Credit limits let a subscription admin decide up front how a subscription's credits are shared. You can cap a workspace, a group of workspaces, a single team member, a user group or a user role. Pencil holds everyone to their limit, so one heavy user can't drain the credits the rest of the team relies on.
A shared pool serves whoever gets there first. Credit limits let you decide who gets what.
Credits are the units Pencil uses to count AI work. Our pricing guide explains what each model and task costs.
Where do I find credit limits?
Open Settings and select Credit limits, under the Subscription heading. This is also where you allocate credits to workspaces and workspace groups.
Only subscription admins can see this page. If you need a limit changed and can't see the page, ask your subscription admin. Read more about subscription admin access.
What can I limit?
You can set two kinds of control, and they work together.
Allocations cover a workspace or a workspace group. Everyone in that workspace draws on the same allocation.
Limits cover a team member, a user group or a user role. Only that person's own usage counts against their limit.
Personal limits and workspace allocations apply together, so each person's usage counts against both.
You create user groups in Manage team, on the User groups tab.
How do I set a limit?
Open Credit limits. Go to Settings and select Credit limits.
Choose what to limit. Select the workspace, workspace group, team member, user group or role. To set the same limit on several at once, select several rows.
Set the amount. Enter the number of credits.
Choose the workspaces. For a team member, choose specific workspaces or all of them. All workspaces includes any created later.
Set the warning. Choose the percentage of the limit at which the user gets a warning.
Decide on blocking. Blocking is on by default. Switch it off if you want to track usage without stopping work.
How do limits combine?
Inheritance. A member without their own limit takes their user group's or role's limit.
Overlaps. When more than one limit applies, the most recent change wins. For example, if you set a role limit after a user group limit, the role limit applies.
No limit. A person with no limit of their own, and none from a group or role, draws on the workspace's allocation like everyone else.
What happens when someone nears their limit?
The warning. When someone reaches the warning threshold, a message arrives in their Inbox showing their usage. That gives them time to plan before they run out.
At the limit. A Credit limit reached notification tells them they're out. They can't start anything that uses credits, chats included, until you raise their limit.
Tracking without blocking. Switch blocking off for an allocation when you'd rather watch usage than stop work. Pencil keeps counting, and nobody is stopped.