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Create a budget

how-to · Reviewed 2026-07-30 · FEAT-0012 GA

Creating a budget sets a spend or core-hour cap against a member, project, workspace or organization. If you have not settled on a target level yet, read how budgets work first, because the level is considerably harder to change afterwards than the amount is.

Where you can create one from​

Several places in the portals lead to the same budget, and which one you use only determines what the target is pre-filled as.

Starting pointWhereCreates
Financials > Budgets > Create BudgetEither admin portalAny target level
Teams > MembersEither admin portalA member budget
Teams > ProjectsWorkspace admin portal onlyA project budget
Preferences > BudgetsYour own accountA budget for yourself

Projects exist only at workspace level, so a project budget can only be created from a workspace admin portal. An organization admin who wants one reaches it by opening the relevant workspace's portal rather than the organization portal.

What the form asks for​

Most of the fields are self-explanatory, but three of them decide how the budget actually behaves rather than how it is labelled: the target it applies to, the charge types it counts, and whether it runs once or resets on a cycle.

Charge Type open, showing the four options. Budgeting Unit appears only where core-hour budgets are in use.
FieldNotes
Budget TargetMember, project, workspace, or organization. See how budgets work.
NameHow the budget appears in the list. Name it after the target, because you will be scanning a list of these later.
Budgeted AmountThe cost or core-hour cap.
Charge TypeCost budgets only: All, Software, Compute, or Compute & License. Use it to cap one kind of spend, such as on-demand software alone.
Budget TypeOne-time or periodic, described below.
Start Date / End DateWhen the budget is active. Both are optional.
Strict BudgetWhether running workloads are terminated at the cap. See budget enforcement.

Choosing between a one-time and a periodic budget​

A one-time budget does not recur. It enforces a single cap across whatever date range you give it, and the two date fields do something useful when you leave them empty. An empty end date keeps the budget active indefinitely, an empty start date counts everything back to the creation of the account, and leaving both empty produces an all-time budget.

A periodic budget resets on a cadence, which can be monthly, quarterly or annually, and the cap applies to each period independently rather than across the whole span. A monthly periodic budget of $1,000 with a six-month end date therefore enforces $1,000 per month for six months rather than $1,000 in total. Omitting the end date enforces it indefinitely.

Periodic is usually the right choice for a team

A one-time budget on an active team will eventually be reached and then stay reached, at which point you are fielding requests to raise it. A monthly periodic budget gives the team a predictable allowance and gives you a predictable ceiling.

Check the Strict setting before you save​

Turning Strict Budget on means running jobs are terminated the moment the cap is crossed, including a simulation that has been running for two days. Leave it off unless mid-run termination is genuinely acceptable for the work this budget covers. Budget enforcement describes the full behavior of both settings.