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How billing works

The prepaid wallet, per-minute metering, the monthly cap and arrears.

2 min read Updated

The wallet#

Every account has one prepaid wallet, and machines draw it down minute by minute while running.

  • $1 = 1 creditHow money is held
  • $1,000Most the wallet can hold
  • 80%Monthly cap on a plan's price

Balances are tracked as exact integers end-to-end. The dashboard shows compact figures to the cent and exact amounts in drawers and receipts. If a payment would exceed the wallet's limit, the excess is flagged for a human. Nothing is silently taken.

Metering#

Only running time bills, in whole minutes: a started minute is due in full, and rounding is strictly per segment — a stop/start/stop inside one clock minute bills two minutes. A running machine consumes rate × minutes, charged straight from the wallet. If the platform is briefly down, no usage is lost — consumption is recomputed from lifecycle anchors.

Example: the Nano plan 
Nano — $1.00/month → 0.0000285 credits/min (rate = monthly × 5 / 175200)
Running 730 h in a cycle would charge $1.25 — the cap lands it at $0.80.

Monthly cap#

Each machine's spending is capped at 80% of its plan's monthly price per billing cycle (a fixed 730-hour basis). The crossing charge is prorated to land exactly on the cap, then the meter freezes — the machine keeps running for free until the cycle rolls over at the next UTC month boundary. No refunds; the cap is the guarantee.

A mid-cycle resize re-targets the cap: completed minutes seal at the old rate, the new rate applies from the resize minute, and the cap blends what you've already spent with the new plan's remaining run rate.

Arrears & suspension#

Charges keep accruing in full even past an empty wallet, and the shortfall records as arrears. The ladder is fixed:

  1. At zero, while a billable machine runsA warning email, repeated every 24 hours.
  2. After 48 hoursEvery billable running machine is suspended. You get one confirmation email and no more reminders after that.

Your next top-up settles arrears first, then credits the rest. Suspended machines flip back to stopped automatically once the balance is positive, and you restart them explicitly. Starting or creating a billable machine requires a positive balance — free machines are exempt.

Limits & fraud controls#

  • New accountsCan top up at most 100 credits in the first 30 days.
  • Payment disputesCount against the account. The third dispute blocks purchases until support unblocks it.
  • Human reviewDisputes never claw wallet money automatically. A human decides every case.