A lot of customers have been asking how they can set a limit on the number of times people can use AI tools embedded on their websites. I thought I would write brief breakdown of how to set usage limits and why they’re useful. While the Studio product has a more robust system for limiting AI usage by accounts, we also offer a way to set usage limits on embedded Pickaxes.
Why set usage limits?
There are multiple reasons why you may want to set a usage limit on your embedded Pickaxe.
- Conserve your own credits/API. Importantly, when a smart-form or chatbot is embedded on your website, the tool will debit your Pickaxe credits or use your API key whenever it is used.
- Encourage people to sign up for a paid tier. Many customers have two sections of their website-- one with unlimited usage and one with limited usage. By limiting usage on one tool, you can encourage them to upgrade to the paid tier.
How to set usage limits on embedded Pickaxes
To set an usage limit on your embedded AI tool, simply follow these instructions.
- Click on the Pickaxe.
- Create a new embed (or click on an existing embed). This will take you to the Embed Customization screen.
- In the left-hand panel, look for the “Guest Usage Limit” and set the desired limit.
- (Optional) Set a message that users will receive when they reach the limit.
- Click save.
- If it’s a new embed, copy/paste the embed code on your website. If it’s a pre-existing embed, the usage limit will update automatically without you needing to re-embed it.
Importantly, you can have multiple, different embedded instances of the same Pickaxe. So you can set different limits on different embedded instances. You can keep track of each instance from the Pickaxe’s page which displays them all. Users are tracked by cookies. Their limit resets every 30 days. That means if a browser with a cookie visits your website and uses the embedded tool and gets limited, they will be able to start using it again after 30 days later. Importantly iframe embeds do not support usage limits because they do not support our cookie system. All the other embed types do support usage limits.
If you’re looking for extra resources, here is a step-by-step guide on how to embed an AI chatbot on your website.