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Billing, invoices & tax

The short version: you pick a plan (Free, Hobby $5/month or Pro $20/month), and the plan fee comes back to you as included usage. Apps are billed per second only while they run. If you use more than your plan includes, the rest comes out of a prepaid balance that you top up by card. Every new account starts with $5 of credit in that balance. Prices are in US dollars and exclude tax.

When you see "Paid plans opening soon"

Card payments run through Stripe, and our Stripe account isn't switched on for charging yet. Until it is, the dashboard shows Paid plans opening soon on the Billing page, and paying by card (subscribing, or topping up your balance) won't go through. Nothing is charged when you try, so the Hobby and Pro buttons on pricing may not complete a card payment yet. What still works: the Free plan, your $5 starting credit, and anything you can pay for from that balance. If you need a paid plan right away, Support explains where things stand.

Upgrading, topping up and cancelling

  • Upgrade or change plan: Dashboard → Billing & usage → Plan. Choose the plan and either Subscribe by card (Stripe charges the fee monthly) or Pay from balance (this month's fee comes out of your credit, pro-rated).
  • Add credit: Dashboard → Billing & usage → Balance → Add credit, between $10 and $5,000 per top-up. Credit is added as soon as Stripe confirms the payment.
  • Cards, receipts and cancelling a subscription: Dashboard → Billing & usage → Billing portal (Stripe's customer portal).

Cancelling and changing plans

  • Cancel any time. There's no contract or minimum term. If you pay for Hobby or Pro by card, cancel in Dashboard → Billing & usage → Billing portal. You keep the plan until the end of the month you've paid for, then the workspace moves to Free and nothing more is charged for the plan. If you pay for the plan from your balance, switch to Free in Dashboard → Billing & usage → Plan. The change is immediate.
  • Upgrades take effect immediately. Paying from your balance, you're charged only for the rest of the current month (pro-rated by day). By card, Stripe bills the new plan from the change.
  • Downgrades take effect at the end of a card-paid month, or immediately for balance-paid plans. Before moving to Free, change or remove apps on plans Free doesn't include; the dashboard tells you which.
  • Plan fees aren't refunded for the part of a month you don't use, whether you cancel, downgrade or stop using the service.

What happens to usage and credit

  • Cancelling a plan doesn't stop your apps. Compute is billed per second while instances run, and volumes, backups and snapshots are billed until you delete them. To stop all charges, destroy the apps, databases and volumes you no longer need.
  • Included usage resets on the 1st of each month and doesn't carry over.
  • Prepaid credit doesn't expire while your account is open. It stays in your balance after you cancel a plan and keeps paying for any usage.
  • The $5 starting credit every new account gets is promotional. It can be used for any usage but has no cash value and isn't refundable.

Refunds

  • Top-ups are non-refundable as a rule, because credit is consumed as you go.
  • Mistakes and surprises: if you created resources by mistake, or a large bill came from something you didn't intend (for example an attack or runaway traffic), contact support. We'll review it and, where it's fair, refund or credit the difference.
  • Billing errors: if we charged you incorrectly (a duplicate payment, wrong amount or a metering bug), we'll correct it, refunding to the original payment method or crediting your balance, whichever you prefer. Please tell us within 60 days of the charge.
  • Card refunds go back to the card through Stripe and usually show up within 5–10 business days. Taxes charged on a refunded amount are refunded with it.

Deleting your account

Self-service deletion isn't in the dashboard yet. Request it through support from the email address on the account, so we can confirm it's you. Before we delete it, cancel any card subscription and export what you want to keep. When the account is deleted, its apps, databases, volumes, backups, API keys and sessions are removed, and any remaining credit is forfeited. Invoices and payment records are kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.

What is metered

Per second, in cents: compute while an instance runs (plan $/hr ÷ 3600), volumes per provisioned GB-month ($0.22, attached or not), backups and snapshots per GB-month ($0.22), and egress at $0.06/GB. Usage up to your plan's included amount (Free $1, Hobby $5, Pro $20) isn't deducted from your balance. Stopped and scaled-to-zero apps cost nothing; volumes are still billed.

See this month's breakdown in Dashboard → Billing & usage. When a paid account's credit runs out, its apps are suspended, and they resume automatically after a top-up.

Invoices and tax: Stripe issues an invoice for every payment. VAT, GST or US sales tax is calculated at checkout from your billing address, and you can enter a VAT/GST ID for reverse charge where it applies.

Free tier is hard-capped and never draws on your wallet: 3 apps on shared-1x-256mb/shared-1x-512mb, 1 instance each, always scale-to-zero after at most 5 minutes idle, 1 GB of volumes. Once the month's usage reaches the included $1, apps pause (requests get HTTP 402) until the 1st of next month or until you upgrade.

v1 plan ids (cpu-small etc.) still work and are billed at the equivalent current price. Indian customers can optionally be offered INR/UPI top-ups via Razorpay (off by default).

API

Everything above is also available over the API: POST /v1/billing/checkout {"credit_usd": 25}, POST /v1/billing/subscribe {"tier":"pro"}, POST /v1/billing/portal, PUT /v1/billing/tier {"tier":"pro"} (pay from balance) and GET /v1/billing.