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

# Set alerts and monitor spend

> Choose account thresholds and understand what Budget Shield can and cannot do.

Use **Settings → Alerts** to receive a warning when a selected Meta account crosses a spend or performance threshold. An alert tells you to investigate; it is not a hard spending cap.

## Add an account alert

1. Select the intended Meta account in the sidebar.
2. Open **Settings → Alerts**. Under **Add Alert**, choose **Metric**: **Daily Spend**, **Cost per Lead (CPL)**, **CPM**, or **Frequency**.
3. Choose **Condition** (**goes above** or **drops below**) and enter a positive **Threshold**. Use the account's currency for money metrics; frequency is a ratio.
4. Add the alert and confirm it appears under **Active Alerts**. Use its enabled control to stop or restart checking, or delete it when it is no longer useful.

CPL alerts check the previous settled day; the other metrics check today. After an alert triggers, it will not trigger again for 24 hours. Use the report for live investigation instead of expecting repeated warnings.

Check your [notification connections](/messaging/email) and review the underlying account report when a threshold is crossed. A saved alert does not prove a notification has reached your chosen channel. If no warning arrives, check the account, threshold, enabled state, current data, and channel connection before lowering thresholds.

## Budget Shield

Open **Settings → Automation** for **Budget Shield**. **Enable Budget Shield** controls spend-pace monitoring. **Warning threshold** and **Critical threshold** are multiples of expected pace, not amounts of money. **Telegram alerts** requires a connected Telegram account.

<Warning>The **Auto-pause on critical spike** control does not provide automatic protection today: Budget Shield's automatic ad-pause action is unavailable. Do not rely on it to stop spend or enforce a cap.</Warning>

After a warning, inspect current delivery and spend in Meta. If you decide to intervene, [review a manual delivery change](/meta-ads/delivery) or [edit the budget on its actual owner](/meta-ads/budgets), then verify the provider result. Delayed data and provider delivery mean monitoring cannot guarantee a maximum account spend.


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