Billing: Overview¶

ComputeStacks is a metered (post-pay) system, which means all of our resources are either shown as per-hour, or per-unit.

We perform all billing calculation based on a user's assigned billing plan, and report that to your billing system.

Usage Calculation¶

ComputeStacks uses a simple realtime price strategy for recording billable usage for consumed resources. This is in contrast to more traditional billing systems which determine pricing at the time an invoice is generated, not when the resource was consumed.

Each hour, ComputeStacks pulls the current usage across all subscriptions. At the same time, it performs a real time price lookup based on the rules defined in their billing plan.

Because the price is determined in real time and stored alongside the quantity used, any change you make in the future will not adjust their previously stored usage.

Suspending a User¶

To suspend a user, clear Enabled on the user's edit page in the admin, or suspend them through the Manage API. Suspension stops their containers and SSH (SFTP) containers that were running, and records which ones it stopped.

Reactivating the user starts exactly those containers again. Anything the user had stopped themselves stays stopped.

If a node refuses a stop or start at the time, because it is offline or busy, the controller retries it for up to 30 minutes. A note on the suspension or reactivation event names any container it still couldn't reach.

Billing continues while a user is suspended, unless their user group's Bill While Suspended? setting (bill_suspended in the Manage API) is turned off. It is on by default. When it is off, suspension pauses the user's subscriptions and reactivation resumes them.