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Inferoute lets you set hard usage limits on any API key so you can control costs before they grow. Limits are enforced at the key level, which means you can give each team, application, or feature its own budget without affecting the rest of your account.

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Types of usage limits

When a key reaches its monthly limit, subsequent requests return 402 Payment Required. If the limit is a rate-style cap rather than a spend cap, you may see 429 instead, with an error message that identifies the specific limit that was reached.

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Setting a usage limit

1

Open API Keys settings

In the Inferoute dashboard, navigate to Settings → API Keys.
2

Edit the key

Find the key you want to limit and click Edit.
3

Open Usage Limits

In the key editor, select the Usage Limits tab.
4

Enter your limits

Set one or more of the following values:
  • Monthly token limit — enter the maximum number of tokens allowed per month.
  • Monthly spend limit — enter the maximum USD amount allowed per month.
  • Per-request token limit — enter the maximum max_tokens permitted on a single request.
Leave a field blank to leave that dimension unlimited.
5

Save

Click Save changes. Limits take effect immediately for all future requests using this key.
Start with conservative limits and increase them once you have a baseline of normal usage. It is much easier to raise a limit that is too low than to recover from an unexpected overage.

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Monitoring usage

The dashboard shows real-time usage versus limits for every key on the Settings → API Keys page and in the dedicated Usage section. You can also configure email alerts to notify you when a key approaches its limit — for example, at 80% of the monthly spend cap.

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Example: per-team budget isolation

If your organization has separate teams consuming the API, you can issue each team a dedicated key with its own spend limit: If team-search exhausts its $200 budget, its requests are blocked but every other key continues to work normally. This pattern prevents a single runaway workload from consuming your entire account balance.