How Budget Buddy Catches Overspend Before It Happens

The worst budget surprises happen at month-end. You pull the numbers, compare to plan, and discover paid social burned 18% over budget. Too late to fix it. Budget Buddy is built to catch that overspend before it happens — through real-time pacing, variance alerts, and structured outputs your AI assistant can act on.

How pacing works

Budget Buddy takes your monthly budget by channel and your current spend to date. It calculates where you should be based on elapsed time in the month. If you are 60% through the month, you should be roughly 60% through your budget. If you are at 75%, you are over-paced. If you are at 45%, you are under-paced.

The tool returns structured data: variance percentages, over-budget flags, and channel-level rollups. No guesswork. No manual math. You get a clear signal: on track, ahead, or behind — with the numbers to back it up.

Scenario: paid social runs hot

Imagine it is the 18th of the month. Your paid social budget is $20,000. You have spent $15,200. Budget Buddy calculates: 18 days in, 60% of the month elapsed. Expected spend: $12,000. Actual: $15,200. Variance: +26.7% over-paced.

Without Budget Buddy, you might not notice until the 28th. With it, you get the signal on the 18th. You can pause underperforming campaigns, shift budget to other channels, or adjust bids — while there is still time to correct.

Scenario: one channel under, another over

Another common case: search is under-paced at 12% below plan, while display is over-paced at 22% above. Budget Buddy surfaces both. You can reallocate from search to display if display is performing, or pause display and reallocate to search if search is the driver. The key is having the visibility to make that call before the month closes.

Alerts and thresholds

Budget Buddy supports configurable thresholds. Set an alert when any channel crosses 110% of expected spend. Or when total variance exceeds 15%. Alerts can fire when you call the tool through your AI assistant — "check pacing" — or through scheduled checks if you integrate with a workflow.

The goal is simple: you should never be surprised by month-end numbers. Budget Buddy gives you the visibility to catch overspend early and the structure to act on it.

Integrating with your workflow

Because Budget Buddy is an MCP tool, it plugs into any AI assistant that supports the protocol. Ask "how is the budget looking?" and your assistant calls Budget Buddy, gets the structured answer, and summarizes it in plain language. No spreadsheet. No manual pull. Just real-time pacing, on demand.

That is how you catch overspend before it happens — not by working harder, but by having the right tool in the right place.