Spend limit
A cap on how much an agent may pay, enforced by the system that executes the payment, not by the agent.
A spend limit is a cap on how much an agent may pay, set per transaction, per period or in total, and enforced by the system that executes the payment rather than by the agent. Limits can also restrict currency, merchant or category. The Agentic Commerce Protocol, for example, lets a payment provider tokenise a card with allowance constraints such as a maximum amount, a currency, an expiry time and a merchant.
Agent Minute explains this term on 3 November 2026.
Related terms
MandateA checkable statement of what an agent may do for a principal: which action, how much, with whom and until when.Delegated paymentGiving an agent a payment token limited by an allowance, such as amount, currency, merchant and expiry.Variable recurring paymentA series of payments made under one standing consent, within limits such as a maximum per payment and per period.Mandate expiryThe point after which a mandate no longer authorises anything, as a fixed end time or on completion of a task.