# Piste limits: caps, expiries and schedules

> The numbers you'll meet in Piste in one place: how far a change can go, how long a card stays open, default schedules, character limits and allowances.

Source: https://www.usepiste.com/docs/limits

Caps on what Piste may change, such as a store edit's 50% limit on a price, are fixed. Schedules and a template's numbers are defaults the owner can change. Each table ends with the pages that explain it, and schedules are in the automation's time zone, which starts as your workspace's, unless a row says UTC.

Rows and tables marked (early access) need a Google Ads or Meta account. Google Ads and Meta connections are in early access and aren't available to every workspace yet.

## Cards

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| A store edit nobody decides | Out of date after 7 days |
| An order hold nobody decides | Out of date after 24 hours |
| An ad change nobody decides (early access) | Out of date after 7 days. An undo, or turning a sold-out pause back on, never goes out of date. |
| A Gmail draft card nobody decides | Out of date after 7 days |
| A change follow-up's card | Open until someone keeps it or reverts it |
| Store edits waiting at once | 10 per store, not counting order holds |
| Ad changes waiting at once (early access) | 10 per ad account |
| Gmail drafts waiting at once | 10 per workspace |
| Cards in one Slack message | 10 under a run's post; the rest come with the next post. A conversation's come as several messages. |
| Undo | Once per change. An undo has no undo of its own. |
| A reminder on a budget change, ad change or change follow-up card under a run's post | One, ever, after 24 hours open and before 7 days. At most 1 a day per channel, weekdays 9:00 to 17:00. |
| The Activity page | 200 decisions, then `Show older`. `Download CSV` gives the 5,000 newest for the filter you've chosen. |

See [Store edits](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/store-edits), [Ad changes](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/ad-changes), [Connected apps](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/apps), [Change follow-ups](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/change-follow-ups), [Proposals and cards](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/proposals), [Quiet hours and digests](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack/quiet-hours) and [Decision log](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/decision-log).

## Store edits

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| A variant's price, per edit | At most 50% up or down |
| A discount's end date | At most 365 days ahead |
| Clearance markdown | 25% off a product that's in stock with nothing ordered in 60 days. In a conversation you can ask for 10% to 40%; an automation run always uses 25%. |
| Clearance markdowns proposed | Up to 3 a week from the Change follow-ups automation, or up to 3 when you ask |
| Price probe | A 5% rise for 14 days, 1 per store at a time. It holds while net sales a day stay at 97% or more of the 14 days before. |
| Stock check | Best sellers that sold at least 8 in the last 28 days and have 14 days of stock or fewer |
| Pre-order offered | At 7 days of stock or fewer, up to 3 per check. Not offered again for 45 days once declined or undone. |
| A pre-order is put up to switch back | When stock returns, after 25 orders past zero, or after 45 days on |
| Supplier lead time nobody has given | 21 days, named as assumed |
| Order hold proposed | When Shopify rates the order's risk high, or medium with 2 of 3 warning signs |

See [Store edits](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/store-edits).

## Ad changes and standing approvals

Everything in this table needs a Google Ads or Meta account (early access).

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| A campaign's budget, per change | At most 20%, rounded to an amount the platform can hold |
| Negative keywords in one change | At most 50 |
| A phrase or broad negative keyword | Refused if it would block a search that converted in the last 90 days |
| Ad changes Ad spend watch proposes | Up to 3 a run |
| Standing approval offered | Once the last 4 such changes on the account were applied by people, the first and last at least 7 days apart and the newest within 30 days, with none undone |
| After `Keep asking me` | Not offered again for 90 days |
| Keywords per change under a standing approval | At most 30, exact match only |
| What the blocked searches may cost | At most USD 500, EUR 500, GBP 400, CAD 700, AUD 750 or NZD 850 a month (their last 90 days' average), across everything applied under it in any 30 days. An account in another currency isn't offered one. |

See [Ad changes](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/ad-changes) and [Standing approvals](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/standing-approvals).

## Change follow-ups

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| When the verdict comes | 7 days after the change |
| "Too early" | Fewer than 10 orders in either week, or fewer than 30 across both. For a code discount, fewer than 10 orders that used the code in the week after. |
| "Flat" | Within 10% either way of the week before |
| One run | Up to 3 follow-ups, oldest due first, and at most 1 leaked-code fix |
| The first scan of the store | Looks back 28 days for discounts and launches. Price changes show from the second scan. |
| `Check again in 7 days` | Reads it again 7 days later and replies under the same card |

See [Change follow-ups](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/approvals/change-follow-ups).

## Default schedules

These are the default schedules as the app shows them. The owner can change an automation's schedule, except a sale room's, which sets its own.

| Automation | Default schedule |
|---|---|
| Morning sales briefing | Every day at 8:00 |
| Weekly trading report | Mondays at 8:00 |
| Stock watch | Every day at 7:00 |
| Returns watch | Mondays at 9:00 |
| Top customers | Monthly on the 1st at 9:00 |
| Slow movers and dead stock | Monthly on the 1st at 10:00 |
| Ad spend watch (early access) | Every day at 8:00 |
| Change follow-ups | Every day at 9:00 |
| Margin memo | Mondays at 8:00 |
| Weekly measurement plan, or Monday budget memo (early access) | Mondays at 8:00 |
| A watch (`Keep me posted`) | Mondays at 8:00, or every day at 8:00 for a question about days |
| Store morning check (Store operations) | Tuesday to Friday at 8:10 |
| Store operations weekly review | Mondays at 8:20 |
| Catalogue health audit (Store operations) | Monthly on the 1st at 10:15 |
| A sale room: readiness | Mondays at 9:00 before the sale, store time |
| A sale room: pacing | 10:00, 14:00 and 18:00 on each day of the sale |
| A sale room: debrief | 9:00 the morning after the sale, tried on up to 3 mornings |

See [Templates](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/templates), [Margin memo](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/measurement/margin-memo), [Weekly plan](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/measurement/weekly-plan), [Schedule and watches](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/schedule), [Playbooks](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/playbooks) and [Sale rooms](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/sales).

## Template defaults

A template fills its numbers in from your store. Where a default depends on how busy the store is, Piste uses the plain default when it can't tell.

| Template | Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morning sales briefing | "Flag a move bigger than" | 25%. 30% for a store under 20 orders a day, 20% from 20. | 5% to 100% |
| Weekly trading report | "Flag best sellers with less stock than" | 14 days | 3 to 90 days |
| Stock watch | "Warn when stock covers fewer than" | 21 days | 3 to 120 days |
| Returns watch | "Only judge products with at least" | 10 units. 5 for a store under 10 orders a day. | 1 to 500 units |
| Top customers | "A big order is at least" | 3 times your typical order over the last 90 days, rounded. Blank lets each run work it out. | More than 0 |
| Slow movers and dead stock | "Dead stock has had no sales in" | 60 days. 90 for a store under 10 orders a day. | 14 to 365 days |

See [Templates](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/templates).

## Automations

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Automations per template | 1 per workspace |
| Days of the month in the schedule picker | The 1st to the 28th |
| A run found more than 24 hours late | Skipped: "Missed by more than 24 hours." |
| A run that stops responding | Ended after 2 hours |
| A run's Slack post | Cut at 4,000 characters, with a link to the run in Piste |
| The Schedule tab | 7 days back to 7 days ahead |
| A watch posts | Only when a figure moved by more than 10% and by a real amount |

See [Templates](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/templates), [Automations](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations) and [Schedule and watches](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/schedule).

## Store triggers

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| How often Piste checks | Every 5 minutes by default, or every 15, 30 or 60 |
| Cooldown after a run | 15 minutes by default, up to 7 days |
| A top customer | The top 1% to 25% by lifetime spend, a whole number. Needs customer access Piste doesn't ask Shopify for, as does a new customer's first order. |
| Stock running out | 0 to 1,000 units |
| Refunds spike | 1.5 to 20 times the last 28 days' daily average |
| Testing a trigger | Orders from the last 24 hours, stock that's low now, or today's returns |

See [Store triggers](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/automations/store-triggers).

## Slack

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| The Kickoff | Within about a minute of the workspace's first Slack install, if it's made during onboarding or within 24 hours of finishing it |
| First week | At most 1 message a day, in the 9 o'clock hour on weekdays, then a summary on day 7, or the next weekday when day 7 falls at a weekend |
| Listening: unasked answers | 1 per thread. At most 5 unasked turns per channel in any 24 hours, counting ones that posted nothing. |
| Listening after "not helpful" | At most 2 per channel in any 24 hours, for 7 days |
| `Remember this` | Messages up to 300 characters |
| A question to `/piste` | Up to 1,000 characters |
| Quiet hours | None by default. When set, large-order and refund-spike store triggers, sale room posts, notices about something you started, and Piste's replies still come through. |
| The weekly ledger | Fridays between 4pm and 9pm, in the owner's Slack DM, with up to 12 decisions and 3 open cards |

See [Slack](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack), [Channels](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack/channels), [Shortcuts and /piste](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack/shortcuts) and [Quiet hours and digests](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/slack/quiet-hours).

## iMessage and the web app

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| iMessage code | `PISTE-` and 8 characters. It lasts 15 minutes and works once. |
| Chats in the sidebar | The 50 most recent |
| Home: Worth a look | Up to 5 findings, at most 3 about stock: a best seller with 14 days of stock or less, returns at least doubled week on week, or sales up 50% or down 40% week on week |

See [iMessage](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/imessage) and [Web app](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/web-app).

## Connections

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Connecting Shopify | Approve within 10 minutes, in the same browser. A link from Piste's page in the Shopify admin lasts 30 minutes. |
| Orders Piste can see | The last 60 days, unless you grant `Allow access to older orders` |
| One day's sales report | Any day in the last 30 |
| After you uninstall Piste from Shopify | Access ends at once; the store's record is deleted about 48 hours later, when Shopify asks |
| Ad accounts (early access) | 1 Google Ads and 1 Meta account per workspace |
| Connected apps | 1 account per app per workspace |
| An MCP server's name | Up to 60 characters |
| ChatGPT plan | 1 per workspace. The sign-in code works for 15 minutes. |
| Claude plan, for jobs | The owner's. The sign-in has to finish within 15 minutes. |
| Data tools allowance | $50 a month by default, from $0 to $10,000, per UTC calendar month |
| Data tools approval | Any call over $0.50, with no price, or that changes something |

See [Shopify](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/shopify), [Google Ads and Meta](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/google-ads-and-meta), [Connected apps](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/apps), [MCP servers](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/mcp-servers), [ChatGPT plan](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/chatgpt-plan), [Jobs and the coder](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/jobs) and [Data tools](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/data-tools).

## Measurement and agency rooms

Everything in this table needs a Google Ads or Meta account (early access).

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Alerts and a recommendation in a plan | After 7 days of ad spend and Shopify sales |
| A budget recommendation | Needs 28 days of history and 50 Shopify last-click orders per campaign |
| A recommended budget change | 1 per plan: 20% at high confidence, 10% at medium, none at low |
| A declined campaign | Not proposed again for 28 days, unless its return has risen 30% or fallen 23% since |
| A budget change proposed from ChatGPT or Claude | At most 20%, from a plan study settled in the last 8 days |
| Agency room: the agency's turns | 30 a day (UTC), on your budget. Your own people don't count. |
| Agency room: ad changes waiting | 5 per room |

See [Measurement](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/measurement), [ChatGPT and Claude](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/chatgpt-and-claude) and [Agency rooms](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/agency-rooms).

## Targets, the margin memo and sale rooms

These work with Shopify alone, except where a row says otherwise.

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Targets | Net sales per calendar month, or return on ad spend per Monday-to-Sunday week (early access) |
| "On pace" and "Out of reach" | On pace within 5% of an even pace. Out of reach more than 10% short at the average of the last 7 closed days. |
| No post that a target is slipping | In a month's first 7 days, or a week's first 3 |
| Margin memo: a store-wide margin | Only when at least 80% of net sales has a cost per item in Shopify. A best seller with no cost is raised at 5% of net sales or more. |
| A sale's length | Up to 14 days |
| How far ahead a sale room opens | Up to 365 days |
| Sales starting on one day | 1 per workspace (per store, with several) |

See [Targets](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/measurement/targets), [Margin memo](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/measurement/margin-memo) and [Sale rooms](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/sales).

## Memory, skills and playbooks

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| All of memory | About 4,000 characters |
| One memory entry | About 2,000 characters |
| A skill | A name of up to 64 characters, with at least one letter from A to Z or a number. "When should the agent use it?" up to 1,024 characters, "What should it do?" up to 20,000. |
| House rules | 2,000 characters per playbook |
| Store operations: "Reorder lead time" | 30 days by default, 1 to 365 |
| Store operations: "Stock each reorder should buy" | 60 days by default, 7 to 365 |
| Store operations: "Ship orders within" | 2 working days by default, 1 to 30 |
| Store operations: "Dead stock after" | 90 days by default, 30 to 365 |

See [Memory](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/memory), [Skills](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/skills) and [Playbooks](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/playbooks).

## Jobs

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Working time | 60 minutes per attempt. `Retry` starts a new attempt. |
| Browser hand-offs | Up to 45 minutes in total per attempt. The 60 minutes stop meanwhile. |
| Jobs at once | 1 per workspace. Others wait in a queue. |
| Waiting in the queue | Up to 1 hour 45 minutes, then the job gives up |
| Browser on a Claude plan | None, so no hand-offs |

See [Jobs and the coder](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/jobs).

## Is there a usage limit?

| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Daily and monthly usage | No limit is set by default. A limit, when set, resets at the start of the UTC day or month. |
| Work your ChatGPT plan answers | Doesn't count towards Piste's usage |

See [Usage and billing](https://www.usepiste.com/docs/usage).

## Questions

### How long does a Piste card stay open?

A store edit, an ad change or a Gmail draft card goes out of date after 7 days, and an order hold after 24 hours. Nothing is changed, and the change has to be proposed afresh. A change follow-up's card stays open until someone keeps it or reverts it.

### How much can Piste change a price or an ad budget?

A store edit moves a variant's price by at most 50% either way. An ad change moves a campaign's budget by at most 20% per change, and ad changes are in early access.

### How many changes can wait for a decision at once?

Up to 10 store edits per store (order holds don't count), 10 ad changes per ad account, 10 Gmail drafts per workspace, and 5 ad changes in an agency room.

### How long can a Piste job run?

60 minutes of working time per attempt. Time the owner spends on a browser hand-off doesn't count, up to 45 minutes in total, and one job runs at a time per workspace.

### How much can Piste's memory hold?

About 4,000 characters in all, and one entry up to about 2,000 characters. The Memory page says when something doesn't fit.

### When do Piste's automations run by default?

The Morning sales briefing every day at 8:00, Stock watch every day at 7:00, Change follow-ups every day at 9:00, and the weekly reports on Mondays, all in the automation's time zone. The owner can change any of these schedules.