Managing Agent Limits & Usage Quotas
Control how many messages your agents process per visitor, per day, or per month to protect your account and manage costs.
Managing Agent Limits & Usage Quotas
Every business is different. Some agents handle thousands of conversations a day; others serve a handful of VIP clients. Anakin gives you fine-grained control over how many messages each agent can process, so you stay in charge of your costs and your customer experience.
Why Set Limits?
Without limits, a single public agent could exhaust your entire monthly message allowance in hours. This can happen if it goes viral, gets scraped by bots, or a curious visitor decides to have an all-day conversation.
Setting limits lets you:
- Protect your budget - Cap spending at the agent level so one bot can't drain your plan.
- Prevent abuse - Stop individual visitors from flooding your agent with messages.
- Allocate resources - Give your most important agents more room and limit experimental ones.
The Three Types of Limits
Anakin offers three independent limit controls. You can use them individually or combine them for layered protection.
| Limit | Scope | Resets | Best For |
|-------|-------|--------|----------|
| Visitor Limit | Per individual visitor | Every 24 hours | Preventing one person from monopolizing the agent |
| Daily Agent Limit | Entire agent, all users combined | Every day at midnight (UTC) | Capping daily operational costs |
| Monthly Agent Limit | Entire agent, all users combined | First day of each month | Long-term budget control |
Visitor Session Limit
The maximum number of messages a single visitor can send to your agent within a 24-hour window. This limit follows the visitor. Even if they refresh the page or close the browser, their count is preserved.
Daily Agent Limit
The total number of messages your agent can process in a single day across all visitors and users combined. Once reached, the agent pauses for everyone until the next day.
Monthly Agent Limit
A monthly budget cap for the agent. Perfect for allocating a fixed number of messages per month. For example, giving your Sales Bot exactly 5,000 messages per month.
How to Set Limits
Setting limits takes less than a minute. No code required.
1. Open your Dashboard and navigate to the Agents section.
2. Select the agent you want to configure from the dropdown.
3. Go to the Limits & Access tab (look for the lock icon).
4. Enter your values:
- Leave any field blank or set it to 0 for unlimited access.
- Enter a number to enforce the limit (e.g., 10 for 10 messages).
5. Click Save Changes. Your limits take effect instantly, across all active sessions.
> Tip: You can combine all three limits. For example, set a visitor limit of 5, a daily limit of 200, and a monthly limit of 3,000 for layered protection.
What Your Visitors See
When a visitor reaches their limit, Anakin handles it gracefully. No ugly errors, no broken UI.
Here is what happens:
1. The visitor's earlier messages and the agent's replies remain visible.
2. The chat input bar is automatically disabled with a clear, friendly message.
3. A polite system notification appears: "You have reached the message limit for this agent. Please try again later."
4. The limit resets automatically. Visitors can return the next day (or next month) and chat again.
The experience is completely seamless. Visitors are never shown technical error codes or confusing messages.
Recommended Settings by Use Case
Not sure what numbers to use? Here are our recommendations:
| Agent Type | Visitor Limit | Daily Limit | Monthly Limit |
|------------|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| Customer Support (public) | 15 - 25 | 500 | 10,000 |
| Lead Generation (public) | 8 - 12 | 200 | 5,000 |
| Sales Assistant (public) | 10 - 20 | 300 | 8,000 |
| Internal Tool (private) | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Demo / Testing | 3 - 5 | 50 | 500 |
> Tip: Start conservative and increase limits as you learn your agent's actual usage patterns. You can always change them at any time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do limits apply to the agent owner too?
No. When you chat with your own agent from the Dashboard, owner messages are not counted against these limits.
What happens if I set all limits to unlimited?
Your agent will process messages without restriction. Your account's global plan quota still applies as a safety net.
Can I set different limits for different visitors?
Currently, limits apply equally to all visitors of a given agent. For differentiated access, consider creating separate agents with different visibility and limit settings.
Do limits reset if I change them?
No. Changing a limit does not reset the current usage count. If a visitor has already used 3 of their 5-message limit and you lower it to 2, they will remain blocked until the 24-hour window resets.
Will my visitors lose their conversation history when blocked?
No. All previous messages remain visible. Only new messages are blocked until the limit resets.
Next Steps
- Set up your first limit - Head to the Agent Builder and configure limits for your most active agent.
- Monitor usage - Keep an eye on your agent's activity in the Dashboard to fine-tune your limits over time.
- Combine with Access Control - Pair limits with Visibility & Access Control for maximum protection.