diff --git a/src/setfit/sampler.py b/src/setfit/sampler.py
index a78f836c..195476df 100644
--- a/src/setfit/sampler.py
+++ b/src/setfit/sampler.py
@@ -89,21 +89,20 @@ def __init__(
 
     def generate_pairs(self) -> None:
         for (_text, _label), (text, label) in shuffle_combinations(self.sentence_labels):
-            if _label == label:
+            if (_label == label) and ((self.max_pairs == -1) or (len(self.pos_pairs) < self.max_pairs)):
                 self.pos_pairs.append({"sentence_1": _text, "sentence_2": text, "label": 1.0})
-            else:
+            elif (_label != label) and ((self.max_pairs == -1) or (len(self.neg_pairs) < self.max_pairs)):
                 self.neg_pairs.append({"sentence_1": _text, "sentence_2": text, "label": 0.0})
-            if self.max_pairs != -1 and len(self.pos_pairs) > self.max_pairs and len(self.neg_pairs) > self.max_pairs:
+            elif self.max_pairs != -1 and len(self.pos_pairs) >= self.max_pairs and len(self.neg_pairs) >= self.max_pairs:
                 break
 
     def generate_multilabel_pairs(self) -> None:
         for (_text, _label), (text, label) in shuffle_combinations(self.sentence_labels):
-            if any(np.logical_and(_label, label)):
-                # logical_and checks if labels are both set for each class
+            if self.max_pairs != -1 and len(self.pos_pairs) > self.max_pairs and len(self.neg_pairs) > self.max_pairs:
                 self.pos_pairs.append({"sentence_1": _text, "sentence_2": text, "label": 1.0})
-            else:
+            elif any(np.logical_xor(_label, label)) and ((self.max_pairs == -1) or (len(self.neg_pairs) < self.max_pairs)):
                 self.neg_pairs.append({"sentence_1": _text, "sentence_2": text, "label": 0.0})
-            if self.max_pairs != -1 and len(self.pos_pairs) > self.max_pairs and len(self.neg_pairs) > self.max_pairs:
+            elif self.max_pairs != -1 and len(self.pos_pairs) >= self.max_pairs and len(self.neg_pairs) >= self.max_pairs:
                 break
 
     def get_positive_pairs(self) -> List[Dict[str, Union[str, float]]]: