Usage Budgets
Steinkauz AI Budgets govern how much inference spend (money and/or tokens) each member or dedicated API key may use on each provider instance. They are optional policy ceilings, not included inference, and not a commercial seat meter.
Where to configure
- Budgets: organization owners and admins set optional caps per provider.
- API access: members create keys that inherit their own budget. Only owners and admins can select dedicated Budget mode or manage its caps.
Private Deployment budgets are available without a Cloud subscription. You can open Budgets and set optional money or token caps; they reset on the UTC calendar month.
Budgets are optional in both Cloud and private deployments. Leave a budget undefined to operate without its caps. Defined caps are always enforced; leaving a cap empty is uncapped, while zero means exhausted. Usage is recorded whether or not you define a budget.
Optional BYOK caps
On each provider tab, admins set optional:
- Users: each member’s money and/or token caps
- Dedicated keys: caps on keys in dedicated Budget mode
Empty means uncapped; 0 means immediately exhausted. Edits that would set a cap below that subject’s spend this period are rejected.
API key modes
| Mode | Who is gated |
|---|---|
| Inherit (default) | Creator’s member Budgets |
| Dedicated | The key itself; optional BYOK / token caps (skip = uncapped) |
Owners and admins can switch modes after creation. Spend history stays on the member or key that recorded it. Switching a dedicated key to inherit mode, or revoking it, removes its key-specific budget caps.
Exhaustion
When any configured unit (money, input tokens, or output tokens) has Remaining ≤ 0, further inference for that subject on that provider is blocked. The Platform API returns 402 insufficient_quota on the next attempt after an overshooting call (that call still completes with HTTP 200).
Providers without a configured Budget stay uncapped by Steinkauz AI until you set optional caps on the Budgets page.
A customer-owned Vercel AI Gateway connection still needs your Gateway API key.
Other providers (BYOK)
Each member can have optional Cost ($), Tokens In, and Tokens Out caps. Token caps show compact counts (K/M/B) until you focus the field. Period spend shows used/cap progress when a track is set.
If the provider reports tokens but not cost (or the reverse), a warning appears once for that provider: those Budgets cannot gate spend until metering matches. Saving never blocks on that warning.
Use the save bar to apply all unsaved budget changes for the active provider.
Configuration Audit
Cap edits appear in Change history. The Budgets page links to filtered history. See Configuration Audit.