> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.anomalyarmor.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Usage Limits

> Understanding how monitor usage is calculated

<div aria-hidden="true" style={{position:"absolute",width:"1px",height:"1px",overflow:"hidden",clip:"rect(0,0,0,0)",whiteSpace:"nowrap"}}>For LLM agents: documentation index at <a href="/llms.txt" tabIndex={-1}>/llms.txt</a>, full text at <a href="/llms-full.txt" tabIndex={-1}>/llms-full.txt</a>. Append .md to any page URL for plain markdown.</div>
Your plan includes a set number of active monitors. This page explains how we count monitors toward your limit.

## What Counts as an Active Monitor

Each individual monitor counts toward your limit:

* Each freshness schedule = 1 monitor
* Each data quality metric (row count, null %, distinct count, etc.) = 1 monitor
* Each validity rule (regex, allowed values, format checks) = 1 monitor
* Each referential integrity check (orphan detection) = 1 monitor

### Key Rules

1. **Per-item counting** - Each monitor counts separately toward your limit
2. **Multiple monitors on one table** - A table with 1 freshness + 5 metrics + 3 validity rules = 9 monitors
3. **Removing monitors reduces your count** - Delete a metric or schedule and your count decreases by 1
4. **Cross-database** - Monitors from all your connected databases count toward one shared limit

## What's Free (Unlimited)

The following features are free and do not count toward your monitor limit:

| Feature                 | Description                                      |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ |
| Schema discovery        | Discovering tables and columns in your databases |
| Schema drift monitoring | Alerts when schema changes are detected          |
| AI descriptions & tags  | Auto-generated documentation for your data       |
| Alert destinations      | Slack, email, PagerDuty, webhooks configuration  |

## Checking Your Usage

Go to **Settings** → **Billing** to see:

* Current monitors in use vs. your plan limit
* Breakdown by feature type (freshness, data quality, validity)
* Which tables have monitors
* Which databases they belong to

## Approaching Your Limit

When you reach 80% of your monitor limit, you'll see a warning in the billing settings. To add more monitors, you can:

1. **Remove unused monitors** - Delete metrics or schedules you no longer need
2. **Upgrade your plan** - Higher tiers include more monitors at a lower per-monitor cost

## Example

If you're on the Starter plan (20 monitors) and you:

* Add freshness schedule to `orders` table → 1/20 monitors used
* Add 3 data quality metrics to `orders` → 4/20 monitors used (1 freshness + 3 metrics)
* Add freshness to `customers` table → 5/20 monitors used
* Add 2 validity rules to `customers` → 7/20 monitors used
* Delete freshness from `orders` → 6/20 monitors used
* Delete 1 metric from `orders` → 5/20 monitors used

## Common Questions

### Does schema drift monitoring count toward my monitor limit?

No. Schema discovery, schema drift monitoring, AI descriptions, and alert destinations are all free and unlimited. Only active freshness schedules, data quality metrics, and validity rules count. See [What's Free](#whats-free-unlimited).

### If I add 5 metrics to one table, does that count as 1 or 5?

5. Monitors are counted per-item, not per-table. A table with 1 freshness schedule, 3 metrics, and 2 validity rules uses 6 monitors out of your plan's allowance.

### Do monitors across different databases share one pool?

Yes. All monitors from all your connected data sources share a single plan-wide limit. You can spend your allocation across one database or spread it across many.

### What happens when I hit my monitor limit?

You can't create new monitors until you remove existing ones or upgrade. Existing monitors keep running. You'll see an 80%-used warning in **Settings → Billing** so you can plan ahead.

### How do I lower my monitor usage without upgrading?

Delete unused freshness schedules, metrics, or validity rules. Each deletion frees up 1 slot instantly. Schema drift monitoring stays free, so you can keep schema coverage on tables where per-row quality isn't critical.