Every answer costs you provider tokens, so Wyregraf limits how much each visitor can ask. There are two separate limits:
- Usage limits cap queries, tokens, and estimated spend per person over an hour, day, week, or month. They are set per WordPress role, plus one row for guests.
- The burst limit stops anyone from sending many messages in a few seconds. It is set per chat.
Both are on for new sites, with defaults that suit a public chat.
Usage limits #
Open Wyregraf → Options → Usage Limits.
- Global Rules:
- Enable usage limits turns the quotas on (the default).
- Bypass administrators lets administrators skip the quotas while it is Yes (the default). It does not lift the burst limit.
- Limit reached message is the site-wide text visitors see when they run out.
- Usage history retention (days) controls how long the usage records behind the counts are kept (90 by default).
- Limits by Role has a row for Guests (not logged in) and one for each WordPress role:
- Enable for this role — every role except Administrator starts enabled.
- Max queries (100 by default), Max tokens, and Max cost (in US dollars). 0 means no limit for that measure.
- Window — Hour, Day (the default), Week, or Month. Windows are calendar periods: a daily limit resets at midnight in the site's timezone, and a weekly one on the day set in Settings → General → Week Starts On.
- An optional Limit reached message for the role.
Some details worth knowing:
- Limits count across all chats, not per chat.
- A query is one call to the AI provider. Accuracy features like answer verification or reranking make extra calls for one visitor message, so one message can count as more than one query.
- Logged-in users are counted by account. Guests are counted by IP address, so visitors behind one office network share a guest allowance.
- A user with several roles gets the most generous one. A role with its row disabled has no quota.
When a visitor reaches a limit, the chat shows a message and declines further questions until the window resets. The text comes from the first one that is set: the chat's Usage Limit Reached Text, the role's message, the global Limit reached message, and finally the built-in "You have reached your usage limit. Please try again later."
Per-chat limits #
Each chat's Restrictions tab adds limits for that chat alone.
- Message Limit is the maximum length of one visitor message, in characters; Message Limit Reached Text is shown when a message is too long.
- Burst Limit and Burst Window (seconds) — by default a person can send 10 messages per 60 seconds to a chat. Leave the fields empty for the defaults, or set the limit to 0 to turn the burst limit off for this chat. The burst limit applies to everyone, administrators included, and still runs when usage limits are off. A visitor who hits it sees "You are sending messages too quickly. Please wait a moment and try again."
- Exempt from Usage Limits lets this chat skip the site-wide quotas — useful for a members-only chat you never want to cut off. The burst limit still applies.
- Usage Limit Reached Text replaces the role and global messages for this chat.
