You have a support assistant, a document summarizer, and a small coding experiment. All three need model access, but you would rather fund one account than manage three separate pots of money. The useful starting point is simple: treat one top-up as a shared spending pool, then give each project a budget in your own records.
SwiftRelay is a practical fit for this setup because it provides pay-as-you-go access to multiple model families with per-token billing. The important distinction is that planning a split is not the same as creating separate, protected balances. Your project allocations are spending rules unless an account feature explicitly enforces them.
Give Each Project a Share Before the First Request
Start with an amount you are comfortable spending, then divide it according to what each project needs to accomplish. Do not split it evenly just because there are three projects. An assistant used throughout the day may need more room than an experiment you run occasionally.
For an illustrative $50 top-up, your planning sheet could look like this. These amounts are budget choices, not model prices or predictions of how many requests you will receive.
- Support assistant: $25. Reserve the largest share for recurring work.
- Document summarizer: $15. Allow for longer inputs, but keep the first batch limited.
- Coding experiment: $5. Give exploration a clear stopping point.
- Unassigned reserve: $5. Keep some balance available for adjustments.
The allocations add up to the top-up. The reserve is still part of that same money, not extra credit. If one project needs more, move an allocation deliberately rather than silently letting it consume another project's share.
Separate Project Records From the Shared Balance
A shared balance tells you what remains overall. Your project records tell you who used it. Keep both views: one prevents account-wide surprises, while the other helps you decide which work is worth funding.
In your application, attach a project label to each request record. Record the model, reported token usage, and any cost information available to you. If you calculate costs yourself, use the applicable pricing and check your totals against the account's billing records.
Do not assume that a project label creates a billing boundary. Likewise, if your account supports separate API keys, those keys can help organize access, but you should verify whether they also support enforced spending limits. A label, a key, and a hard budget cap are different things.
Run a Small Sample Before Assigning the Rest
Before opening a project to regular use, send a small set of realistic requests. Include typical inputs and a few unusually long ones. A document summarizer tested only on short paragraphs will give you a misleading picture of its needs.
For example, you might try Gemini 2.5 Flash for routine summaries and Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding tasks. These are starting points to evaluate, not promises about cost or suitability. Compare the results you actually need, then inspect the token usage and applicable charges.
Token billing means request counts alone are not a reliable budget. Longer prompts, larger responses, repeated conversation history, and retries can all change spending. Set sensible output limits and avoid sending unnecessary context.
Add a Spending Check Before the Next Batch
For each project, keep a simple running total: starting allocation, spending so far, and remaining allowance. Review it after the initial sample and before larger batches. If you need an enforced project limit, implement a spending check in your application rather than relying on a spreadsheet reminder.
Allow for requests already in progress when designing that check. Several concurrent requests can continue spending after your application decides to stop new work. For a first run, small batches make this easier to manage.
Start With One Top-Up and a Written Split
Sign up for SwiftRelay, use the small gift credit available to new accounts to test your workflow, and choose your first top-up after reviewing actual usage. Keep promotional credit separate in your planning so it does not disguise ongoing costs.
Your first milestone is straightforward: three named projects, one written allocation, and a repeatable spending review. That turns a shared top-up into a deliberate project budget without mistaking bookkeeping for enforced limits.