Budgets & Alerts
Set monthly spend limits per provider, configure alert thresholds, and get notified before costs run over budget.
What budgets do
A budget is a monthly spend limit attached to a single provider. Once set, StackSpend tracks spend against that limit throughout the month and fires alerts when spend crosses the 50%, 80%, and 100% thresholds. It also runs a daily forecast to warn you if projected end-of-month spend is on track to exceed the limit — even before a threshold has been crossed.
Budgets are independent per provider. You can set different amounts, currencies, and configurations for each one.
Setting a budget
There are two places to configure a budget:
- Providers page — click any provider, then edit the budget field directly on the provider detail panel.
- Settings → Budgets & alerts — manage all provider budgets in one place alongside threshold and notification settings.
Each budget has the following fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Amount | Monthly spend limit for this provider. |
| Currency | Currency for the budget amount. Spend is converted to this currency before comparison. |
| Exclude tax | Toggle on to compare budget against net spend only, excluding taxes and surcharges. |
| Active / inactive | Inactive budgets are saved but do not trigger alerts. Useful for temporarily pausing a limit without deleting it. |
Auto-budgets
If a provider has at least two weeks of spend history, StackSpend can automatically derive a suggested budget from the historical average monthly spend. This auto-budget is applied until you set a value manually — once you save a manual amount, the auto-budget is locked to that value and will not update automatically.
Threshold levels
StackSpend checks spend against three thresholds at each sync. Each threshold maps to a status colour and alert severity. All three can be customised in Settings → Budgets & alerts.
| Threshold | Default | Status | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watch | 50% | Grey / informational | Spend has reached half the monthly limit. Worth monitoring. |
| Amber | 80% | Amber / warning | Trending high — on current trajectory, the limit will likely be reached before month end. |
| Red | 100% | Red / exceeded | Budget has been exceeded. Immediate review recommended. |
Forecast-based alerts
In addition to threshold checks, StackSpend runs a daily forecast for each provider with a budget. If the forecast projects that spend will exceed the budget by month end, the provider status turns amber or red — even if no threshold has been crossed yet.
Forecast alerts are listed separately from threshold alerts in the Inbox and Tasks so you can distinguish a current breach from a projected one.
Where alerts appear
Budget alerts surface across all the same channels as anomaly alerts:
| Location | Details |
|---|---|
| Inbox — For you | Appears for the provider owner when a threshold or forecast alert fires. |
| Inbox — Needs attention | Appears for all workspace members when the provider has no assigned owner. |
| Tasks | Listed under the Alert task type. Assignable, commentable, and closeable like any other task. |
| Sent to all configured daily report recipients. | |
| Slack | Posted to the connected Slack channel. |
For details on routing, escalation, and notification settings see Alerts & Escalation.