Credit limits let workspace owners and admins cap the total number of credits that can be spent on recruitment for any single study. This keeps spend predictable and stops one study from using more of your credit balance than planned. Credit limits are available on all paid plans and are off by default.
Who can set a credit limit
Only workspace owners and admins can see and change credit limits. Members can't access this setting.
How to set a credit limit
Go to Settings and select Credit limits under Governance.
Turn on Credit limit per study.
Enter the maximum number of credits a study can spend (whole numbers, minimum 1).
Click Save limit.
The limit applies to every study in your workspace straight away.
Exempt owners and admins
Once a limit is saved, you can tick Owners and admins are exempt from this limit. Exempt owners and admins can place recruitment orders as normal, even if a study is over its limit.
If you've edited the limit but haven't saved it yet, save it before changing this setting.
What happens when a study reaches its limit
When someone sets up a recruitment order, we add the order's cost to the credits already spent on recruitment for that study and compare the total with the limit. This applies to members, and to owners and admins unless they're exempt.
Below the limit: nothing changes. The order summary looks as usual.
At or over the limit: the total credit cost turns red, the button to proceed is removed and this message appears: "The credit limit for this study has been reached. You can reduce the number of responses or contact an admin to increase the limit."
Over the limit and not enough workspace credits: one message covers both problems, and the order details are saved so you can come back to it later.
When the study limit is what's blocking an order, the option to buy more credits isn't shown. To continue, reduce the number of responses until the order fits within the limit, or ask an owner or admin to raise it.
Change or remove a limit
To change the limit, enter a new number and click Save limit.
To remove the limit, turn off Credit limit per study. This takes effect immediately.
Changing a limit doesn't affect orders that have already been placed. The new limit applies to the next order on each study, so if a study has already spent more than the new limit, further orders on it will be blocked until the limit is raised.
FAQs
Does the limit apply to the whole workspace or to each study?
To each study. Every study gets the same limit, and spend is tracked separately for each one.
Can I set different limits for different studies or people?
Not at the moment. One limit applies to all studies in the workspace.
Will anyone be notified when a study reaches its limit?
No. The person placing the order sees a message in the order summary.