Usage and limits
Where to see what your goals cost, the daily limits each goal runs under, and how to keep usage down.
Auto Lab has no plans, credits or top-ups: billing is off. It still records what each goal's work costs, and each goal has daily limits on how much automated work it may start. This page shows where to find both.
Auto Lab supplies the models a goal uses, so a new goal needs no provider key. If you add your own key in Brain › Models for a provider Auto Lab does not supply, that provider bills you for those calls. See Models.
See what your organization used
Owners and admins open Organization settings › Usage. The Session costs tab shows:
- A date range. Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, Last 30 days (the default), Last 90 days, or dates you pick.
- Totals. Total, LLM for model calls and Compute for sandbox time, each with its change from the previous period. A sandbox is the isolated cloud machine a session or task agent works on.
- Cost per goal. Open a goal to list its sessions, filter them by Owner, then open one to see its model usage, compute time and each cost entry.
Export CSV downloads the list you are looking at. Ignore the Credit ledger tab while billing is off.
See what one goal used
Inside a goal, costs show up next to the work that caused them.
| Where | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Activity | Chat turns, schedule fires and task agent runs with their tokens, cost and sandbox minutes, for example "1.2k tok · $0.002 · 3.2 box-min", where box-min is sandbox minutes. |
| Runs | Tokens and Cost for each task agent run. Open a run to see its sandbox minutes too. |
| Brain › Models › Costs | The goal's model spend over time, when your goal has this tab. Set budget caps spend for a period, and you choose whether reaching it blocks new model requests or only warns. |
Daily limits for each goal
Every goal has two limits in Settings › Autonomy, on the Automation card. They count from midnight UTC and reset there. A session here is the isolated cloud machine a piece of work runs on.
| Setting | Default | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Sandbox minutes per day | 120 | Minutes the goal's sandboxes ran today, start-up included |
| New sessions per day | 20 | Sessions the goal started today. Reusing a session it already has does not count. |
The line under the fields shows today's use. To change a limit, type the new number and choose Save limits. You need the admin role on the goal. Minutes go from 1 to 14,400 and sessions from 1 to 1,000.
What happens at a limit
When a goal reaches a limit, it stops starting new work for the rest of the day.
- Triggers. A scheduled trigger is skipped, and firing one by hand is refused. At the session limit, only triggers that would start a new session are affected.
- Chat and its schedules. The agent still replies and check-ins still run. When the agent needs a new sandbox, or a task agent needs its own, it is told that the daily budget is used up and nothing starts.
- Running work. Work that is already running finishes as usual and stops when it goes idle. At the session limit, the goal can still reuse sessions it already has.
The Goals home marks the goal "Stopped for today", and the Automation card says which limit was reached. Raise the limit if the work should go on today, or wait for the reset at midnight UTC.
Keep usage down
- Write a clear goal and rules. A precise objective and a few rules at setup mean fewer questions and fewer retries. See Set up and launch a goal.
- Stay in the goal's Chat. The agent already has the history there, so you do not pay to explain the same background twice. See Chat and runs.
- Check in only as often as things change. Every check-up and routine is a turn that costs something. See Plans, schedules and triggers.
- Use a smaller model for simple work. Where Brain › Models lets you choose the goal's default model, pick a smaller one for routine goals and keep the largest models for work that needs them.
- Start new goals with low limits. Lower Sandbox minutes per day while you try a goal out, then raise it.
- Look at Usage now and then. Sort by cost and start with the goals and sessions that cost the most.
Questions
Write to hello@auto-lab.ai with questions about usage or limits, or if a number looks wrong.