How To Manage Caps - Everflow Helpdesk

Learn how to implement and manage traffic or spend limits (Caps) at the offer, partner, or offer group level, explaining the difference between soft and hard caps, available time durations, operational rules when multiple caps are in place, and how to monitor progress using the Pacing Report.

Overview

Caps are your financial safety net. They allow you to set strict limits on how much traffic, revenue, or payout an Offer can generate within a specific timeframe.

You can apply Caps at three levels:

Offer Level: Limits the total volume for the campaign (Everyone).

Partner Level: Limits a specific Partner (Individual).

Group Level: Limits a collection of Offers (Shared Budget).

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Why Your Caps Might Leak

Understanding the Processing Delay (And How to Protect Your Budget)

📊 What Actually Happens During High Traffic

Your Cap Setting: 100 conversions

Processing Delay: ~10 minutes

Conversions During Delay: 10-20+ conversions

Actual Final Count: 110-120 conversions

Budget Overage: 10-20% over budget! 💸

🧮 Cap Buffer Calculator

Enter your actual budget limit and traffic volume to calculate the safest cap setting.

Your Actual Budget:

Expected Conversions/Hour:

✅ Recommended Cap Setting

Set your cap at 90 instead of 100. This 10% buffer protects against the processing delay, ensuring you don't exceed your actual budget during high-traffic spikes.

🎯 Best Practices for Cap Management

Always set caps 10-15% lower than your true budget limit
Higher traffic = bigger buffer needed (50+ conversions/hour = 15-20% buffer)
Monitor the Pacing Report to catch approaching limits early
Enable Cap Threshold Alerts at 80-90% to get advance warnings
Review "Pending" conversions that came in during the delay window

Cap Types: Hard Caps vs. Soft Caps

Choose the enforcement method that fits your needs.

Hard Caps

What it does: Immediately stops tracking when limit is reached. Traffic is marked as Invalid Clicks.

Best for: Strict budget control where overspending isn't an option.

Soft Caps

What it does: Sends an alert when limit is reached, but traffic continues flowing normally.

Best for: Monitoring high-volume partners without blocking their traffic.

Note: Soft Caps aren't enabled by default. Contact Customer Success to enable this feature.

You cannot apply a Soft Cap and a Hard Cap on the same Offer-Level Cap simultaneously. You must choose one method of enforcement.

Rules of Precedence (Which Cap Wins?)

It is common to have multiple caps running at once (e.g., a Partner Cap AND an Offer Cap). The Golden Rule: The system respects whichever cap is Reached First.

⚡ Interactive Precedence Simulator

Now that you understand precedence, here's a quick reference table:

At A Glance: Cap Scopes

Cap Type

Scope of Impact

Best Used For

Offer-Level

Broad. Stops all traffic for the Offer.

Controlling total campaign budget.

Partner-Level

Narrow. Stops only the specific Partner.

Testing a new partner or limiting high-risk sources.

Group-Level

Cumulative. Stops multiple Offers.

Managing a total monthly budget across several products.

Step-by-Step Configuration

Setting an Offer-Level Cap

This applies to everyone running the offer.

Navigate to Offers > Manage and select your Offer.

Stay on the General tab and click Edit.

Scroll to the Caps section.

Define your limits (Daily Conversions, Total Revenue, etc.).

Make Caps Visible to Partners: By default, partners might not see the cap limit. To show it:

Go to Control Center > Platform Configurations > Global Settings.

Check the box: Enable Offer Caps in Partner Platform.

Note: If a Partner has a Custom Cap, they will see that limit. Otherwise, they see the general Offer Cap.

Setting a Partner-Level Cap (Custom Cap)

This overrides the general rules for one specific partner.

Navigate to Offers > Manage and select your Offer.

Click the Custom Settings tab.

Click the Caps sub-tab.

Click Add Custom Settings (or Add Cap).

Select the Partner and define their specific limit.

Setting a Group-Level Cap

This shares a cap across multiple offers.

Navigate to Offers > Offer Groups.

Click Add Offer Group.

Select the Offers to include and define the Shared Cap.

Need to Set Up Offer Groups?

Offer Groups let you share caps across multiple offers — perfect for managing budgets across similar campaigns.

What You Can Do with Offer Groups:

Set a shared cap that applies to multiple offers simultaneously

Manage a total monthly budget across different product variations

Track cumulative performance in the Pacing Report

📖 Complete Setup Guide:
Learn How to Create and Configure Offer Groups →

Proactive Monitoring: Alerts & Pacing

Don't wait until the traffic stops to find out you hit a cap.

Enable Cap Threshold Alerts

Everflow can email you when an Offer is approaching its cap (e.g., 90% full).

Go to Control Center > Platform Configurations.

In Global Settings, look for Cap Threshold Notification.

Default: 90%. You can change this to 80% or 50% if you want earlier warnings.

Monitor with the Pacing Report

To see a live view of how fast you are burning through budgets:

Go to Reporting > Pacing.

This report shows exactly how close each Offer/Partner is to their daily or global limit.

Reference: Time Durations

How Everflow calculates timeframes:

Duration

Timeframe

Daily

Midnight to 11:59 PM (Based on Offer Timezone)

Weekly

Monday to Sunday

Monthly

1st day to the Last day of the calendar month

Global

All-time (Never resets)

Practical Example: Monthly vs. Daily Priority

Remember the "First Reached" rule applies to timeframes too.

Scenario: An Offer has a Daily Cap of 500 but a Monthly Cap of 250. The Result: Even if you perform 300 conversions in one day (under the Daily limit), the system will stop traffic at 250 because the Monthly limit was reached first.

Troubleshooting "Over Cap" Errors

When a cap is reached, data changes. Here is how to diagnose it.

🔍 Cap Issue Diagnostic Tool

Select what happened, and we'll show you exactly what caused it and how to fix it.

What happened with your cap?

🎯

Select a symptom above to see your diagnosis

The Traffic Was Blocked (Invalid Click)

What happened: A user clicked the link after the cap was already full. The Result: The user is redirected to the "Fail Traffic" destination (or a blank page).

Go to Reporting > Click.

Look for clicks with Error Code 4.

Message: Cap has been exceeded.

The Conversion is "Pending"

What happened: A user clicked the link while the cap was open, but they completed the purchase after the cap closed. The Result: Everflow records the conversion but marks it as Pending so you don't automatically pay for it over-budget.

Go to Reporting > Conversion.

Look for status Pending.

Error Message: Over Caps.

Action: You can manually approve these if you wish to pay the partner, or reject them.

Note on Timezones Daily Caps reset at Midnight based on the Offer's Timezone setting, not necessarily your account timezone.

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