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Credit limit

❗ Important: Credit limit management is an Early Availability feature and is not enabled by default. Contact your AppDirect technical representative to request enablement. For more information about feature status, see Product lifecycle phases.

Credit limit provides marketplaces with sophisticated financial guardrails. It aligns with industry-standard postpaid models, ensuring that customers pay their outstanding balances to continue enjoying the benefits of their services. To apply the limit, the platform measures each company's exposure and compares it to the credit limit you configure.

Partners can configure exactly how much credit a customer can have at any given point in time. Unlike the spend limit that relies on a rolling 30-day window, credit limit keeps exposure aligned with real-time debt and related subscription data. As a customer pays their outstanding dues, their available credit is instantly restored.

Exposure is the total financial commitment the platform measures against the credit limit configured for the company. It includes unpaid invoice balances, adds certain subscription amounts that are committed but not yet invoiced (depending on configured credit reservation window), subtracts available credit memos and pending payments that reduce what is owed, and includes the purchase currently being evaluated. When credit limit validation for metered usage is enabled for your marketplace, the posted metered usage is also included. Posted metered usage counts toward credit limit utilization as soon as usage is posted, while metered invoicing can still occur at the end of the billing period. For each component and the exact formula, see How credit limit exposure is calculated.

📝 Note: Credit Limit is applicable only if Billing V2 is enabled. If you do not have Billing V2, contact your AppDirect technical representative to request it.

How credit limit exposure is calculated​

When a purchase is checked, the platform compares the configured credit limit to exposure.

Exposure is an estimate of how much the company already owes or is committed to pay—including subscription amounts that are not on an invoice yet—after applying reductions for credit memos and pending payments, and including the order being attempted. Depending on your billing setup, exposure can be calculated for the whole company or for the purchasing user.

Exposure formula

Exposure = outstanding invoiced balance + non-invoiced commitments + posted metered usage (when credit limit validation for metered usage is enabled) - available credit memos - pending payments + current order value + metered usage

A transaction can be blocked when exposure would exceed the credit limit after including the purchase being attempted.

What increases exposure

  • Outstanding invoiced balance — Amounts already invoiced and due (from customer balance), consistent with unpaid invoice debt.
  • Non-invoiced commitments — Subscription-related amounts that are not on an invoice yet but still represent payable exposure. These can include:
    • External provisioning delays — Purchase orders that are waiting on external provisioning, manual recovery, asynchronous creation, or migration activation before the subscription becomes active; the committed amounts can count toward exposure even though no invoice has been raised.
    • Scheduled subscription changes — Future-dated activations (for example, initialized orders with a future service start and a defined contract end) and similar delayed provisioning scenarios where billing exposure is known before invoicing. When your marketplace uses the Credit reservation window setting (see Credit reservation window), only scheduled changes with due dates inside that window are included in credit limit utilization; commitments dated farther in the future are ignored for utilization until they move into the window.
    • Contract-period remainder — For active subscriptions with a contract end date and billing that is not strictly a single annual invoice, remaining amounts from the next invoice date through the contract end can be included so multi-month or contract-period risk is reflected between invoice runs.
  • Posted metered usage — When credit limit is enabled for your marketplace, charges from metered usage products are included in exposure as soon as usage is posted. This can block new checkout orders, opportunity finalizations, renewals, and upgrades when remaining credit is exhausted; downgrades are still allowed. For metered usage occurring outside the platform, developers receive notifications, allowing them to manage customer restrictions.

What reduces exposure

  • Available credit memos — Credit memo totals that reduce invoice balance lower exposure the same way they reduce what the customer owes.
  • Pending payments — Payments that are still pending but are expected to settle against outstanding invoices reduce exposure because they will decrease the balance once processed.

Why this matters

Relying on open invoices alone can understate exposure. A company might still show “room” under the limit if only unpaid invoices are considered, while subscriptions already commit to future charges, provisioning-pending orders, or contract-period amounts. Including those commitments, and netting credit memos and pending payments, aligns blocks and approvals with total risk.

Data behind the calculation

Customer balance (invoices, credit memos, pending payments), subscription purchase orders and terms, and posted metered usage are combined so one exposure view supports credit limit checks. Integrations and services can use a federated GraphQL exposure query that returns the same building blocks; marketplace administrators configure the limit and overrides in the UI as described below.

Edge cases and timing

  • Exposure can change when provisioning finishes, invoices are generated, payments settle, or credit memos are applied—without any change to the configured limit. A purchase that was blocked can succeed after the underlying balances and commitments update.
  • When credit limit validation for metered usage is enabled, exposure also changes as metered usage is posted or adjusted, which can block or unblock purchases before the metered invoice is generated.
  • Pending payments and credit memos reduce exposure only when the platform recognizes them in the applicable pending or available states.
  • Depending on whether your marketplace uses company-wide billing or user-scoped billing, exposure may be evaluated at company level or for the purchasing user; the credit limit still caps the same risk, but the aggregation scope follows your billing setup.

Credit reservation window​

The Credit Reservation Window defines how far into the future the system looks when calculating credit limit utilization for upcoming scheduled changes.

You can configure a Credit reservation window—the number of days forward from today that the platform uses when it adds upcoming scheduled subscription changes to credit limit utilization. Only scheduled changes whose due dates fall within that window are counted; scheduled amounts due beyond the window do not inflate current utilization.

Without a configured value, the platform uses a default window of 30 days.

To configure Credit reservation window

  1. Go to Manage > Marketplace > Settings > BILLING SETTINGS | Billing Functionality, open **Purchase Re
  2. When Credit limit is enabled, set Credit reservation window using the dropdown:
  • 30 days (default)
  • 60 days
  • 90 days
  • Custom — enter a value up to 999 days

📝 Note:

  • Credit limit must be enabled before this control applies; see Credit limit configuration.
  • If no reservation window value is set, the default of 30 days still applies.

Credit limit configuration​

📝 Note: This documentation page may refer to Manage > Marketplace in navigation steps. If the Manage option is not available in your navigation, click the grid icon on the top-left corner of your header and click Marketplace.

  • Go to Manage > Marketplace > Settings > BILLING SETTINGS | Billing Functionality > Purchase Restrictions

In this section, Marketplace Managers can:

  • Turn credit limit on or off
  • Set a marketplace default credit limit
  • Allow company-level overrides and exemptions
  • Set the Credit reservation window see Credit reservation window

Company-level updates are configured from Manage > Marketplace > Dashboard > Home > Companies > company > Settings.

From company-level configuration, Marketplace Managers can:

  • Exempt a company from credit limit
  • Override credit limit for a company
  • Grant unlimited credit to a trusted company

For step-by-step marketplace controls (turning the feature on, default limit, and company-level override options in the UI), see the Credit limits section of Configure purchase restrictions.

How credit limit is applied​

When credit limit is enabled:

Checkout V2. When a credit limit is configured, Checkout V2 validates the cart at order submission against the applicable marketplace or company limit, using up-to-date exposure at that moment. If the order would exceed available credit, checkout is blocked and the customer sees an error message. Validation uses the same buyer-facing pattern as spend limits and other purchase restrictions. If both credit limit and spend limits apply, Checkout V2 shows one validation message at a time, with the credit limit message first; after the buyer resolves the credit issue, spend limit validation runs again as applicable. For the product announcement, see Credit limit validation in Checkout V2.

  • Checkout purchases — In Checkout V2, enforcement is at order submission as described above. Other checkout experiences may enforce credit limit where supported by the platform.
  • Opportunity finalization can be blocked when the finalized purchase would exceed remaining credit.
  • Planned Renewals can be suspended when available credit is fully utilized.
  • Subscription upgrades can be blocked when the new recurring exposure would exceed remaining credit.
  • Carts, quotes, and downgrades are not blocked by this rule because they do not create immediate additional debt or they reduce exposure. However, in case of indirect billing, finalizing a quote or opportunity can still be blocked if that step exceeds the reseller’s remaining credit (the company the operator bills), not the end customer’s.

Users can see a message prompting payment of outstanding amounts when a transaction is blocked by credit limit checks. For more information on the main flows above, see Purchases, Opportunities, and Subscription upgrades and downgrades.

Credit limit vs spend limits​

Marketplaces can use both controls at the same time:

When both are enabled, the platform evaluates credit limit first, then spend limits. A transaction can still be blocked by spend limits even after credit becomes available.

Best practices​

  • Start with conservative defaults for newly created companies
  • Use higher limits for trusted companies with strong payment history
  • Apply company-level overrides or unlimited credit only where business risk is acceptable
  • Plan bulk updates to existing company limits when you introduce credit limit, so the transition matches each customer’s payment history

📝 Note: In this Early Availability phase, credit utilization percentages are not shown on dashboards for end customers or managers; limits are applied at the point of purchase.

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