Buyer Caps

What a Cap Is

A cap record limits how much a buyer can do over a given
period. Caps are the primary mechanism by which a call network
prevents overspending and matches call volume to buyer's demand.

Cap Types

The cap type controls which counter is compared against the
threshold. The set of enabled types is configured per-company
in account settings:

• Buyer Conversion - counts successful buyer conversions. The most common cap type in paid call networks.
• Revenue - sums the payout dollars generated by the buyer.
• Attempt - counts every dial attempt, regardless of outcome.
• Connection - counts calls that reached the established status, regardless of whether they converts or not.

Cap Intervals

The interval controls when the counter resets. The buyer cap
form exposes Total, Monthly, and Daily limits for each enabled
cap type:

• Daily - resets at midnight in the buyer's configured time zone.
• Monthly - resets on the first day of the month in the buyer's time zone.
• Total - never resets. Counts from the beginning of the buyer's history.

Hourly caps and concurrency caps exist but are configured
separately via per-business-range rows (see the
"How to Set Buyer Caps" article). There is no weekly cap.

How Caps Are Enforced

Caps are evaluated when the system checks buyer availability.
When a cap's counter reaches its threshold, the buyer is
removed from the routing pool for all incoming calls until the
counter resets. The buyer is not paused; it is simply marked as
maxed out. This distinction matters because the cap releases
automatically at the interval boundary without any manual
action.

Several caps of different types and intervals can coexist on a
single buyer. The buyer is maxed out as soon as any one of them
hits.

Spacing Caps

A spacing cap is a specialized cap that enforces minimum
seconds between calls. It is tracked separately from standard
caps and does not have an interval; it resets continuously
based on the timestamp of the most recent call.

Cap Change Audit Trail

All cap modifications are recorded in the system log with a
change difference showing which fields were updated and
their before/after values. This audit trail is viewable from the
change logs and helps track who adjusted caps and when.