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Teams using GitLab Duo Agent Platform with on-demand GitLab Credits are shipping faster, catching bugs earlier, and automating tasks that used to take entire sprints. But as adoption grows, so does oversight from finance, procurement, and platform teams to prove that AI spending is bounded, predictable, and controllable.
One of the greatest barriers to broader AI adoption isn't skepticism about the technology. It's uncertainty about managing spend. Without budget caps, a busy month could produce unexpected expenses. Without per-user limits, a handful of power users could burn through the team's credits before the month is over. And without either, engineering leaders who want to expand their use of agentic AI for software development have to jump through more hoops for budget approval.
Since its general availability, GitLab Duo Agent Platform has provided usage governance and visibility. With GitLab 18.11, we're introducing usage controls for GitLab Credits: spending caps and budget guardrails that give your organization even more control and transparency over how credits are consumed.
Managing GitLab Credits
GitLab 18.11 adds three layers of control over GitLab Credits consumption: a subscription-level spending cap, per-user credit limits, and visibility into cap status and enforcement.
Subscription-level spending cap
Billing account managers can now set a hard monthly ceiling for on-demand GitLab Credits consumption for their entire subscription.
Here's how it works:
- Set a cap in the Customers Portal under your subscription's GitLab Credits settings.
- Enforce spend limits automatically. When on-demand usage reaches the cap, DAP access is paused for all users on that subscription until the next monthly period begins.
- Make adjustments as you go. Raise or disable the cap mid-month to restore access.
The cap resets each monthly period and your configured limit carries forward unless you change it. Because usage data is synchronized periodically rather than in real time, a small amount of additional usage may occur after the cap is reached before enforcement takes effect. See the GitLab Credits documentation for details.
User-level spending caps
Not every user consumes credits at the same rate, and that's expected. But when one or two power users account for a disproportionate share of the pool, the rest of the team can lose access before the month is over.
Per-user credit caps prevent any single user from consuming more than their fair share:
- Flat per-user cap. Set a uniform credit limit that applies equally to every user on the subscription through the GitLab GraphQL API. Unlike the subscription-level cap, the per-user cap applies to a user's total consumption across all credit sources.
- Custom per-user overrides. For organizations that need differentiated limits, you can set individual credit caps for specific users through the GraphQL API. For example, you could give your staff engineers a higher allocation while applying a standard limit to the broader team.
- Individual enforcement. When a user reaches their cap, they retain full access to GitLab. Only their Duo Agent Platform credit usage is paused until the next billing cycle. Everyone else keeps working uninterrupted until they hit their own limit or the subscription-level cap is reached, whichever comes first.
Visibility and notifications
When a subscription-level cap is reached, GitLab sends an email notification to billing account managers so they can take action: raise the cap, wait for the next period, or redistribute credits.
Within GitLab, group owners (GitLab.com) and instance administrators (Self-Managed) can view which users have been blocked due to reaching their per-user cap and restore access by adjusting the cap through the GraphQL API.
How budget guardrails help organizations scale AI usage
Guardrails are essential as organizations ramp up their AI adoption. Here's why:
Predictable AI budgets
Usage controls for GitLab Duo Agent Platform turn AI into a bounded, predictable budget item using on-demand GitLab Credits. That makes it easier to deploy agents across the software development lifecycle and get sign-off from finance, justify renewals, and plan quarterly spend.
Governance and chargeback
Large organizations often need to align AI consumption with internal budgets, cost centers, or departmental policies. Per-user caps give platform teams a straightforward mechanism to allocate credits fairly and track consumption at the individual level. The API import options make it practical to manage caps at enterprise scale. Combined with per-user usage data from the GitLab Credits dashboard, organizations can track consumption patterns to inform their own internal chargeback or budget allocation processes.
Confidence to scale
Many customers start GitLab Duo Agent Platform with a small pilot group. Usage controls remove risks associated with expanding that pilot across the organization. You can roll out Duo Agent Platform to hundreds or thousands of developers knowing there's a hard ceiling protecting your budget. If usage grows faster than expected, you'll hit the cap, not an unexpected invoice.
Addressing the seat-based and visibility conundrum
Many AI coding tools take a seat-based approach to cost management. You buy a fixed number of seats at a flat per-user price, and that's your budget. It's simple, but rigid. You pay the same whether a developer uses the tool ten times a day or never touches it. And as vendors introduce premium models and usage-based overages on top of seat pricing, the cost predictability that seat-based licensing promised starts to erode.
GitLab takes a different approach. Usage-based pricing with hard caps and a single governance dashboard. You get the flexibility of paying for what your teams actually use, with the budget predictability of enforced spending limits.
Real-world usage controls
One example is a mid-size SaaS customer that wants to protect their monthly budget. A 200-person engineering organization sets a subscription-level cap equal to their expected on-demand usage. Their VP of Engineering can confidently tell finance that GitLab Duo Agent Platform spend will never exceed the approved amount, even as they onboard new teams. If they approach the cap mid-month, the billing account manager gets a notification and can decide whether to raise the limit or wait for the next period.
At GitLab, we also work with large enterprises that want to keep usage fair across teams. A global financial services company with 2,000 developers uses per-user caps to ensure equitable access. Staff engineers working on complex refactoring projects get a higher individual allocation via API, while most developers receive a standard flat cap. No single user can exhaust the pool, and the platform team uses the per-user usage data in the GitLab Credits dashboard to track consumption patterns and inform quarterly budget planning.
Getting started
Usage controls are available for both GitLab.com and Self-Managed customers running GitLab 18.11. Different controls are configured in different places depending on the scope and your role.
Subscription-level cap
Billing account managers set the subscription-level on-demand cap in the Customers Portal:
- Sign in to the Customers Portal.
- On your subscription card, navigate to GitLab Credits settings.
- Enable the monthly on-demand credits cap and enter your desired limit.
Flat per-user cap
The flat per-user cap can be set through the GitLab GraphQL API by namespace owners (GitLab.com) or instance administrators (Self-Managed). Check the GitLab Credits documentation for the latest on available configuration surfaces.
Custom per-user overrides
For differentiated limits, namespace owners (GitLab.com) and instance administrators (Self-Managed) can set individual caps programmatically. This is useful for automation and infrastructure-as-code workflows.
Monitor usage and cap status
- Customers Portal: View detailed usage and cap status.
- GitLab.com: Group owners can view blocked users under Settings > GitLab Credits.
- Self-Managed: Instance administrators can view cap status and blocked users under Admin > GitLab Credits.
GitLab Duo Agent Platform is ready to scale
Usage controls are available now in GitLab 18.11. If you've been waiting for the right guardrails before expanding GitLab Duo Agent Platform across your organization, this is your moment. Set your caps, roll out Duo Agent Platform to more teams, and start shipping faster!