# Usage, the spend cap and the forecast

> See what metered usage has cost this month, set the monthly spend cap, and read what your next invoice will say before it arrives.

Source: https://veldhost.eu/docs/spend-cap-and-forecast

Last verified: 2026-11-12

Most of your bill is fixed: the plan and its add-ons. Some things are metered instead, such as job and pipeline minutes above your warehouse tier's allowance. The **Usage** section of the Billing page shows what that has come to this month, and the spend cap stops it from ever going above an amount you choose. The **Next invoice** tile shows what your next invoice will say.

## Before you start

The Billing page is for the account owner and its billing contact (see [Team roles](https://veldhost.eu/docs/roles-and-permissions)). The **Usage** section appears once the account has a plan.

## Read this month's usage

Open [Settings → Billing](https://manage.veldhost.eu/portal/billing) and scroll to **Usage**. The month runs in UTC, and the header reminds you that "dashboards and queries are free".

- **Job and pipeline minutes**: **Used** (against the minutes your tier includes), **Above the allowance**, and **Heading for**, the month-end figure at this month's pace.
- **Spend cap**: the cap, what metered usage has cost so far, and the percentage of the cap used.

The page says how each kind of usage is priced, in the line under the cap. "Runs that failed for platform reasons are never counted."

Under that you may see **Alerts sent** (which alerts went out, per month) and **Billed above the allowance** (what earlier months added to your invoices).

> **Note:** If there is no **Spend cap** table in your **Usage** section, nothing metered is billed on your account yet, and the page says so.

## Set the spend cap

There is "one cap for all metered usage": every kind of metered usage counts towards the same amount. From our [Terms](https://veldhost.eu/terms) (section 4): "Every account has a monthly spend cap — set by default from your plan and changeable by you at any time, including to zero — and nothing is ever billed above it".

1. Open [Settings → Billing](https://manage.veldhost.eu/portal/billing) → **Usage**.
2. Enter an amount in **Monthly spend cap (€, whole euros; 0 = included usage only)**.
3. Choose **Save cap**.

The new cap applies straight away. With 0, the page confirms: "nothing above the allowances will run or be billed." To go back to your plan's default, choose **Back to the default**.

The default cap is €10 a month on Starter, €10 on Pro and €50 on Business.

## When you get close to the cap

The account owner gets an email at 50 %, 80 % and 100 % of the cap, once for each in a month. These emails are always on.

When the cap is reached, the Billing page says so: scheduled jobs and pipelines are recorded as *skipped* and "Run now" is refused, "until the month turns or you raise the cap". Work that was already running when the cap was reached can take usage past it, but that part is never billed: at the end of the month the metered lines are cut back to the cap, and the Billing page marks what was left out as above your cap, not billed.

## Read the forecast

The first tile on the Billing page is **Next invoice**: the amount and the date. During a free trial it is called **First charge** and shows the day the trial ends.

Further down, the **Next invoice** section (**First charge** during a trial) has a **What’s on it** button: open it to see the invoice line by line. Lines from a plan or add-on change in the middle of a period are marked **Prorated**, and VAT and any **Credit balance used** have their own rows.

Where the figure comes from is written next to it:

- **Preview from Stripe**: you pay by card, and this is what our payment provider will put on the invoice. It can take a moment to load after the page opens.
- **Estimate from your plan**: you pay by invoice. In the page's words: "An estimate from your plan: the invoice we send is the final word."

If your account holds a credit, for example after switching from yearly to monthly billing, the **Payment method** panel shows the balance and how much of it your next invoice uses.

## Related

- [Jobs & Pipelines](https://veldhost.eu/docs/pipelines-and-jobs)
- [Invoices, payment and VAT](https://veldhost.eu/docs/invoices-and-vat)
- [Plans and add-ons](https://veldhost.eu/docs/plans-and-add-ons)