---
title: Low balance and blocks
summary: What stops, and when, as the balance of a business falls to the reserve, to zero and below, and how a top-up brings everything back.
tools: [talemo_get_billing]
related: [credits-and-packs, balance-and-organisation, closing-and-restoring-a-business, letters-about-money]
search: [balance zero, service paused, blocked]
---

# Low balance and blocks

A business keeps working while its balance is above the reserve. When the money
runs low, Talemo stops things in steps, and each step is announced to the owners by
email (see [Letters about money](letters-about-money.md)). The balance page
shows the current step as a scale.

## The steps

**Everything works.** The balance is above the reserve. The online admin, the
assistant, incoming messages and the team work.

**The online admin and the assistant are stopped.** The balance reached the
reserve. The online admin, the assistant, automations that use a model, and the
helpers called through Claude or ChatGPT stop. Everything else works: the team
signs in, records are kept, clients write, automations without AI run, and people
can reply to clients in any channel. Email campaigns wait for a top-up. To the team
the screen says that the assistant will answer when the owner tops up the balance.

**Access is closed.** The balance is zero or below. The team cannot get into the
business. The assistant, automations and reminders to clients stop, and new
messages from clients are not accepted. The data is kept. Only data storage is
still charged, so the balance can go below zero, and the minus stays on the
business. The money screens stay open, so the business can be topped up, and so
do actions on the organization's level, such as closing the business. The scale
says "5 days below zero".

**In the archive.** If the balance stays below zero for five days, the business
is closed and its data goes to the archive. It can be brought back for another 30
days (see [Closing and restoring a business](closing-and-restoring-a-business.md)).

## How to come back

The owner tops up the balance (see
[Paying, and the payment link for Instagram](paying-and-hand-off-link.md)). A
top-up closes the minus first. When the balance is above zero again, access opens
at once, and the online admin and the assistant work as soon as the balance is
above the reserve. If the top-up was not enough, the page says how much is still
missing. The owners get a letter that access is open.

## What the team sees

A member of the team who cannot open the business sees **Access to the business
is closed**, with the note that the owner knows and that the work comes back when
the balance is topped up. Everything done before is still there.

## Reading the step with MCP

`talemo_get_billing` reports the step of a business as `ok`, `soft`, `hard` or
`deletion_due`, together with the balance, the reserve and what is available for
the online admin and the assistant, each amount in dollars (`*_usd`) and in
thousandths of a credit (`*_millicredits`), a credit being one cent. In the `hard`
step it is the only one of the tools of a business that still works. A program
cannot top up: it tells the person, who tops up on the Talemo website.

## Tools and refusals

- A business pays for its work with money in dollars, and the step of its balance decides what a tool can do. `talemo_get_billing` shows the balance, the reserve, what is available for the online admin and the assistant, and the step: `ok`, `soft` (the online admin and the assistant stop until a top-up; tools without AI keep working), `hard` (of the tools of a business, nothing works but money until a top-up) or `deletion_due`. Every amount comes in dollars (`*_usd`) and in thousandths of a credit (`*_millicredits`). It works in the hard block too. `talemo_ready`, `talemo_list_businesses`, `talemo_get_zone_currency` and both tools of the guide work in every step.
- Status 402 with code `billing.blocked` means the hard block, and any tool of a business can give it: nothing works but `talemo_get_billing` until a person tops the business up on the website of Talemo, and `params.deletesAt` says when the business goes to the archive.
- Status 402 with code `billing.credits_exhausted` is given not by any tool but only by an operation that spends the balance on the online admin or the assistant: it means the balance is down to the reserve, they stop in the business until a top-up, and the tools without AI keep working.
- Neither is a failure. A tool cannot pay, so tell the person and name the step; do not retry the call.