# Billing

> Pick a monthly plan from $10 to $1,000, or one sized to your boxes past that. It lands as credit every cycle, boxes bill by the hour against it, and unused credit rolls over up to two months of your plan.

URL: https://prized.dev/docs/billing

## How it works [#how-it-works]

A plan is how much money you put in each month, at any rung from $10 to $1,000. Every cycle at least that much credit lands in your balance, and every box you own meters against it, by the second, quoted by the hour:

| Box state | Rate                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| --------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Awake     | Its monthly price spread over a 730 hour month. A Small is $100 a month, so $0.137 an hour.                                                                                                 |
| Asleep    | $0.0001 per GB hour of the disk the box actually has; a Small asleep for a month is about $22. A box that kept a bigger disk pays the same per-GB rate for the extra disk, asleep or awake. |

* **Pausing keeps the money.** Pause from the dashboard, or switch on [auto-pause](https://prized.dev/docs/boxes#auto-pause); `prized ssh` wakes the box when you come back.
* **Credit rolls over,** up to two months of your plan; anything above that cap lapses when a cycle's credit lands, as its own line in your activity. Top-up credit and free credit are protected from the trim for two months after they land.
* **Each rung runs one size around the clock:** $10 a Nano, $100 a Small, $1,000 an Extra Large. The credit spends on any mix.
* **Long cycles land more credit.** Rates assume 730 hours, but a calendar cycle runs up to 744, so a longer cycle lands proportionally more credit at no extra charge.
* **A fleet bigger than the biggest rung** gets a plan sized exactly to it: an Extra Large plus a Small is a $1,100/mo plan, offered wherever your boxes outgrow $1,000.

## Free credit [#free-credit]

New workspaces get $30 of free credit, once, when the owner walks through onboarding; it spends exactly like paid credit, and the tour's box step starts a box on it, no card needed. Choosing a plan while some is left keeps it: free credit is spared from the rollover trim for two months after it lands, so the first cycle simply adds to it. It does not refill: the sidebar shows what is left, at zero boxes pause as in [Running out](#running-out), and the dashboard then opens on the plan picker until you choose a plan, whose first cycle lands as credit right away.

While the workspace runs on the free credit alone:

* **It starts Nano, Micro, Extra Small, or Small.** Medium and larger come with a plan, and you can take that route on the spot: pick the bigger size on the tour or the create form, start its plan, and that size launches as soon as the first cycle's credit lands. Asking the API for one on the credit alone answers `409 tier_unavailable` and says so. The tour's size list and the create form's cards show how long the credit runs each size around the clock, from the rates below: about three months on a Nano, about five weeks on a Micro, about nine days on a Small (or 19 nights at eight hours awake a day). A create that names no size gets a Small.

* **Boxes never pause themselves.** [Auto-pause](https://prized.dev/docs/boxes#auto-pause) is a plan feature: setting a window on a box running on the credit answers `409 trial_no_auto_pause`. Nothing stops mid-work, and nothing stops mid-sync on the first day. Pause the box yourself from the dashboard or with `prized box pause` when you are done for the day: a paused box keeps its disk at the sleep rate and wakes on `prized ssh`, so credit nobody is using is not spent.

* **It runs one box at a time.** A second create — from the dashboard, `prized box new`, a restore, or a fork — answers `409 box_limit` and says so. Delete the box you have and the slot frees up; pick a plan and the cap goes to the usual 100.

* **One process holding the whole box at full CPU for more than 30 minutes pauses the workspace.** Its boxes pause, and creating or waking one answers `409 workspace_held` with the reason. Builds, tests, and agents use the CPU in bursts, and a single-threaded job leaves the box headroom, so neither trips it; a long job that fills every core belongs on a plan, and starting one lifts the pause at once.

All four rules lift the moment a plan is live; a box already started on the credit keeps its settings, and its idle timer can be set from then on.

## Sizes and rates [#sizes-and-rates]

The live shape and price table is at https://prized.dev/pricing.

The last column is both the most a box can cost in a month and the plan that runs it around the clock. A comparison against renting the same machine elsewhere is on the [pricing page](https://prized.dev/pricing).

## Choosing and changing the plan [#choosing-and-changing-the-plan]

The workspace owner picks a plan on the Billing page, or on the tour's payment step once the [free credit](#free-credit) is spent. Payment is Stripe Checkout, cards only, and the first cycle's credit lands before you are back. Choosing a plan when you have no box starts one, at the size that rung runs around the clock.

| Change    | Effect                                                                                                                                                               |
| --------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Upgrade   | Starts a fresh cycle today: one full month of the new plan, minus the unused share of your old one, bills immediately and lands as credit. Your renewal date resets. |
| Downgrade | Changes what the next cycle bills, on your existing renewal date. This cycle's credit stays yours.                                                                   |
| Cancel    | Stops the plan at the period's end; credit already landed keeps working until spent. Pick a plan again before then and it keeps renewing.                            |

The page leads with the balance and how long it lasts at the current burn, and says so when your live boxes all fit a smaller plan or outgrow this one; past $1,000/mo the picker grows one more card, sized to your boxes. The balance and plan belong to the [workspace](https://prized.dev/docs/workspaces): everyone in it spends the same balance and can see this page, and only the owner can change the plan, buy top-ups, switch overage, or open the Stripe portal.

## Topping up [#topping-up]

The owner can buy a one-time top-up from the Billing page, $10 to $250 by card, in your balance right away and as often as needed; it never changes what the plan bills. With [overage](#overage) on there is nothing to do: usage past your credit bills with the next invoice.

## When we tell you [#when-we-tell-you]

* **Dashboard banner** once less than two days of credit remain at the current rate, and different ones in overage, after boxes were suspended, while a payment is failing, and before the account is funded.
* **`prized status`** prints a credit line when the balance is running low.
* **Email** at a quarter and a tenth of what the last cycle left you, once when you cross into overage, once if boxes are paused, and once if a payment fails. If you never started a plan, at most two reminders.

## Overage [#overage]

**Off by default:** out of credit means boxes pause, and nothing bills past what you put in. The owner can switch it on from the Billing page, and running out then stops nothing:

* The meter keeps billing past zero at the same hourly rates; the amount below zero is added to your next invoice as its own line, no markup. Prepaid credit always spends first, and adding credit (a top-up, an upgrade, the next cycle) pays the overage down first.
* You see it: an overage banner, a negative balance on the Billing page, and one email when you cross.
* Turn it off any time and the balance is the hard stop again; overage already run up still bills with your next invoice, or a final one if the plan ends first.
* **A failed or disputed payment switches overage off** until a payment collects. **A cancelled plan** with a negative balance bills the outstanding overage once, on a final invoice; a tail under Stripe's 50 cent minimum is written off.
* **Only metered compute bills as overage.** A balance made negative by a refund, a reversed payment, or a correction is never charged as overage.
* **A reversed payment can put overage back.** Disputing the payment that settled your overage puts the balance, and the overage owed on it, back where they were.

## Running out [#running-out]

With overage off, without a plan, or while a payment is failing, the balance is the hard stop: at zero, boxes suspend. Disks are kept, with your work, installed tools, and git state; the next cycle, an upgrade, or a top-up lets you start them again from the dashboard, and we never start them for you. Suspended boxes keep metering their disk at the sleep rate, and usage the balance cannot cover is written off, never turned into a debt.

> Nothing is deleted automatically. If a balance stays empty for a long time, we contact you before any disk is released.

## Starting and resizing boxes [#starting-and-resizing-boxes]

A create, a wake, or a resize needs enough balance to run the resulting fleet for four hours, counting every box at the disk it actually has. It is a check, not a charge; a refusal says what the fleet would burn and what the balance would need. A resize meters at the new rate from that moment, and a box in the middle of a change cannot be resized until it settles.

A region move keeps the hourly rate but copies the whole disk, so it needs a funded balance and is capped per box ([Regions](https://prized.dev/docs/boxes#regions)). Every other cap is on [Limits](https://prized.dev/docs/limits).

When a new or resized box would cost more around the clock than your plan puts in each month, the owner sees a plan offer in the create and resize flows: **Resize** offers the covering plan as one extra click, quoting the charge due today (decline and it just resizes); **Create** pre-selects it and the button reads "Create and switch to $X/mo" (uncheck to create on your current plan); past the biggest rung the offer is the exact monthly cost of your boxes; with no plan yet the same spot offers your first one. Nothing charges without the page saying so first, and the prepaid balance is the only thing that gates a box.

## Failed payments [#failed-payments]

A failed cycle payment suspends nothing by itself: no credit landed, so boxes keep running on what remains, and overage switches off until a payment collects. Stripe retries on its own schedule, the dashboard shows a banner, and we email you once; the owner can update the card in the Stripe portal, linked from the Billing page.

A refund, or a payment your card issuer pulls back (a dispute), takes the credit it bought out of the balance; a dispute also pauses the plan's billing and switches overage off while it stands. Won, the credit is restored and billing resumes, and overage returns with your next successful payment; lost, the plan is cancelled and overage stays off, so pick a plan again to start a new one.

## Receipts [#receipts]

Every cycle produces a Stripe invoice you can download. The Billing page lists recent activity, each cycle's credit and one usage line per hour; card details, invoices, and receipts live in the Stripe portal, linked from the same page for the owner.

## Custom plans [#custom-plans]

A fleet bigger than the largest rung needs no special deal: the plan sizes itself to your boxes ([above](#choosing-and-changing-the-plan)). For a startup deal or a negotiated amount, email the support address shown on https://prized.dev/docs/troubleshooting and we send you a link; the owner opens it to subscribe at that amount in one click, or to move an existing plan, and from then on it behaves like any other plan. Links expire after 30 days.