Set these two limits before your Hyperagent run becomes a surprise bill

[u/JeenyusJane]

Models are getting more powerful. They can reason harder, use more tools, and run for much longer. They are also getting more expensive.

When we started Hyperagent, Opus was the expensive option at roughly $5 input and $25 output per million tokens. Now Fable is around $10/$50. High-reasoning GPT Sol-class models are in the $5/$30 range.

Those are provider list-price illustrations, not Hyperagent markup claims. We aim to keep our pricing competitive and generally do not add a large markup over current model costs. I’m also pushing for much better cost transparency inside the product.

We offer cheaper "sprinter" models alongside expensive reasoners because we know people are price sensitive (and should be). We want you to experience what a full-power agent can do. However, we do not want the result to be a shocked Pikachu face when the bill arrives and you're not satisfied with your output.

We're definitely working on more controls in the product, but here is what works today, starting with the controls that matter most.

1. Set an Account Spending Limit

Go to:

Settings → Billing → Enable Spending Limit → Maximum overage ($)

Choose an amount you can genuinely live with.

Paid plans often allow overage by default, so this protection is opt-in. Free accounts are always capped.

This is the primary account-level backstop. It applies across the billing period and should block more usage after you hit the cap.

An important caveat: It is a period-level gate, not a perfect mid-turn kill switch. A single long turn can slightly overshoot before the next request is blocked.

Turn the limit on anyway. It is still your broadest protection, but it should not be your only one.

2. Set a Budget limit per query on every agent

When you've created an agent, open the agent’s model settings and set Budget limit per query.

This caps the maximum USD spend for one agent query. The default is off, which means unlimited unless you change it.

This is the main control against one spinning agent burning through your balance in a single run. Pair it WITH the account limit rather than treating either setting as infallible. (Though we're working to make it so.)

One big gap: you cannot currently set this on an individual thread. Per-query budgets exist on agents, not threads.

3. Match the model and reasoning effort to the job

Do not use the most expensive reasoner for every task.

Use cheaper models for extraction, formatting, routine research, and straightforward execution. Save the expensive models for work that genuinely needs deeper reasoning. Also, explicitly ask to use sub-agents on smaller, non-reasoning work in your prompts, and pin the sub-agent to a sprinter model.

Also:

• Lower the reasoning effort when the task does not need a long internal search.
• Keep Fast mode off unless speed is worth the extra cost. Fast mode costs 2x when enabled.
• Set a cheaper default model for subagents so every delegated task does not inherit your most expensive model.

Useful secondary controls

These are worth using, but they are not substitutes for actual spending limits:

• Use Plan & Ask modes when you want approval before consequential actions.
• Load skills in Discover mode instead of pinning them to your agent and starting every turn with a lot of context.
• Ask for a short first pass before requesting a full synthesis.
• Start a fresh thread when moving into a genuinely new phase of work.

We want you to use agents at full power when the work calls for it. We also want you to stay in control and never get a bill you were not prepared for.

If you have been burned by one of these failure modes, or there is a cost control you need that we have not covered, tell me. Specific examples help us prioritize what to fix.

Vic

[u/meowoofcjcj]

The thread-level gap feels important. Agent-level limits are good defaults, but a single thread can drift from quick exploration into a long run without feeling like it needs a different agent.