Spend controls
AI Agent Spend Controls - Hard Limits Enforced by Policy
Spend controls are what stop a runaway agent. Set caps, allowlists, and velocity rules once, and Agentspay enforces them on every transaction before any money moves.
Last updated July 2026
Pick an agent
Payment intent
intent: ▌
Policy evaluation
Human approval required
This spend is over your approval threshold. Approve it to issue a scoped card, or deny it.
Scoped virtual card issued
Wallet budget
spent of
Audit trail
In short
AI agent spend controls are rules that limit what an agent can buy: per-transaction, daily, and total caps, merchant and category allowlists, and velocity limits. Agentspay evaluates them at the API boundary, so a hallucinating or compromised agent is declined before it can overspend, not flagged after.
How it works
What Spend controls gives you
Caps at every level
Per-transaction, daily, and lifetime limits stack so a single bad call and a slow drip are both blocked.
Merchant and category allowlists
Restrict an agent to the merchants and categories it needs. Anything else is declined automatically.
Velocity rules
Cap how many transactions or how much spend can happen in a window, so a loop cannot rack up charges.
It is one surface in the flow. Spend controls works alongside the other control surfaces so every agent transaction is checked against policy before any money moves. See the full picture on how it works and the security page.
Also covers ai agent spending limits, agent budget controls.
Further reading: how to set spend limits on an AI agent, what stops runaway agent spend, and prompt injection and agent spend.
Frequently asked
Questions people ask about Spend controls
How do you set a spending limit for an AI agent?
You attach a policy to the agent rather than to a card. Set a per-transaction ceiling, a budget over a window, a merchant or category allowlist, and a velocity cap. Agentspay evaluates all of them before a credential is issued, so an over-limit purchase is declined rather than reported afterward.
Why is an API key not a spending limit?
A restricted API key controls which endpoints an agent can call, not how much money those calls move. An agent with a valid key can invoke a payment tool a thousand times in an hour and every call is authorized. Amount, frequency, and counterparty limits have to be enforced by a separate policy layer.
Can spend controls stop a runaway agent loop?
Velocity rules are the control that does this. A per-transaction cap alone will not help, because a loop making forty small compliant purchases stays under it every time. Capping the count and total spend inside a time window is what breaks the loop, and it fires before the charges settle.
Do card issuer limits replace agent spend controls?
They cover part of it. An issuer enforces per-card caps and merchant locks at authorization, which is real enforcement worth having. What it cannot do is hold one budget across several cards and rails, pause for human approval, or tie a decline back to the agent and task that triggered it.
Keep exploring
More control surfaces
AI agent wallet
Agent wallet
A wallet is the unit of trust for agent money. Give each agent its own funded wallet with a hard budget, and it can only ever spend what is inside, never your full balance.
ExploreHuman approvals
Human approvals
For the spend that matters, you want a person in the loop. Set a threshold and any transaction above it is held for a one-tap approve or deny before it settles.
ExploreVirtual cards
Virtual cards
Hand an agent a card, not your card. Agentspay issues scoped virtual cards that are merchant-locked, single-use, and time-bound, so a leaked number is worthless beyond its scope.
ExploreAudit trail
Audit trail
When finance asks which agent spent this, you need one answer. Agentspay writes every transaction to an immutable audit trail, traced to intent, agent, owner, and policy.
ExplorePut Spend controls to work
Wire it up in the sandbox today, with the SDKs you already use. Agentspay never moves money without policy.
Never moves money without policy