Set monthly AI budgets (Beta)

To monitor and limit the amount that your organization spends on AI features in Sigma, you can set a default monthly AI budget and override it for specific users, teams, and account types. Budgets are specific to the models used by your AI provider and calculated in US dollars (USD), using the public prices for the relevant models or custom prices that you set.

For more about how budgets work, see About AI budgets.

To set monthly AI budgets in Sigma, do the following:

1. Set model prices for AI providers.
2. Configure AI budgets.

User and system requirements

• You must be assigned the Admin account type.
• Your organization must have an AI provider configured to set model prices and AI budgets.

All users can view their own AI spend and budget in their user profile without any additional permissions.

About AI budgets

AI budgets apply to each user, including embed users and guest users. When you set a budget for a team or an account type, the budget applies separately to each team member or user assigned the account type. Users do not share a budget.

Overlapping budgets are not additive. If a user is assigned multiple budgets (for example, through a budget set for both a team and an account type), Sigma uses the first match in the following order to determine a user’s budget:

1. A user-specific budget override.
2. A team-specific budget override. If the user belongs to multiple teams with an override, the team with the highest priority applies.
3. An account-type-specific budget override.
4. The default budget.

If there is no default budget set, and the user does not have a user, team, or account type override set, the user has an unlimited budget.

Budgets reset at the start of each calendar month in UTC.

What usage is tracked for budgets

Usage of the following AI-powered features is tracked for AI budgets:

• Sigma agents
• Sigma Assistant, including Assistant in the workbook
• Formula assistant
• Explain this chart

Budgets apply across all features. You can’t set a budget for a specific feature or a specific agent.

The following AI usage doesn’t count toward budgets:

• AI columns. To limit AI column usage, see Configure token usage limits for AI columns.
• Warehouse agent usage. To limit warehouse agent usage, set budgets for the relevant agents in your data platform.
• Embeddings. Sigma creates embeddings for semantic search using the embeddings model and a service account. You cannot set a budget for embeddings.
• MCP server usage. The Sigma MCP server does not use the Sigma AI provider, so you cannot set an AI budget in Sigma.

What happens when a user reaches their budget

Before each AI request, Sigma checks whether the user has reached their monthly budget. When the user has used 80% or more of their monthly budget, Sigma shows a warning in chat conversations.

If the user’s spend is at or over their budget, Sigma blocks the request and shows the message “You have reached your monthly AI budget”.

A user can regain access if:

• You raise or remove their budget.
• The month resets.

After you change a budget, users that were over budget might need to refresh the page, or sign out and back in, before they can interact with AI-powered features in Sigma again.

Limitations

• The spend numbers used for budgets are an estimate and might not match actual costs reported in your AI provider billing. To estimate a budget, Sigma multiplies the token usage reported by the configured AI provider by the model prices. If a request is canceled or fails, the provider might not report usage to Sigma.
• If a model does not have a list price or a custom price set in Sigma, spend that uses that model is not counted toward the budget.
• A user can exceed their personal budget. If a user is close to the budget limit and interacts with an AI feature, the request might complete over budget. Subsequent requests are blocked.
• Alerts and notifications aren’t available for AI budgets.
• Budgets are user-specific, calculated in US dollars, and reset each month. Other currencies and time periods are not supported.

Set model prices for AI providers

Sigma calculates spend using the price of each model, in US dollars per 1 million tokens. By default, Sigma uses the public list prices. If your organization has negotiated different rates with your AI provider, you can enter your own prices. Prices are encrypted when stored.

To set custom model prices:

1. Go to Administration > AI settings.

2. Select the Budgets tab.

3. In the AI provider model costs section, select Edit.

4. For each model, edit the price for each token type:

   • Input: Price paid for input tokens.
   • Cache read: Price paid for reading cached tokens.
   • Cache write: Price paid for caching tokens.
   • Output: Price paid for output tokens.

   Enter a price greater than 0 with up to 9 decimal places.

   If a model doesn’t support a token type (such as caching tokens), enter a hyphen: -.

5. Select Save.

Each model shows List price or Custom to indicate which price Sigma uses.

To restore list prices for all AI providers:

1. In the AI provider model costs section, select Edit.
2. Select Reset to list prices.
3. Select Save.

Configure AI budgets

You can configure budgets for users, teams, and account types.

• To apply a budget to every user, set a default budget.

• To set budgets for specific users, teams, or account types, set specific budgets. For example:

  • Set budgets for teams to limit embed users to specific budgets negotiated with each customer that you provide analytics for.
  • Set budgets for account types to allow users with a Build account type spend more on AI than users with a View account type.
  • Set budgets for users to make exceptions for users working on specific AI-intensive projects, such as building interactive dashboards.

Set a default AI budget

The default budget applies to everyone who doesn’t have a specific budget set. Until you set a default budget, the default is Unlimited.

To set a default budget:

1. Go to Administration > AI settings.

2. Select the Budgets tab.

3. In the Default AI budget section, select Edit.

4. For Monthly budget per person, enter a positive dollar amount with up to 2 decimal places.

   To allow unlimited spend, leave the default budget empty.

5. Select Save.

Set specific AI budgets

To set AI budgets for specific users, teams, or account types, override the default budget. Each user, team, or account type can have a single override.

To add a budget override:

1. Go to Administration > AI settings.
2. Select the Budgets tab.
3. In the Budget overrides section, select Add budget override.
4. For Override type, select one of User, Team, or Account type, then search for and select the user, team, or account type to apply the override to.
5. For Monthly budget per person, enter a positive dollar amount with up to 2 decimal places.
6. Select Add.

Repeat the steps for each user, team, or account type for which you want to set a specific budget.

After you set specific AI budgets, the Budget overrides section lists all configured overrides in the order they apply: users, then teams by priority, then account types.

Modify an override

To edit or delete an override:

1. Go to Administration > AI settings.

2. Select the Budgets tab.

3. In the Budget overrides section, in the row for the override, select More ().

4. Select an option:

   • Edit budget: For Monthly budget per person, enter a new amount, then select Save.
   • Delete budget: In the confirmation dialog, select Delete. The user, team, or account type is then limited by the next matching budget that applies. See About AI budgets.

Set team priority

If a user belongs to multiple teams with a budget override, the override for the team with the highest priority applies to that user.

To change the priority of team budget overrides:

1. Go to Administration > AI settings.
2. Select the Budgets tab.
3. In the Budget overrides section, select Reorder teams.
4. In the list of teams, drag the teams into priority order. The team at the top has the highest priority.
5. Select Done.

Monitor AI spend

To monitor monthly and historical AI usage in Sigma:

• Review spend for the current month in the AI spend this month section on the Budgets tab for every user with recorded spend in the current month.
• Review historical spend in the AI usage dashboard, if you have it configured. See AI usage dashboard.
• Review your personal spend in the AI usage section of your user profile.

Related resources

• Configure AI features for your organization
• Configure token usage limits for AI columns
• AI usage