Your wallet and top-ups
A wallet in US dollars, topped up by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay or paid monthly by a saved card, and charged every hour for what your projects used.
Updated 22 Oct 20264 min read
Your account has one wallet, in US dollars. Every hour, what your projects used is counted and taken from it. You pay for it one of two ways:
Prepaid: top up by card, and your usage is taken from the balance.
Pay monthly by card: save a card, and it pays the month's usage on the 1st.
There's no plan: you pay for the memory and processor time your apps and databases really used, plus storage, traffic and builds.
Before your first app
A new app, site or database starts once your wallet holds a small first deposit, the same as the smallest top-up, or once you've saved a card for the monthly bill. A big app also needs its first day covered. If it's missing, the dashboard says how much to add.
Top up
Open Wallet, then Top up.
Choose an amount, or type your own under Other amount.
Choose Pay. A secure card page opens.
Type your card there, or use Apple Pay or Google Pay where your phone or browser has them. Visa, Mastercard and American Express work.
If your bank asks, confirm the payment in its app or with a code.
The money is in your wallet as soon as your bank says yes, and the receipt comes by email. Your card number never reaches us: you type it only on the card page, with 3-D Secure when your bank asks for it.
If your bank is slow to answer, you can leave the page. When it answers, the money arrives by itself.
Example: Asha tops up for duka
Asha opens Wallet, chooses an amount, and pays with her Visa card. Her bank's app asks her to approve; she does, and the page says the amount is in her wallet. The balance tile now says about how many days it lasts at today's use, and her receipt is in her email and under Receipts.
reading today's prices
What the wallet shows
Balance, and about how many days it lasts at today's use.
Spent so far this month, and Expected by the end of the month.
Each day's charges for the last 14 days, and By project.
What each project used: memory in GB-hours and processor time in processor-hours, for each app and database.
History: one line for each project's usage this month, the month's total so far, and every top-up, monthly bill and free credit. Older months open one at a time.
Download statement for any month, with every hour's charges.
Pay monthly by card
Under Pay monthly by card, choose Save a card. A secure card page opens; you type your card there, and your bank may ask you to approve it. We only ever see its kind and last four digits.
Once it's saved, your apps run without topping up. What you used is charged to the card on the 1st of each month. If a month's usage grows large, the card is charged sooner, as soon as what you owe reaches a line. The line starts small and grows with each payment that goes through, and the wallet shows when your card pays next. Each payment gets a receipt.
If your bank asks to approve a charge, or the card refuses it, the monthly bill pauses, your wallet is prepaid again, and you get an email. Top up once, or remove the card and save one that works.
Choose Remove card to go back to prepaid.
When the balance runs low
On a prepaid wallet, we remind you when your balance lasts 7, 3 and 1 days, and when it reaches zero, under the bell and by email.
At zero, everything keeps running for 3 more days, down to a small amount below zero. Then your apps stop:
visitors see a neutral "temporarily unavailable" page;
your domains keep answering, on our nameservers too;
nothing is deleted, and nothing more is charged.
Top up enough to cover what's owed and a day of use, and every app the wallet stopped starts again within a minute. If the wallet stays empty, your data is kept for 30 days after the stop, with reminders a week and a day before, and then the account's projects are deleted.
Free credit and codes
Under Have a code?, a code from us adds free credit. Free credit is used before your paid money, can expire, and is never refunded.
Account limits
New accounts start with small limits: a few projects and apps, and lower memory and processor ceilings. Your first top-up lifts them, and they lift again as what you've paid in all grows. The wallet's Account limits shows your level and what's left for the next one.
Who can top up
The account's owners and its Billing people can top up its wallet (see your team). If top-ups say they aren't set up, card payments aren't open yet; your wallet, its charges and its statements already work.