Brief Quota Notifications

Keep your team moving. When you run out of monthly briefs, the person who can lift the cap hears about it at the same moment you hit it.

Overview

Every Hamster Studio plan includes a monthly brief allowance. When your team hits that allowance, anyone trying to start a new brief sees an upgrade prompt — but the person in front of that prompt isn't always the person who can actually upgrade. That's usually a manager, founder, or finance partner, and in the old flow they didn't find out until someone pinged them in Slack.

Now, the moment your team runs out of briefs, every teammate who can manage billing gets a short email: your plan's cap has been reached, here's a one-click link to upgrade. No one has to go hunt them down. Work keeps moving.

The Job It's Doing

When you're a contributor on a team and you go to start a brief for the work you're about to do, you don't want to stop, find out who owns billing, write a message, wait for them to reply, then come back to what you were doing. You want to start the brief.

When you manage billing for a team, you don't want teammates pinging you asking what plan you're on, whether you can upgrade, or why the tool just blocked them. You want to know the second it matters, take ten seconds to upgrade, and move on.

This feature covers both of those jobs with one email, sent once, to the people who can act on it.

How It Works

The email only goes out once per billing period. Upgrading, a new monthly cycle, or any plan change resets it — so there's no repeat nagging.

  1. Your team hits the monthly brief cap. The teammate trying to create a new brief sees the usual upgrade prompt.

  2. Hamster quietly notifies billing managers. Every teammate on your team with permission to manage billing receives an email explaining the team has reached its brief limit, with a direct link to the billing page.

  3. One person upgrades. The billing manager clicks through, picks a plan that fits, and the cap lifts immediately. The rest of the team keeps shipping.

  4. The notification resets. Any change that raises the cap — upgrading the plan, the start of a new monthly cycle, a plan change on Hamster's side — clears the flag automatically. The next time your team happens to hit a cap, the email is ready to go again.

What the Email Says

The email is short and to the point. It tells the recipient:

  • Which team ran out of briefs (by name, so managers with multiple teams know which one).
  • That a teammate just tried to create a brief but was blocked.
  • A single link that takes them straight to the billing page for that team.

It is sent from the same address as the rest of your Hamster account emails and never includes who specifically hit the cap — this is a team-level notification, not a callout of any individual.

Who Gets the Email

The email is sent to every teammate whose role includes the Manage billing permission. Out of the box, that's the team owner and anyone promoted to admin-level billing access.

Role Receives the email?
Owner Yes
Admin (with billing permission) Yes
Creator No
Reviewer No

If no one on the team can manage billing — unusual, but possible — no email is sent and no error is shown to the person trying to create a brief. They still see the standard upgrade prompt and can reach out directly.

When the Notification Resets

The lock that prevents repeat emails is cleared automatically whenever the billing state changes in a way that lifts the cap. You don't need to do anything:

  • You upgrade your plan. The email flag resets immediately so the next cycle is a clean slate.
  • A new monthly cycle starts. Your brief allowance refreshes and the notification is ready for the next time it's needed.
  • You change plans mid-cycle. Any plan adjustment resets the flag.
  • Your team's plan is updated from our side. Plan changes we push out from Hamster also reset the flag.

If your team is in the middle of a failed-payment grace period, the flag is deliberately not reset — the paid cap is held for you during dunning, and we don't want to double-send if the invoice retries and succeeds a day later.

What This Feature Does Not Do

  • It does not block or slow down brief creation. If the email fails to send for any reason, nothing about your day changes.
  • It does not notify every team member — only the people who can actually upgrade.
  • It does not send for anything other than the monthly brief cap. Usage-based add-ons and other limits have their own flows.
  • It does not send repeat reminders within the same period. One email, one action, done.

Tips

  • If you manage billing for your team and you're not receiving these emails, check that your account's email address is current in your profile and that your role still includes billing management.
  • If you want more than one person on your team to get these notifications, make sure their role includes the Manage billing permission. See Roles & Permissions.
  • If you're the teammate who keeps hitting the cap, you don't need to message anyone — the email is already on its way. Your best next step is to pick up a different piece of work for a few minutes while the billing manager upgrades.

Related