# Agent Spending ## Review And Limit Agent Spend 1. Open **Usage** to see cost by agent and model. 2. Open the agent or company budget controls. 3. Set the permitted spend and review the projection. 4. Return to **Usage** after the next run to confirm the charge. ![Usage breakdown by agent and model](https://neotask-marketing-assets-417007889150.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/landing/agents/2026-08-12-r1/usage-main-1280.webp) **Agent spending** lets your AI agents pay for things on your behalf, using a company-funded card that stays inside a hard cap you set, where **every single charge needs your explicit approval before any money moves.** It is part of **Neotask Payments**, and you turn it on in **Settings → Payments → Agent spending**. --- ## What Agent Spending Is When an agent is working on a task and needs to buy something, a subscription, an ad credit, a one-off purchase, it cannot reach into your bank account or use a saved card on file. Instead, agent spending gives it a controlled way to ask: - The agent requests the purchase, describing the **merchant**, the **amount**, and **why** it needs to spend. - **You** approve or decline that exact charge. - Only after your approval does any money move, on a dedicated **Neotask Payments card** that is funded by a wallet you top up and bounded by a hard cap you set. It is the **outbound** side of Neotask Payments: money going **out** so your agents can get things done. (The other side of Neotask Payments, collecting **revenue** from your own customers, is covered separately; see [Neotask Payments](neotask-payments).) --- ## Why It Is Safe Agent spending is built around two safety features that can never be turned off: ### 1. Every charge needs your approval, no exceptions A spend request is **always** routed to you for a human decision. This is true in **every** company mode, including **Fully Autonomous**. Even a company you have set to run completely on its own will still stop and ask you before spending a cent. There is no setting, no rule, no "trusted app" exception, and no learned auto-approval that can let an agent spend money on its own. Spending sits **above** every automatic-approval path in the system, so nothing can route around it. ### 2. A hard spend cap you control You set a **hard cap**, the absolute ceiling on what an agent can spend. No single charge can ever exceed it, regardless of what the agent requests. The real spendable amount is always the **lower** of your hard cap and your current wallet balance, so you are protected on both ends: a charge above your cap is declined, and a charge above your funded balance is declined. ### And there is no rush An approval **waits for you**. There is no countdown and no auto-expiry that quietly approves a charge if you do not answer in time. A pending spend request simply sits and waits until you act on it, approve it tomorrow and it is still there; ignore it and nothing happens. Money only ever moves on a deliberate human "approve." --- ## Before You Begin, Connect Neotask Payments Agent spending is built **on top of** Neotask Payments. Before the agent-spending controls appear, you must have a connected **Neotask Payments** account for the company. Until Neotask Payments is connected, the Agent spending section stays hidden. Once it is connected, the section appears in **Settings → Payments**. See [Neotask Payments](neotask-payments) to set up your account first. | Requirement | Why | |---|---| | A connected **Neotask Payments** account | The wallet and card are issued under your Neotask Payments account | | Company in **build mode** | Agent spending is a company-operation feature | | You are an **admin** on the company | Funding and cap changes are administrator actions | --- ## How To Enable It 1. Open **Settings → Payments**. 2. Find the **Agent spending** section (it appears once Neotask Payments is connected). 3. Flip the **master toggle** on. 4. A confirmation appears explaining what you are enabling. It restates the key promise: > Your agents will be able to request purchases on a Neotask Payments card, up to the hard cap you set. **Every charge still needs your explicit approval before any money moves**, nothing is ever spent automatically. You can set the cap to 0 or turn this off at any time to freeze all agent spending. 5. Confirm with **Enable agent spending**. When you first enable it, the cap starts at **0** until you set one, so spending is effectively frozen until you deliberately raise the cap. You are never one toggle away from open-ended spending. --- ## Setting The Hard Cap The spend controls show the card balance, cap, and agent-spending state together. ![Agent spend controls](https://neotask-marketing-assets-417007889150.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/landing/enterprise/2026-08-12-r4/agent-spend-controls-1440.webp) The **hard spend cap** is the most important control on the page. It is the absolute ceiling on any single charge. - Enter a dollar amount in the **Hard spend cap** field and click **Save cap**. - A charge can never exceed this cap, no matter what the agent asks for. - The effective limit on any one purchase is always the **lower** of your cap and your wallet balance. Set it to the most you would ever want a single agent purchase to be, and no higher. --- ## Topping Up The Wallet The **wallet** is the pool of company funds that backs the card. Agents can only spend what the wallet holds. - Enter an amount in the **Top up wallet** field and click **Top up**. - The wallet balance updates to reflect the new funded total. - Your **wallet balance** is shown on the page so you always know how much is available. Because spending is capped by both the wallet balance **and** the hard cap, keeping the wallet modest is itself a safety lever, agents can never spend money that isn't there. --- ## What Happens When An Agent Wants To Spend Here is the full flow, end to end: 1. **The agent asks.** While working a task, the agent decides it needs to buy something and submits a spend request, with the merchant, the amount, the currency, and a reason. 2. **It waits for you.** The request becomes a **pending approval**. The agent's purchase is paused, it cannot proceed until you decide. There is no timeout; the request waits indefinitely. 3. **You decide.** You **approve** or **decline** the charge, right in the app, or in a connected channel where you handle approvals. 4. **On approve, the charge runs once.** Only after your approval is a **single-use** Neotask Payments card prepared for that exact purchase, scoped to the approved amount. The agent uses it once to complete the checkout. 5. **The card matches the approval.** A charge is only allowed through if it matches your approval and stays within both the hard cap and the wallet balance. Anything over-cap, over-balance, or unmatched is **declined** automatically. 6. **It's recorded.** The completed charge shows the **real merchant** and the **app** it ran for, so your records always reflect exactly what was bought and on whose behalf. If you **decline**, no money moves and the agent does not get the purchase, it carries on without it. --- ## How To Pause Or Freeze Spending You are always one action away from stopping all agent spending. Two ways, either works instantly: | To... | Do this | Effect | |---|---|---| | **Freeze spending but keep it set up** | Set the **hard cap to 0** | No charge can be approved or run, the ceiling is zero | | **Turn agent spending off entirely** | Flip the **master toggle off** | Spending is disabled; the cap is set to 0 to freeze everything | Turning the master toggle off automatically drops the cap to 0, so a single click fully freezes agent spending. You can re-enable it later, your wallet balance and settings are preserved, and you will be asked to acknowledge the terms again. --- ## Key Things To Remember - **Agents can NEVER spend without your approval.** There is no mode, rule, or automation that bypasses this. Full autonomy does **not** mean autonomous spending. - **The hard cap is absolute.** No charge ever exceeds it. - **Approvals never expire.** A pending spend request waits for you, however long it takes. - **You can freeze it instantly** by setting the cap to 0 or toggling it off. - **Every charge is recorded** with the real merchant and the app it ran for. --- ## Related - [Neotask Payments](neotask-payments) - [Approvals & Safety](auto-companies-approvals-and-safety) - [Company Modes](company-modes)