Budget and alerts

A runaway bulk job or a misconfigured schedule shouldn't be able to run up a surprise bill. Billing → Budget is the safety net — as the page puts it: "Set a monthly spending cap and get email alerts as you approach it. AWS-style — pick the thresholds you want to be notified at."

Hard cap

The maximum your organization may accrue in a billing period. The form states the contract exactly: "When accrued spend this period reaches this amount, paid features are paused until next period or until you raise the cap. Leave empty to disable the hard cap."

Practical notes:

• The cap evaluates against accrued usage, continuously — not against the invoice at month-end.
• Paused means paid operations stop; your data and read access are untouched. Raising (or clearing) the cap lifts the pause; otherwise it lifts itself when the new period starts.
• A cap is a ceiling, not a purchase — you're always billed for actual usage only.

Soft cap

A warning-only threshold: "If you don't want a hard cap but still want budget alerts, set this. Service is never paused based on the soft cap." Typical setup: soft cap at your expected monthly spend, hard cap well above it as the emergency brake.

Alert thresholds

Pick the percentages — 25% / 50% / 75% / 80% / 90% / 100% (default: 50, 80, 100) — and Norcube emails you as accrued spend crosses each: "Email me at these percentages of the active cap. You'll get one email per threshold per month."

Percentages are relative to the active cap — the hard cap if set, otherwise the soft cap. Alerts go to the org's invoicing email (Billing preferences).

New organizations

No caps are set by default — an org can spend freely until someone configures a budget. If predictability matters, make the budget page part of org setup.

Budget pause vs. dunning block

Both stop paid features, but they're different machines:

Related

• Billing overview — watching accrual and projections.
• Dunning — the other way paid features pause.