Usage allowances and limits

What is the monthly AI limit?

UrCartBuddy uses AI for several features — sorting your lists, importing items from photos and recipes, transcribing voice commands, titling attachments, and powering Chat, Telegram and WhatsApp. Each of these calls a paid AI provider, so we cap the AI spend each account can incur per calendar month to keep things sustainable while UrCartBuddy is in early access.

The default cap is 60p per calendar month. The cap resets at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of every month. On a shared list, AI usage is allocated to the list owner's allowance, including when a collaborator makes the request. Cross-list requests are allocated to the owners of the lists involved.

We'll show a warning toast in the web app, and a one-line note in Telegram replies, when you've used 90% and 98% of your monthly allowance — once per threshold per month, so we don't nag.

What pauses when the cap is reached?

All AI-powered features pause until the start of the next calendar month:

• Magic Sort — AI recognition and categorisation of unfamiliar items. Your store route is learned from manual arrangements and eligible completed shops.
• AI Import — pasting a list of items and having them turned into individual entries
• Voice transcription — voice commands on the web app
• Attachment titling — auto-generated short titles for photos, receipts, and PDFs you attach
• WhatsApp, Chat & Telegram — natural-language conversations and recipe imports
• Recipe import — extracting ingredients from recipe URLs and dish searches

Everything that doesn't need AI keeps working: viewing and editing your lists, adding and checking items by hand, sharing lists, archiving, attachments uploaded by you, and confirming or cancelling a pending action in Chat or Telegram with a simple yes or no. WhatsApp confirmations also need an available WhatsApp reply allowance.

What is the WhatsApp reply allowance?

WhatsApp text replies have a separate allowance for each list owner with an active trial or plan, shared across the members and lists they cover. The default allowance is based on an estimated 95p of messaging cost: up to about 68 ordinary text replies at the current estimate. This is included access, not an extra payment or an overage charge.

Quick typed adds confirmed with 👍 do not use the text reply allowance. Photos, voice notes, documents, questions, warnings and errors keep text replies. A quick add can also receive text if a reaction cannot be used. AI used on shared lists still counts against the list owners' separate AI allowances.

The reply allowance resets at midnight UK time (Europe/London) on the first of each month. The AI allowance resets at 00:00 UTC; these times differ during British Summer Time.

What happens when replies run out?

WhatsApp actions covered by the exhausted owner pause before any shopping work, including quick adds and yes/no confirmations. Each affected person can receive one notice for that owner and month with a Chat link. Further blocked messages are silent, do not change your list, and are not replayed when the month resets.

Carry on by hand in the app, or use Chat (sign in) or Telegram. Their AI features still need an available AI allowance. Resend any blocked request yourself after the reset if it is still needed. Separate service-wide safety limits can also pause WhatsApp.

UrCartBuddy uses a one-to-one chat; the shopping list is shared, not the conversation. See the Privacy policy for messaging records and retention.

Need a higher AI cap?

If your usage is regularly bumping up against the cap, get in touch on the contact page and we'll review your account.