Budgets and caps are the governors that keep lead flow inside the boundaries a customer (or you) has agreed to. Caps limit how many leads can be bought; budgets limit how much can be spent. Both are evaluated continuously, and a bid is only eligible to win a lead when every applicable limit has headroom.
Two levels: customer and bid
Limits exist at two scopes:
- Customer-level — Applies across all of a customer’s bidding activity. Useful for account-wide guardrails (e.g., “this customer can spend at most $10,000 per month”).
- Bid-level — Applies only to a specific bid (one lead type in one location). Useful for fine-grained control (e.g., “cap this auto-insurance bid at 50 leads per day”).
A bid has to clear both its own limits and its customer’s limits to win a lead. Whichever is most restrictive wins.
Bid-level caps and budgets are optional and only appear on the bid form if you’ve enabled them for the tenant. Customer-level limits are always available.
Two dimensions: caps vs. budgets
| Counts | Useful for |
|---|
| Lead cap | Number of leads assigned | Volume governance (“no more than 100 leads this month”) |
| Budget | Dollars spent on assigned leads | Cost governance (“no more than $2,000 this month”) |
Evaluating limits at once
Every limit you configure is checked simultaneously on every auction. A lead only flows to a customer when:
- The customer’s daily, weekly, and monthly lead caps all have room for one more lead
- The customer’s daily, weekly, and monthly budgets can all cover the bid amount
- The bid’s daily, weekly, and monthly lead caps all have room
- The bid’s daily, weekly, and monthly budgets can all cover the bid amount
The first limit to exhaust wins. If a bid has a daily cap of 10 and a daily budget of 500withbidsat40 each, the cap trips first (10 leads × 40=400, under budget). If the bid was 80,thebudgetwouldtripfirst(6×80 = 480,undercap;7thleadwouldpushpast500).
Reset intervals
- Daily — Resets at midnight UTC
- Weekly — Resets at the start of the UTC week (Monday 00:00 UTC)
- Monthly — Resets at the start of the UTC month
Resets are calendar-based, not rolling. A lead assigned at 23:59 UTC counts against the daily cap for one minute before the counter clears.
What counts toward caps and budgets
Caps and budgets only count leads assigned through bidding. Leads a customer purchases directly from the marketplace don’t count—that’s why these are sometimes called “bidding limits.” The marketplace is a separate purchase channel that draws from the same wallet but doesn’t flow through the bidding system.
Returned leads also don’t reduce consumption. Once a lead is assigned, it counts against caps and budgets; returning it credits the wallet but doesn’t free up cap headroom.
How limits affect status
Limits roll up into the statuses that drive whether a bid or customer is competing.
Bid status impact
| Underlying status | Triggered when | Displays as |
|---|
| Cap: Exhausted | Any of the bid’s or customer’s lead caps has been reached | Capped |
| Budget: Limited | The remaining budget is below the full bid amount but above zero | Limited (bid still participates at the reduced amount) |
| Budget: Exhausted | Any of the bid’s or customer’s budgets has been fully consumed | Exhausted |
Customer status impact
Caps and budgets do not change a customer’s display status. The customer’s display status reflects operational state and wallet funding only. When a customer hits a cap or budget, the effect shows up on each of their bids—every bid flips to Capped or Exhausted and stops competing. The customer themselves can still show as Active; they’re just not receiving leads until the constraint resets.
If you’re trying to diagnose why a customer isn’t getting leads despite showing Active, check the bid list for Capped or Exhausted rows.
Leaving a limit blank
Every limit is optional. Leaving a field blank means “no limit” for that dimension. A customer with only a monthly budget set will have unlimited daily and weekly spend (up to that monthly ceiling) and unlimited lead counts.
Recovering from exhausted state
Exhausted bids and customers recover automatically:
- Cap exhaustion resolves when the interval resets.
- Budget exhaustion resolves when the interval resets.
- Funding exhaustion (separate from budgets—see Bidding → Bid statuses) resolves when the customer’s wallet is topped up.
No manual intervention is required to bring a bid back online once the underlying condition clears. 
