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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, subtracts available credit memos and pending payments that reduce what is owed, and includes the purchase currently being evaluated. For each component and the exact formula, see How credit limit exposure is calculated.

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 - available credit memos - pending payments + current order value

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.
    • 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.

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) and subscription purchase orders and terms 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.
  • 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 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

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 purchases can be blocked when an order would exceed remaining credit.
  • 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.

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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