Usage & Limits

Usage & Limits

The Usage dashboard gives you real-time visibility into how your workspace consumes resources across all agents. Understanding your usage helps you avoid unexpected limits, optimize costs, and choose the right plan as your needs grow.

Access the Usage dashboard from Settings > Usage in your workspace.

Usage Dashboard Overview

The Usage page is divided into three sections:

1. Current billing cycle summary — A progress bar for each metric showing current usage against your plan limit, with the billing cycle reset date prominently displayed.
2. Usage over time — Line charts showing daily message volume, active agents, and storage consumption over the current and previous billing cycles.
3. Per-agent breakdown — A table showing how each agent contributes to your total usage, helping you identify which agents consume the most resources.

Metrics Breakdown

Chatsby tracks six primary usage metrics. Each metric has a plan-specific limit and its own behavior when the limit is reached.

Messages

What it measures: The total number of AI-generated responses across all agents in your workspace during the current billing cycle. Each time your agent sends a reply to a user, it counts as one message.

What counts:

• Agent responses in widget conversations
• Agent responses via API
• Agent responses in WhatsApp, Slack, and other integrations
• Playground messages (these count toward your limit)

What does not count:

• User (human) messages — only agent responses are counted
• System messages (welcome messages, disclaimers)
• Failed messages that did not reach the user

Agents

What it measures: The number of active agents in your workspace. An agent is considered active if it is not archived.

Note: Archiving an agent frees up your agent slot immediately. Archived agents are not deleted — they can be restored, but restoring one consumes a slot again.

Sources

What it measures: The total number of training sources across all agents. A source is any piece of content you have added to train your agent: a URL, uploaded file, text snippet, FAQ entry, or sitemap.

Per-source limits:

• Individual file upload: 10 MB (Pro), 25 MB (Business), 50 MB (Enterprise)
• URL crawl: up to 50 pages (Pro), 200 pages (Business), 500 pages (Enterprise)

Storage

What it measures: Total file storage consumed by uploaded documents (PDFs, DOCXs, TXTs, images) across all agents. This does not include the processed/indexed data — only the raw uploaded files.

Team Members

What it measures: The number of active team members in your workspace, including the Owner. Pending invitations do not count against this limit.

Contacts

What it measures: The total number of contact records stored in your workspace. See Managing Contacts for details on how contacts are created and managed.

Understanding Your Billing Cycle

Your billing cycle begins on the day you activated your paid plan and resets monthly on that same date.

Reset behavior:

• Messages reset to zero at the start of each billing cycle.
• Agents, sources, storage, team members, and contacts do not reset — these are running totals that count active resources.

Your exact reset date is displayed at the top of the Usage dashboard and in the Billing settings.

Proration

When you upgrade mid-cycle, Chatsby prorates the cost:

• You are charged the difference between your current plan and the new plan for the remaining days in your billing cycle.
• New limits take effect immediately.
• Your next full billing cycle will be at the new plan's rate.

When you downgrade mid-cycle:

• Your current plan's limits remain active until the end of the billing cycle.
• The new (lower) plan takes effect at the start of the next cycle.
• No refund is issued for the remaining days on the higher plan.

Plan Comparison

What Happens When You Hit a Limit

Each metric has specific behavior when the limit is reached. Chatsby does not retroactively restrict existing resources — it prevents new consumption.

Configuring the Limit-Reached Message

When your agents hit the message limit, users see a default message: "This assistant is currently unavailable. Please try again later or contact us directly."

You can customize this message in Settings > Usage > Limit Reached Message. Consider including:

• An alternative contact method (email, phone number)
• Expected availability ("We'll be back at the start of next month")
• A link to your help center or FAQ

Overage Handling

Chatsby does not charge overage fees on any standard plan. When you hit a limit, the behavior described above applies until you upgrade or your billing cycle resets.

Enterprise plans can be configured with soft limits and overage billing if preferred. Contact your account manager for details.

Upgrading and Downgrading

Upgrading Your Plan

Downgrading Your Plan

1. Go to Settings > Billing > Change Plan.
2. Select the lower plan.
3. Review the impact summary — Chatsby will warn you if your current usage exceeds the new plan's limits (e.g., "You have 8 agents but the Pro plan allows 5").
4. Confirm the downgrade.

Important: The downgrade takes effect at the start of your next billing cycle. Until then, you retain your current plan's limits. Before the downgrade activates, ensure your usage is within the new plan's limits. If it is not, you will not be able to create new resources beyond the limit, but existing ones will not be deleted.

Usage Optimization Tips

Optimize your usage to get the most from your plan and avoid hitting limits prematurely.

Reducing Message Count

1. Improve your training sources. Comprehensive, well-structured sources lead to better first-response accuracy, reducing follow-up messages.
2. Use the system prompt effectively. Clear instructions in the system prompt help the agent answer accurately in fewer exchanges.
3. Set conversation limits. Configure a maximum conversation length in your agent settings. Long, rambling conversations consume messages without adding value.
4. Review low-quality conversations. Use analytics to identify conversations where the agent required many messages to resolve a query, then improve the relevant sources.

Efficient Source Management

1. Consolidate small sources. Five separate FAQ entries can often be merged into one structured document.
2. Remove outdated sources. Old product pages, deprecated documentation, and seasonal content should be cleaned up regularly.
3. Use sitemaps instead of individual URLs. A single sitemap source replaces dozens of individual URL sources.

Storage Cleanup

1. Delete superseded documents. When you upload a new version of a product manual, delete the old one.
2. Compress files before upload. PDFs can often be compressed significantly without losing content quality.
3. Prefer text-based formats. A 500 KB text file covers the same content as a 5 MB PDF with images.

Team Member Hygiene

1. Remove departed employees immediately. This is a security best practice and frees up team slots.
2. Use Viewer roles generously. Stakeholders who only need visibility do not need Member or Admin access.
3. Audit quarterly. Review the team list every quarter to ensure everyone still needs access.

API Usage Tracking

If you use the Chatsby API, API-generated messages count toward your monthly message limit. There is no separate API quota.

Track API-specific usage by filtering the Usage over time chart by source:

• Widget — Messages from your embedded chat widget
• API — Messages from direct API calls
• Integrations — Messages from WhatsApp, Slack, and other connected channels

This breakdown helps you understand which channels drive the most consumption and plan accordingly.

Alerts and Notifications

Chatsby sends automated alerts to the workspace Owner (and optionally all Admins) at key usage thresholds.

Configuring Alert Recipients

By default, alerts go to the workspace Owner. To add additional recipients:

1. Go to Settings > Notifications.
2. Under Usage Alerts, add email addresses or toggle notifications for specific Admin members.
3. Click Save.

Billing FAQ

When does my billing cycle reset? On the same date each month as when you activated your paid plan. Check Settings > Usage for your exact date.

Do unused messages roll over? No. Message allowances reset to zero at the start of each billing cycle. Unused messages do not carry over.

What payment methods do you accept? Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and other major credit/debit cards via Stripe. Enterprise plans support invoicing and bank transfer.

Can I get a refund if I downgrade mid-cycle? No. Downgrades take effect at the start of the next billing cycle. You retain your current plan's limits until then.

Do Playground messages count toward my limit? Yes. Every agent response in the Playground counts as one message. For heavy testing, consider doing so early in your billing cycle.

What happens to my data if I cancel? Your workspace enters a 30-day grace period. During this period, agents stop responding but all data (agents, sources, contacts, conversations) is preserved. After 30 days, data is permanently deleted. You can reactivate at any time during the grace period by selecting a plan.

Can I get a custom plan? Yes. Enterprise plans are fully customizable. Contact [email protected] with your requirements.

Enterprise and Custom Limits

For organizations that need more than what standard plans offer, Enterprise plans provide:

• Custom message volumes — 100K, 500K, 1M+ messages per month
• Unlimited agents, sources, and contacts
• Custom retention periods — Keep conversation data for as long as you need
• Dedicated infrastructure — Isolated compute for guaranteed performance
• SLA guarantees — 99.9% uptime SLA with financial backing
• Volume discounts — Reduced per-message pricing at scale

Contact [email protected] or visit chatsby.co/enterprise to discuss your requirements.

Next Steps

• Manage Team Members — Invite colleagues and configure role-based access.
• Billing FAQ — More detailed answers to billing and payment questions.
• Analytics — Understand how your agents perform beyond raw usage numbers.