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Your Business Guide to Spend Caps

What is a Spend Cap?

A Spend Cap lets you set limits for your users on their out-of-bundle usage on things like premium, international calls or roaming usage. Add-ons are not included.

In order to further prevent unwanted spending, we also set a Data Roaming Cap of £45 to your account for out-of-bundle roaming charges. You can switch this off any time.

How to set a monthly Spend Cap

Choose the maximum you’re willing to pay on top of your plan, and set it as your Spend Cap. You can also choose to switch the cap off completely. Remember that if you set your Spend Cap to £0, you won’t be able to use your phone abroad, or use any chargeable services in the UK.

It’s easy to set this up by logging onto your Three Business account, or using the Three app. Here’s how:

Three app steps

  1. Open the Three app
  2. If you’re not already logged in, select Go to account
  3. Press the three dots to open the menu
  4. From the menu select Manage Services
  5. Select Plan Settings
  6. Scroll down and select Yes, I want a Spend Cap
  7. Set your Spend Cap
  8. Scroll down and press Continue

Online Account steps

  1. Log into your account
  2. Click Manage Services
  3. Click Plan Settings
  4. Select Yes, I want a Spend Cap
  5. Set your Spend Cap
  6. Press Continue

If you have any problems setting up your Spend Cap, contact us. You can also visit your local Three store for help.

What’s included in a Spend Cap

Calls and texts:

  • After you’ve used up your monthly allowance
  • To premium rate and non-geographical numbers like 0845 and 0345
  • To international numbers from the UK – unless you have an Add-on
  • When roaming in a country that’s not a Go Roam destination
  • To non-EU countries from Go Roam in Europe destinations
  • To anywhere other than the UK from Go Roam Around the World destinations
  • Daily roaming charges, which apply to Go Roam destinations unless included in your plan

Data usage:

  • After you’ve used up your monthly data allowance
  • When roaming in a country that’s not a Go Roam destination
  • That exceeds our fair usage limits in Go Roam destinations

Go Roam:

Pay Monthly customers who joined or upgraded their plan on or after 1 October 2021, and are not on a Go Roam in Europe allowance, will incur a daily roaming charge to unlock their UK allowances for 24 hours in Go Roam destinations. The daily roaming charge is £2 in Go Roam in Europe destinations, £5 in Go Roam Around the World destinations and £7 in Go Roam Around the World Extra destinations.  The daily roaming charge is triggered as soon as you use any of your plan allowances in a Go Roam destination. More on daily roaming charges. 

Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man are exempt from the daily roaming charge. Fair use policies apply.

The charge counts towards your Spend Cap, so if that’s set at zero, you won’t be able to use your UK allowances in Go Roam destinations.

If your Pay Monthly contract started before 1 October 2021, you will only incur daily roaming costs in Go Roam Around the World Extra destinations.  Out of Bundle charges still apply i.e. calls/texts to other destinations other than the UK or data usage over the fair use policy (up to 12GB).

Please note that the separate £45 Data Roaming Cap we put on your account only covers Out of Bundle data – so if you exceed your fair use amount or are in a destination where you get no allowance, charges will apply

What’s not included:

  • Administrative charges for things like paper bills, copies of your bill, not paying by Direct Debit or other recurring methods
  • Your monthly plan charge, Add-ons, insurance etc.

No. You can change your Spend Cap as often as you’d like.

You and your team will receive a text to advise you when limits have been reached.

A Spend Cap gives you control over your monthly spend on calls, texts and data usage not included in your monthly plan.

The Spend Limit is an additional measure to prevent excessive spend on third party services. This includes:

  • Calls and texts to premium rate numbers
  • Premium rate or shortcode text messages
  • Paying for digital content using Three Pay

The limits are:

  • £40 per single transaction
  • £240 total charges per month

The Spend Limit is a legal requirement under the Payment Services Regulation. It can’t be removed or changed.

We’ll send a text notification if you’ve reached 80% of your monthly Spend Limit. Any transactions that exceed the Spend Limits will be blocked.

A Spend Cap lets you limit your spending on things that are not included in your monthly plan. This includes calls, texts and data usage whilst in the UK or abroad.  

In the UK, this might be calling specialist numbers.  When abroad, this will include your Daily Roaming Charges (cost depending on destination) and any Out of Bundle charges that sit outside of your allowances. 

The Data Roaming Limit is an additional measure to protect you from excessive data charges whilst roaming. If you’ve never asked us to change it, your Data Roaming Limit will be £45. This means if you need your Spend Cap to be high, you can still protect yourself from excessive spending abroad with the Data Roaming Limit.  It only applies to data charges outside of your allowances. 

We'll notify you when you reach 80% and 100% of your usage.

Reduced your Spend Cap to an amount lower than the current amount spent on your account? Your new, lower Spend Cap won’t take effect until your next bill cycle. And your current, higher Spend Cap will continue until then.

Or have you changed your Spend Cap to an amount higher than the current amount spent on your account? Your new Spend Cap will be available as soon as your request’s been processed – this usually only takes a few minutes. 

Increased your Spend Cap? Your new, higher cap will be available as soon as your request’s been processed – this usually only takes a few minutes.   

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