Usage and Budgets

Track Managed Research spend, budget caps, and hard-stop behavior.

Managed Research exposes usage and budget state through MCP, Python, and the UI.

Plan and included usage

Managed Research separates the commercial plan from Beta Access.

Surface	What it includes
Free	One-time credits, lite, directed_effort, standard model access.
Free + Beta Access	Free plus open_ended_discovery, heavy, and all-model access.
Pro	Monthly included usage, the paid GA model bundle, and higher run limits.
Pro + Beta Access	Pro plus open_ended_discovery, heavy, and all-model access.
Team	10x Pro included usage and run limits at 8x the Pro monthly price.
Team + Beta Access	Team plus open_ended_discovery, heavy, and all-model access.

The June launch promo plan is free_launch: $500 of Managed Research usage, up to 2 concurrent active runs, and no self-serve scheduled projects. If you need recurring or scheduled work, contact Synth so we can scope it against your plan, Beta Access state, and resource limits.

Use smr_get_billing_entitlements to inspect the authoritative entitlement snapshot for an organization. Usage details may show resource buckets such as agent_codex, openrouter, tinker, and sandbox; pricing headlines roll these into included Managed Research usage.

Usage reads

Use usage reads to inspect month-to-date totals, recent totals, per-run spend, and budget state.

MCP tools:

• smr_get_billing_entitlements
• smr_get_run_usage
• smr_get_run_resource_limits
• smr_get_run_progress_toward_resource_limits
• smr_get_project_usage
• smr_get_project_resource_limits
• smr_get_project_progress_toward_resource_limits
• smr_list_runs

Budget controls

Budgets can stop the current run or block new runs.

Limit	Behavior
run_usd_cents	Stops the current run and marks the stop reason as budget exhausted.
monthly_usd_cents	Blocks additional run triggers after the cap is reached.
timebox_seconds	Stops a run on timeout even if budget remains.

Resource limits expose the same state as first-class run and project nouns:

Surface	What to read
Run limits	smr_get_run_resource_limits, smr_get_run_progress_toward_resource_limits
Project limits	smr_get_project_resource_limits, smr_get_project_progress_toward_resource_limits
Usage rollups	smr_get_run_usage, smr_get_project_usage, smr_get_billing_entitlements

Progress responses include configured caps, current usage, remaining amount, state, active blockers, and whether extension requests are allowed.

Unblocking work

When a spend limit blocks a run or project, request an extension with smr_request_resource_limit_extension or the matching Python SDK helper.

Extensions can set a new absolute USD limit or add USD budget to the current limit. Callers can also ask Managed Research to resolve matching blockers and resume the blocked run or project after the extension is accepted.

Orchestrators should ration before a hard block whenever progress is high: reduce fanout, choose a cheaper model, summarize context, or request an extension early.

Provider usage

Provider bindings and model choices influence usage. Public examples use:

providers=[{"provider": "openrouter"}]

Backend preflight remains authoritative for provider availability, credentials, and budget blockers.

Cost visibility

Evidence and usage should be read together. A useful run handoff includes:

• final state and stop reason
• task and actor counts
• artifact manifest
• report or PR summary
• provider/model choices
• usage and budget status