Setting a Monthly Budget

A monthly budget lets you set a spending target and get alerted as your usage climbs toward it — so a busy month never surprises you. Configure it at Billing → Budget.

Alert-only, by design

A budget never blocks your account or stops messages from sending. It's a visibility tool: crossing a threshold sends a notification, nothing more. Your traffic and charges continue exactly as before. If you want spending to trigger an action rather than just an alert, pair a budget with auto-recharge.

How it works

You set a monthly budget (e.g., $500) and one or more alert thresholds as percentages of it (e.g., 80% and 100%).
Blocx adds up everything that draws down your balance this calendar month — message usage, one-time fees, and recurring monthly fees.
When your month-to-date spend crosses a threshold, we notify your organization's owners and admins by in-app notification and email — plus a text message once you reach 100% of your budget.
Each threshold alerts once per month. Budgets reset automatically at the start of each calendar month — there's nothing to clear.

Turning it on

Open Billing → Budget.
Toggle Enable monthly budget.
Enter your monthly budget amount.
Add the alert thresholds you want (each a whole percentage from 1–100, up to five).
Save.

The page shows a live spend-vs-budget bar for the current month, so you can see where you stand at a glance and which thresholds have already alerted.

Choosing thresholds

80% + 100% is a sensible default: an early heads-up, then confirmation you've hit your target.
Add a lower threshold (e.g., 50%) if you want a mid-month checkpoint.
Because alerts don't block anything, a threshold at 100% is a notification that you've reached your target for the month — not a cutoff.

Who gets alerted

Budget alerts go to every owner and admin in your organization, on the in-app notification bell and by email. When you reach your budget (100%), owners and admins with a verified phone number also get a text message — a spend overrun is worth an extra nudge. Anyone can mute the email and SMS alerts per category from their notification preferences; the in-app alert still appears.

Budgets vs. quotas vs. auto-recharge

These three are independent and complementary:

A budget watches your dollar spend and only alerts. See this article.
A quota caps a specific volume (e.g., emails per month) and blocks once exhausted. See Understanding Quotas and Usage.
Auto-recharge keeps your balance from hitting zero by refilling it. See Configuring Auto-Recharge.

Turning it off

Toggle the budget off at any time at Billing → Budget. Your saved amount and thresholds are kept, so re-enabling later restores them.