Composerie’s AI features do not run on Composerie’s account. You connect your own AI provider, and that provider bills your own key for every generation. This guide shows you where the money goes, what Composerie meters, and the three limits you can set. It is for any merchant who has switched on an AI effect, or is about to.
To connect one in the first place, see connect an AI provider.
Who bills you
You do, effectively, buy the AI yourself. In Integrations you connect a provider with your own API key. From then on:
- Every successful generation is a call on your own key, billed by that provider, on their invoice.
- Composerie records what each call cost and adds it to a running monthly total for that provider.
- Composerie can refuse a call once your own cap is reached, before it reaches the provider.
Nothing about AI appears on your Shopify bill. It is a separate relationship, like your print provider. See where the money goes on one order for how it sits next to the rest.
Where to see what you have spent
Open Integrations and find the connected AI provider. The card shows this calendar month’s spend and how many generations produced it, so you can see both the total and what an average call is costing you.
Failed calls do not count. Composerie only adds to the monthly total after a call succeeds, so a provider outage or a rejected prompt does not quietly eat your budget.
The limits
They stack, and they answer different questions. One of them you have to set before any shopper can use AI at all.
Monthly caps, per provider
On the connected provider, open Cost controls. Two fields:
- Monthly soft cap is the early-warning line. Generations keep running; the provider’s card in Integrations turns amber and reads that the soft cap was exceeded. Check the card rather than waiting to be told.
- Monthly hard cap pauses calls once spend passes the amount. Composerie refuses the call before it reaches the provider, so nothing further is billed to your key this month.
The hard cap is not optional. Until one is set, you cannot switch the provider on for shoppers at all, and the screen says why: without a cap, anyone with a customizer URL could draw down your budget unchecked.
Set the soft cap below it as the line you want to notice, and treat the hard cap as the one that actually stops the spending.
Generations per product
On the product page, under AI usage, a product can cap how many generations it runs in a calendar month, across every shopper. It is not a lifetime ceiling: the count starts again next month. Leave it blank for no limit. Use it on a product where an expensive effect is switched on and you want a ceiling regardless of traffic.
Generations per customer session
The same card caps how many generations a single shopper can run in one customizer session, where a session is roughly half an hour. This is the one that stops a single visitor from working through your monthly budget while they decide between fonts.
Both fields are labelled Generations per product and Generations per customer session. They are saved with the product, like its other settings.
Successful generations per customer
For AI photo styles, the same Generations per customer session number also caps how many results one customer ends up with, and there it counts only what worked: a failed try gives its slot back. Left blank, an AI photo style allows three results per customer. The editor has no field for this any more; the product page is the one place to set it.
What happens when a limit is reached
- Per-session limit reached: that shopper cannot run another generation in that session. They keep everything they have already made.
- Per-product limit reached: the product stops generating for everyone until the next month.
- Hard cap reached: Composerie stops calling that provider for the rest of the period. The rest of the customizer keeps working; only the AI effect is unavailable.
- Soft cap passed: nothing stops. The provider’s card in Integrations turns amber, and that is the whole signal, so it is worth looking at rather than waiting for a message.
None of these lose a shopper’s work. A design already generated stays on the canvas and can still be bought.
Choosing what to switch on
Different effects cost different amounts, and the difference is large. Background removal is cheap; a full image generation is not. Before switching an effect on for every shopper, run it a few times yourself and read the per-generation average on the Integrations card. That number, multiplied by your traffic rather than your orders, is the real monthly bill.
Can I use Composerie's AI without connecting my own account?
No. The AI features run on a provider you connect, with your own API key, and that provider bills you directly.
Do failed generations cost me anything?
Composerie only adds a call to your monthly total after it succeeds. Whether your provider bills a failed request is between you and them, so check their invoice if you see a difference.
My hard cap is set but spending went past it.
The cap is enforced per provider, per calendar month. If you have more than one AI provider connected, each carries its own cap. Check every connected provider, not just the one you expected to be used.
A shopper says the AI effect disappeared.
They have most likely reached the per-session limit, or the product or monthly cap has been hit. Check the spend on the Integrations card first, then the two limits on the product.
Does the AI cost get added to what the shopper pays?
Not by itself. If you want shoppers to cover it, price it in or charge for it as an add-on. See add-ons and upsells.
Next
Read AI photo effects for shoppers for what the shopper sees, or where the money goes on one order for how AI spend sits beside your other costs.