Billing

How pricing works

Every service, database, queue and search instance has its own monthly price, which you see before you create it. There are no plans, seat fees or minimums: your bill is the sum of what you run, plus a few usage-based charges.

• Prices are in euros and exclude VAT. You're billed monthly on one Stripe subscription per team.
• Adding or resizing a resource mid-month is prorated — you pay for the part of the month it ran at each size. Deleting one stops its charge.
• Settings → Billing shows This month's cost, line by line, and updates as you add and remove resources.

The pricing page has the same prices with comparisons.

The free allowance

Every account gets one Nano service and one Starter Postgres database free, with no card needed.

• The allowance is per person, not per team: creating a second team doesn't give you a second set.
• It stays free after you add a card. Your first Nano and first Starter Postgres show on the cost breakdown marked as free tier, and the rest is billed as usual.
• Without a card on the team, the free Nano sleeps after 60 minutes without traffic and wakes on the next request. With a card, it runs always-on like any other service.
• A free service that serves no traffic for 60 days is suspended, and the team owner gets an email. Resume it from the dashboard.

The free Nano covers a web service, private service or worker — not a static site or cron job. Anything beyond the allowance — a second service, a bigger size, another database, a queue — needs a card.

Prices

Services

Per instance: a service scaled to three instances costs three times its size's price. Each size includes the local disk shown.

Databases

The same sizes apply to Postgres, MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB and Redis.

Queues and search

Usage-based charges

Build minutes are wall-clock time from the start of a build to its end, rounded up to the whole minute per build — and a build that fails counts too. Pulling a dev box's image is not a build. Storage is measured once a day and billed for the days it existed.

Add a payment method

1. Open Settings → Billing

   You need to be an admin or the owner of the team. On a team without a card, click Add payment method. Trying to create a paid resource without one opens the same prompt.

2. Enter a card in Stripe Checkout

   HostStack takes cards — credit and debit. Checkout also asks for your billing address and lets you add a VAT number; both are used on your invoices.

3. Create the resource

   Stripe sends you back to where you started. Until the team has paid its first invoice, each new paid resource starts with a €3 charge that proves the card works. The same amount is credited to your account straight away, so it comes off your first invoice. If the card is declined, nothing is created.

Invoices and VAT

• Fill in Billing Profile on Settings → Billing — name, address and VAT number. It's required before VAT can be calculated and invoices issued.
• VAT is calculated by Stripe Tax from your billing address. EU business customers with a valid VAT number are invoiced with reverse charge.
• Past invoices are listed under Invoice history. Click Manage in Portal to open the Stripe customer portal, where you change your card and download invoices.

Keep an eye on spend

Set a monthly budget under Spend limit on Settings → Billing. The team is notified when the month's cost reaches 80% and 100% of it. It's an alert only: nothing is stopped when you pass it.

If a payment fails

Update your card through Manage in Portal as soon as you can. Until a payment clears:

• Every failed payment is reported in the dashboard and by email.
• After repeated failures, creating new resources and deploying are blocked.
• If the balance is still unpaid 7 days after the first notice, the resources beyond the free allowance are stopped. Their data is kept, and anything that fits the free allowance keeps running. On your own machines the container keeps running, but HostStack stops routing traffic to it.

When a payment clears, everything that was stopped for non-payment starts again on its own.

Stop paying

Delete the paid services, databases, queues, search instances and volumes you no longer need; each stops being charged when it's deleted. Removing your card doesn't stop anything by itself — resources keep running and billing, and the next charge fails.

Questions

Email support@hoststack.dev with your team name and, for a charge you don't recognise, the invoice number.

Next steps

• PricingEvery size and price, with comparisons.
• Teams & rolesWho can add a card and manage billing.
• AutoscalingHow instance count — and so cost — follows load.