Facebook account "Spending Limit Reached" error

Quick Answer

Go to Ads Manager → Billing → Payment Settings → Account Spending Limit and either raise the limit or remove it entirely. Campaigns will resume within minutes once the limit is lifted.

Step-by-step fix

1. Open Ads Manager → click the menu icon (top-left) → Billing → Payment Settings.
2. Scroll to Account Spending Limit. You'll see the current limit and total spent against it.
3. Click Reset to clear the counter (this restarts the count from zero) or click Change to set a new limit higher than current spend, or click Remove to delete the limit entirely.
4. Save. Your campaigns will start delivering again within 5-15 minutes.
5. Reactivate paused ad sets manually if Meta paused them when the limit was hit. Look for ad sets with the status "Off (account spending limit)".
6. Check the new limit is reflected by refreshing Ads Manager.

Why it happens

Account Spending Limit is a lifetime cap you (or someone in your Business Manager) set on the entire ad account. Once total spend reaches that figure, every active campaign in the account is automatically paused — there's no warning when you hit it, no per-ad-set override, and no way to spend a penny more until you reset it.

It's a different setting from:

• Daily campaign budget (the per-day limit on a single campaign).


• Campaign lifetime budget (the total cap on a single campaign).


• Billing threshold (when Meta charges your card).

The Account Spending Limit defaults to nothing (off), but Meta sometimes sets one automatically on new accounts as a fraud-prevention measure (usually £/$ 50 or 100 for the first 30 days). You may also have one set by accident if you (or someone on your team) clicked through it during onboarding.

The counter does not reset monthly. It accumulates lifetime spend on the account. So if you set a £10,000 limit two years ago and have been running ads since, you'll hit it eventually.

How to prevent it

• Remove the limit entirely unless you have a specific compliance reason to keep it. Use daily campaign budgets to control spend instead.
• If you want a hard cap for budget protection, set it well above your monthly spend forecast (e.g. 6 months of typical spend).
• Use the Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) feature with budget rules to prevent runaway spend instead of relying on the lifetime cap.
• Set up billing alerts in Payment Settings so you get an email at 50%, 75%, and 90% of the limit.
• For agencies, document the limit setting in your client onboarding so it doesn't get forgotten when you take over an account.

When to escalate to Meta support

No escalation needed for this issue — you have full self-service control. The only exception is if the Reset button isn't showing or doesn't work, which happens occasionally due to a Business Manager permissions glitch. In that case:

1. Make sure you have Admin access (not Editor) to the ad account.
2. Try from a different browser or in incognito mode.
3. If still broken, contact support via Meta Pro Team (top-right corner of Ads Manager) — billing issues are usually resolved within 24 hours.

Pix-Vu mention

While your ads are paused waiting for the limit fix, take the opportunity to refresh your creative library. Pix-Vu lets you batch-clean and upgrade ad imagery so when your campaigns restart, they perform better than before the pause.