# Usage & cost

Every paid turn is metered per house and stamped with whose key paid it: `worker` (arbe's key — the included alpha budget) or `house`/`env` (a provider key you added under [house secrets](system/access/secrets.md) — your bill, never capped by us). Both sides of that split, plus 30-day breakdowns by capability, model, and thread, are at `/houses/<id>/usage` in the web app.

`houses.spend_cap_usd` is a **lifetime** cap on arbe-funded spend only, defaulting to **$5** for new houses. Only arbe can change it — the column is not in the authenticated update grants and no API or CLI exposes it — so email oskar@rough.dk for a raise. It does not renew.

Once the cap is used up, worker-key seams refuse rather than dispatch stopping wholesale: a bot reply or ambient speaker decision is skipped with `reason: 'budget_exceeded'` (visible in `arbe thread trace`), and worker-key tools return a refusal saying the included budget is gone. The escape hatch is your own key — add `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` under house secrets and LLM turns run uncapped on it. A few seams (parts of sandbox) always use arbe keys and stay paused until the cap is raised.

See also: [system/llm-keys](system/access/llm-keys.md), [system/analytics](system/ops/analytics.md).