Spend notifications
Budgets and deposits both send email alerts as they are consumed. The thresholds are fixed and cannot be changed, but any user can switch off the alerts they personally receive.
When an alert is sent
Both budgets and deposits alert at three points as they are consumed: when half of the amount has gone, when four fifths of it has gone, and when it is exhausted.
These percentages are not configurable. There is no way to add a threshold, move one, or set a different figure for budgets than for deposits.
Who receives a budget alert
The recipients of a budget alert depend on the level the budget targets, on the principle that both the person affected and the person able to raise the cap should hear about it.
Where the budget target is associated with a partner, active partner admins receive the notification as well.
Turning the alerts off
Any user can disable the alerts they receive from Preferences > Notifications, and doing so covers both budget and deposit alerts together.
The six threshold alerts appear under Cost Management in that panel, three for deposits and three for budgets, each with its own email checkbox. The same section carries unrelated alerts for an expiring card, changed payment information, and storage and data transfer limits, so switching off the ones you do not want is a per-row decision rather than an all-or-nothing one.
The 80% alert is the last practical point at which you can raise a cap before workloads start queuing, or before they start being terminated if a strict budget is in force. If a team switches these off, nobody finds out about the cap until jobs stop launching.
What the alerts will not do for you
These are email notifications and nothing more, so it is worth being clear about three things they do not do.
They do not prevent enforcement. The 100% alert arrives as the cap takes effect rather than before it, so it is a notification of something that has already happened.
They do not escalate. There is no repeat and no reminder after the 100% alert, so an unread message is the end of the matter.
They are not available through the API. There is no programmatic subscription to these events, and the alerts are sent by email only.
Related
- Budget enforcement — what happens when 100% is reached
- Assign and track deposits — checking balances directly
- Usage dashboards — watching the trend rather than waiting for an alert