How billing works

There are no plans or sizes on Tanzahost. Your apps and databases pay for what they really use: the memory they hold and the processor time they take, counted every minute, plus storage, traffic and build minutes. Your saved card pays when your use reaches your line, and at the end of every month for whatever's left. Projects are free, and limits cost nothing by themselves.

What's measured

Every process counts: an app's web process, its workers and its scheduled tasks while they run, a site's database, and every database of its own. A month's rate is for a whole month of 730 hours; an app that holds memory for fewer hours pays for fewer. Prices are the same for everyone paying in your currency in your project's location, and are on Pricing.

How use becomes your bill

Your apps' and databases' use is measured every few seconds and counted minute by minute. It's added to your month as it happens, so the wallet always shows what this month has cost so far: today's cost, the month so far, the month's expected total, and each project's and app's share. Prices are finer than a cent, so nothing is rounded away.

Paying by your card

Every account pays with a saved card. You save it once, on a secure card page, and it pays:

• at your line: as soon as what you owe reaches your line, any day of the month. The line starts at $5 and grows ($10 and $50) with each payment that goes through;

• at the end of the month: on the 1st, for whatever last month left unpaid, even if it never reached the line. A balance under $0.10, the smallest amount a card can be charged, waits for the next month.

Money in your wallet, from a top-up or free credit, is used first. Every payment gets a receipt. There's no switch to turn this off: a saved card always pays. Remove it, and your wallet is prepaid until you save another.

Starting your first app

Save a card to start: saving it charges nothing, though your bank may ask you to approve it.

A big app also needs its first day covered by your balance and your line. See Your wallet, card and top-ups and Receipts.

Topping up

You can also top up your wallet by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, through Stripe, whenever you like. A wallet is in US dollars and takes cards from any country. What's in it is used before your card pays.

An example month

Asha's Laravel shop holds about 200 MB of memory and uses about 3% of a processor, most hours. A month of that, 730 hours, is about $1.56. Her worker and scheduler add a little, and her database a bit more.

On a busy day her shop uses more, and pays more for those hours. On a quiet night it uses less, and pays less. She never pays for room she isn't using. On the 1st, her card pays what October used, and her receipt says so.

Prices before every choice

Before you add an app or a database, or change its limits, the screen shows:

• the rates, in your currency, for your project's location;

• an estimate for the month, from the app's own use over its last 7 days, or for a new one from similar apps in its location, rounded up;

• the most a month could cost, even at both limits all month.

Paying less

• Sleeping: a quiet app can sleep after 15 minutes without visitors, and pays only for its storage until the next visit.

• Stopped: a stopped app pays only for its storage.

• Limits: keep a runaway app from using more than you expect. See Limits.

When your card can't pay

If your card refuses a payment, or your bank asks to approve it, we tell you at once, and your wallet is prepaid until you pay by hand once or save a card that works. The same goes if you remove your card. On a prepaid wallet:

• Alerts come at 7, 3 and 1 days left, and at zero, under the bell and by email.

• At zero, everything keeps running for 3 days, down to $3 below zero.

• Then your apps stop: visitors see a neutral "unavailable" page. Nothing is deleted, and databases keep their data.

• Pay what's owed, and the apps the wallet stopped start again within a minute.

• Deleted only after a long stop: after 30 days stopped, with reminders a week and a day before, the account's projects are deleted.

A spending cap

Every new wallet starts with a monthly spending cap, which you can change or remove. Reaching it, you're told; nothing new can be added that month, and if you chose so, your apps stop until next month. See Spending cap.

When prices change

A price that goes up starts only after a notice period, and everyone paying in that currency is told under the bell and by email. A price that goes down starts at once. Use is always charged at the prices in force when it was used.