly budget, daily and monthly spending limits, and member allocations

Member allocation in a Team#

Mode	A member's limit	Constraint
Pool (default)	The whole Team budget, shared by everyone	No individual allocations
Fixed	The euro amount set for the member	Amounts together cannot exceed the Team budget
Proportion	The member's percentage of the Team budget	Percentages together must equal 100

A member with no allocation under Fixed or Proportion has a limit of €0 and is blocked.

Event	Result
Proportion: member removed	The remaining shares are scaled up so they still total 100
Proportion: member added	The new member starts at 0% and is blocked until you redistribute
Fixed: member removed	Others keep their amounts. The freed amount becomes unallocated.
Fixed: member added	The new member starts at €0 and is blocked until you allocate

The page warns you when members are unallocated.

Budget status#

The web app reports a member's position in a space with these fields.

Field	Meaning
Effective limit	The limit that applies to the member. Empty means unlimited
Current spend	Spend in the current month
Remaining	Effective limit minus spend, never below 0
Near limit	Spend is 80% or more of a non-zero limit
At limit	Spend equals the limit
Over limit	Spend is above the limit
Limiting space	Shown when a space above yours, not your own space, is the tightest limit

The period is the organisation's current calendar month in its business time zone.
Spend counts personal-key requests for every outcome (success, cancelled and error) that has a cost. Project traffic is excluded.
A space above you counts the spend of everything below it.
Members see only their own position.

Utilisation bar#

Managers see a "Budget utilisation" bar per member.

Display	Condition
Green	Below 80%
Amber	80% or more
Red	100% or more
"—"	Unlimited
"No allocation"	Blocked (limit €0)

For a personal API key, the key's details show your budget for the key's space. The figure is per person and space, not per key. A key is in one of these states: normal, near limit (amber), over limit (red), blocked (no allocation), unlimited or unbound (no space, no bar).

What happens when a limit is reached#

ATLAS checks budgets before it sends a request to a provider. A request is refused with 429 budget_exceeded (402 with billing_error on Anthropic addresses). See Errors.

Keys that act under a space#

Four checks run in order. The first used-up check refuses the request.

Order	Check	Refuses when
1	Spaces above	A budgeted space above yours has used its monthly budget, counting everything below it
2	Your member share	Skipped if the space has no budget. Refuses when your share is €0 or your month's spend has reached it
3	Daily spending limit	Today's spend in the space has reached the daily limit
4	Monthly spending limit	This month's spend in the space has reached the monthly limit

A request is refused once spend reaches a limit, not only when it goes over. The business time zone defines day and month.

Keys that act under a project#

ATLAS checks project keys, and personal keys acting under a project, against the project's funding only. They never count against space budgets, and project spend is not counted in any space.

Funding mode	Refuses when
Funded	Nothing is allocated (add funds), or lifetime spend has reached the total allocated
Tracked	A monthly limit is set and this month's spend has reached it. With no limit it is never refused

If ATLAS cannot read a project's budget position, it refuses the request with the usual budget error. The message says the position could not be determined and that this is an internal failure, not an exhausted budget.

Good to know#

Checks happen before the call. A running stream can overrun the limit, and ATLAS refuses the next request.
Every outcome that has a cost counts. For how failed and cancelled requests are costed, see Pricing and cost.
A model with no price set has no cost, so its usage is not counted towards any budget.

Pricing and cost#

ATLAS gives every request that reaches a provider a cost when it records the request.

Step	Rule
1. Provider cost	Model prices times tokens used. If a needed price or count is missing, the cost is empty
2. Currency	Converted to EUR at the rate in force (see Currency)
3. Margin and fee	Your contract can add a percentage margin and a flat fee per request. Both are zero without a contract
4. Billed cost	Provider cost plus margin

How tokens are priced:

Uncached input is input minus cache-read and cache-write tokens.
An unset cache price falls back to the input price. An explicit 0 is free.
Reasoning tokens are part of output and are billed at the output rate.
Audio models can have a separate audio price.
Some models are priced per second, per character or per request instead of per token. The available units are:

Capability	Units
Chat, embeddings, rerank	Token, request
Transcription	Token, second, request
Speech	Token, character, request

Requests that fail or are cancelled after reaching a provider are costed on input tokens. The count is estimated if the provider reported no usage, and as reported if it did.
Requests the provider rejected outright with no usage have no cost. Requests ATLAS refused before reaching a provider have no cost.
Batch, flex and priority tiers are not supported.

Not set versus zero#

State	Meaning	Shown as
Not set	No price. Not costed and not counted in budgets	"Not set", with a warning on model lists
`0`	Genuinely free. The flat fee, if any, still applies	A real €0.00

Cache and reasoning reporting#

Input is reported as uncached, cache-read and cache-write. Cache writes cost more than ordinary input and cache reads cost much less.
Reasoning is part of output and is reported separately.
Where a provider gave no breakdown, the page shows how many requests lacked one. It never shows 0 for missing data.
Organisations see billed cost and a single platform fee figure. Provider-side costs are not shown.

Currency#

Rule	Detail
Billing currency	Always EUR: costs, margins, billed cost, usage statistics, budgets and contract fees
Model currency	A model's prices can be in EUR, USD or GBP. Costs are converted to euros using daily reference rates
Rate unavailable	The request still succeeds, but its cost shows as unavailable and is not counted against budgets

Business time zone#

Each organisation has a business time zone, an IANA name such as Europe/Amsterdam (the default). It has these effects:

Effect
Budget periods, usage buckets, forecasts, project monthly spend and member usage start at midnight in this zone, including daylight saving
Budget enforcement uses the same zone

Admins and Owners change it on the General tab of the organisation details. For the steps, see Set the business time zone and download statements.

Billing statements#

Statement	Subject	When	Content
Monthly invoice	Organisation	Live preview while the month is open, frozen as a PDF at month close	AI usage through ATLAS, contract fees and a total
Your AI subscriptions	Organisation	At month close, only if you used your own providers	A cost estimate for your own providers. "For information only. This is not an invoice."
Contract	Contract revision	Once, when a revision takes effect	The contract as a PDF. Status Current, Superseded or Upcoming
Internal allocation	Organisation	At month close, only with usage	What each Unit used, for charging back internally
Unit cost report	Unit	At month close, only for Units with usage	A PDF for the Unit's managers

Monthly invoice#

Rule	Detail
First period	The later of the organisation's creation month (a partial month counts) and the month its first contract revision takes effect
AI usage lines	One line per model and AI service, sorted by amount. Deleted or renamed models and services keep the names they had when used and carry a red asterisk and footnote
Own providers	Usage of your own providers is not on the invoice
Contract fees	Platform fee, seats and licence. Total is AI usage plus contract fees
Licence and seats	Taken from the contract revision active at the start of the month. Seats are billed every month
Seats billed	The larger of the seat limit and the month's peak number of members, times the price per seat
Licence rhythm	Counts from the first billed month of an unbroken run with the same billing period. A change of period restarts it. A one-off fee is billed once
PDF titles	Organisation "Invoice <Month YYYY>", project "Project cost report", Unit "Unit cost report"

Internal allocation#

Shows what each Unit used (the Unit and its Teams, without projects), plus "Not allocated" and "Projects" lines.
It is informational and has no licence or seat fees.
Usage in a Division, in the root space, or with no space or project is "Not allocated".
Units, Projects and Not allocated together equal the cost shown in Explore.
Closed months stay frozen, including for spaces deleted later.

Who can see statements#

Where	Who
Organisation Statistics > Billing	Admins, Owners and Account Managers
A Unit space's Cost reports tab	Managers of that Unit
A project's statements	Admins, Owners, Account Managers and the project's managers

In the web app#

Surface	What you see
Space Budget tab	The layout depends on the space type. See Budget tab by space type
Spaces tree	"€500 / mo" or "No budget" per space, with "Set budget" or "Set allocation" (not on the root)
Members tab	Managers see a "Budget utilisation" column
Personal API keys	Your budget in the key's detail panel
Model lists	Price columns with a native or EUR toggle
Billing	Statements, contract, internal allocation and deleted projects

Budget tab by space type#

Space type	Shown
Organisation root	"Organisation Budget": the total budgeted and a table of direct children. Admins edit children inline
Division or Unit	Own monthly budget, a status bar and a "Child Space Allocation" table with children sum, slack and own budget. The space's manager edits the child cells
Team	Own monthly budget, "Spending Limits" (daily and monthly) and "Member Allocations" (Pool, Fixed or Proportion, per-member values and a warning for unallocated members)

Who edits what#

Space type	Own budget	Children's budgets	Member allocations	Spending limits
Organisation root	n/a	Admin	n/a	n/a
Division or Unit	Parent manager or Admin	The space's manager	n/a	n/a
Team	Parent manager or Admin	n/a	The Team's manager	The Team's manager

Root and direct-child spaces use "Budget" wording.
Spaces two or more levels below the root use "Allocation" wording ("Monthly Allocation", "Set allocation", "No allocation").
Where a parent's cap is tighter than the space's own value, the page shows "Enforced limit … capped by a parent space".

Live feedback while editing#

Message	When
"Value exceeds the €X parent cap."	The value is above the effective ceiling
"Capped at €X by a parent budget/allocation."	A parent ceiling is tighter than the space's own value
"€X of €Y remaining" or "Exceeds €X available."	Headroom left in the parent after its other children

Saving is blocked while one of these errors applies. The messages are hidden for the root space or an unbudgeted parent.

Model list prices#

Model lists show Input / 1M and Output / 1M prices. The suffix follows the billing unit (per minute, per 1K characters, per 1K requests).

Native shows the model's own currency. EUR shows the converted value with the tooltip "Converted from {currency} at the rate effective {date}".
A model with no rate in force shows the native price with a warning.
A model with no price shows "Price not set — usage of this model is not costed and does not count towards budgets."
Cache prices are optional: "Not set — billed at the input rate."
Filters: Status, Source (Platform or Organisation) and Pricing (Priced or Price not set). Unpriced rows sort last.