---
title: "Frequency cap"
url: https://getstell.com/glossary/frequency-cap
description: "The per-contact limit on how often automations may message a member, protecting the lock screen from message pile-ups."
---

# Frequency cap

A frequency cap is a per-contact ceiling on messaging: no matter how many [automations](/glossary/automation) a member triggers, the cap limits how many messages they receive in a given window. It is the safety rail that lets a program run many triggers without any one member experiencing them as a pile-up.

The failure mode it prevents is easy to reach. A member earns points, crosses a tier threshold and hits their pass anniversary in the same week; three well-intentioned automations each have something to say, and without a cap the lock screen says all of it. Each message was individually reasonable. The sum is spam, and on a wallet pass the cost of spam is concrete: deleting a pass is one swipe, and a deleted pass ends the channel for that member entirely.

A cap encodes a judgment about the channel's intimacy. The lock screen sits closer to a person than an inbox, so wallet messaging tolerates far less volume than email; a cap makes that tolerance an enforced property of the system rather than a hope about restraint across everyone who can create an automation.

Caps govern automations, whose volume is emergent from member behavior. [Campaigns](/glossary/campaign) are deliberate, scheduled sends, so their volume is a decision made by a person. In Stell, the frequency cap is part of Engage, the messaging module.