> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.earthcare.network/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Rate limits & budgets

> How ECN bounds usage — credit budgets per organization, not request-per-second throttling.

ECN's primary guardrail is **credit budgets**, not transport-level request
throttling. Because every AI action is [metered](/guides/metering-credits), your
spend is bounded by your organization's caps.

| Control            | What it does                                                                                                   | Where it's set                         |
| ------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- |
| Monthly credit cap | Caps an org's monthly managed spend **when enabled** (opt-in via `ENFORCE_MONTHLY_CREDIT_CAP`, off by default) | Org setting (`monthly_credit_cap`)     |
| Per-action cap     | Rejects any single action whose preflight estimate exceeds the cap                                             | Org setting (`max_credits_per_action`) |
| AI pause           | Blocks all managed AI for the org                                                                              | Org setting (`ai_paused`)              |
| Wallet balance     | Spend stops when the credit wallet is empty                                                                    | Top up credits                         |

When a call would exceed a budget, the gateway rejects it at **preflight** — before
any provider is called — so you are never billed for a blocked action.

<Note>
  Transport-level rate limits (requests per second/minute) are being finalized as
  part of the v2 hardening. This page will publish exact numbers when they land.
  For now, budgets are the effective limiter.
</Note>

## Handling limits gracefully

* Check `get_wallet_balance` before a large prospecting run.
* If an action is rejected for budget, top up credits or raise the per-action cap
  in **Settings**.
* Batch reads (directory/context) are cheap; the costly actions are LLM generation
  and paid data lookups — see the [rate card](/guides/metering-credits#rate-card).