Updated
Keep an Agent on Budget
EdgeSam writes LinkedIn posts for six executives and has just started running Flux inside Claude for client research. The questions are open-ended, such as what a competitor is posting or who engages with a client. Sam wants to hand that off without approving every step, and without finding out mid-month that one big request used up the credits. A spending rule in the prompt, plus a few free checks, takes care of it.
What you'll end up with
- Your balance: what you have, what you've used this month, and when it resets.
- A cost estimate before any big run.
- A spending rule that makes Claude ask before it passes a limit you set.
- A usage report that shows where your credits went.
Before you start
You need an Edge plan and Flux connected to Claude (see Connecting to Claude). Checking your balance, estimating costs and reading your history are all free.
Tools that read data already in your account are free. Credits pay for live LinkedIn lookups:
| What Claude does | Credits |
|---|---|
| Your posts, analytics, topics and timing | Free |
| Warmth briefs, warm paths, outreach ranking | Free |
| Lists of people and posts (segments, collections) | Free |
| Balance, cost estimates, usage history | Free |
| Save one post from a URL | 1 |
| Who reacted to or commented on a post | 1 per page of up to 100 people |
| Fill in a person's job history | 3 per person |
| Look up one profile, or run a people, company, post or job search | 5 |
| Pull someone's recent posts | 5 per page of 50, up to 25 |
| Suggest five content angles | 5 |
| Search LinkedIn ads | 10 |
| Map the people around a target company | Up to 1 + 3 per person mapped (16 by default) |
Each Edge account gets 200 credits on the 1st of every month (UTC). Unused monthly credits expire when the new grant arrives. Credits from a pack don't expire. Tracked client profiles draw from the same balance: each refresh uses 1 credit, so a daily refresh costs about 30 a month and a weekly one about 4.
How do I keep Claude within a budget?
Check where you stand
How many Flux credits do I have, and how many have I used this month?
Claude reads your account with get_credit_balance. It returns your balance, this month's allocation, and what you've spent since the 1st.
You have 142 credits. You've used 58 of this month's 200, mostly on client profile refreshes. The next grant arrives on December 1.
Estimate before a big run
Before you do anything, what would it cost to map the decision-makers at Halden Logistics for my client, looking at 8 people?
get_cost_estimate returns the most a request can cost, without running it. For requests that scale, such as mapping a company or filling in job history for a list, the estimate grows with the size.
Mapping 8 people at Halden Logistics costs at most 25 credits. You'd have 117 left. It often costs less, because you're only charged for what's actually fetched.
For post pulls, the estimate covers one page of 50 posts. Each extra page adds 5 credits, so ask Claude how many posts it plans to pull.
Put a spending rule in your prompt
Research what Halden Logistics' leadership has posted this quarter and who engages with them. Use free tools wherever you can. Ask me before spending more than 25 credits in total, and tell me the cost of each paid step before you run it.
Claude follows the rule across the whole task, and Flux makes cost visible at every step:
- Every tool response includes your remaining balance, so Claude can keep a running total.
- When a free tool finds that a paid step would help, it includes the estimated credits. A warm-path check missing job history, for example, names the people to fill in and the cost.
- Paid tools check that your balance covers the worst case before they start, then charge only what they actually spend.
- Failed lookups aren't charged. Repeat lookups of a profile or a post list you already pulled come back free from the cache.
A typical mid-task check-in looks like this:
I pulled the CEO's last 50 posts (5 credits, 137 left). To see who engages with her three best posts, I'd fetch their reactions and comments, which comes to about 6 credits. Your limit leaves room for it. Should I go ahead?
Set hard caps where they exist
Fill in job history for the 12 engagers you found, but cap it at 9 credits.
A rule in your prompt depends on Claude following it. Some tools also take a cap that Flux enforces itself. enrich_people accepts a credit limit and stops looking people up once the next person would pass it. People filled in during the last 90 days are skipped at no charge. Company mapping takes a number of people, which sets its ceiling.
I filled in the 3 most active engagers for 9 credits and stopped at your cap. The other 9 weren't looked up. Want me to continue?
Review what you spent
Show me what used my Flux credits this week, grouped by tool.
get_usage_history lists every credit movement: monthly grants, pack purchases, tool charges and refunds. Claude can filter by tool or date range and total it up.
This week you spent 38 credits. Profile refreshes for your six clients used 18. The Halden research used 20: 5 for the CEO's posts, 6 for reactions and comments, and 9 for job history. That's under your 25-credit limit.
Why ask for a rule instead of a number of calls?
Fifty analytics calls cost nothing, while one company map can cost 25 credits. A limit in credits matches what you're protecting, and because every response reports your balance and every paid suggestion carries an estimate, Claude knows when to stop. Restate the rule at the start of each new conversation, since Claude doesn't carry it over on its own.
Variations
Plan this week's research for all six clients. List each paid step with its estimated cost, and don't run anything until I approve the plan.
How many credits will my client profile refreshes use for the rest of the month, and what will that leave for research?
For readers who want control over each step:
Call get_cost_estimate for map_constellation with max_targets 8 and for enrich_people with these 12 person_ids and max_credits 9. Then call get_credit_balance and tell me if both fit.
What it cost Sam
Checking the balance, estimating and reviewing history were free. The Halden research came in at 20 credits against a 25-credit limit, and Claude asked once before the last paid step. Total: 20 credits, with 122 left for the month.
Related stories
- Triage a list of LinkedIn URLs: free steps first, paid steps only for the shortlist.
- Is there a warm path to this person?: a check that tells you the cost before it spends.
- Brief me before a call: a few credits per prospect.
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