Why were new conversations paused? The hourly spending limit

What happened?

If more than a fifth of your monthly plan credits was spent in the last hour, new conversations don't open for a while. The limit stops abuse or a badly built agent from using up your monthly credits in a few hours.

For example, on the Starter plan (100,000 credits a month) the limit is 20,000 credits an hour. On small plans the limit never goes below about 15 minutes of voice conversation an hour.

What do visitors see?

Ongoing conversations aren't cut off. A new visitor is shown a box to leave their contact details instead of the agent; what they leave lands on the “Requests” page. The preview in the panel isn't affected by the limit.

How are you told?

The “Credit” notification goes out with the title “Unusual credit spending in the last hour — new chats stopped”, at most once an hour. In a new workspace it reaches owners and admins by email. To route it to another channel, see the alerts and notifications article.

When does it lift?

By itself: once the last hour's spending drops below the limit, new conversations open again. You don't need to do anything.

The limit is based on your monthly plan credits: buying a credit pack doesn't raise it, upgrading your plan does.

What should you do?

1. On the Plan page's “Spending” tab, look at daily spending and the “By agent” breakdown; you'll see which agent is spending.
2. Look at the latest conversations on the “Conversations” page. Conversations opened one after another, meaningless or left half-way are signs of abuse.
3. If there's abuse, narrow down where the agent opens: the agent on your site opens only on the sites in your “Your websites” list; remove an agent link you shared somewhere public. See the publishing an agent article for details.

If you hit the limit during expected traffic, such as a campaign, upgrade your plan.