Phala Cloud Billing

Welcome to our billing guide! This page explains how billing works, payment options, and account management.

For pricing details, see our Pricing page.

How Billing Works

  • Per-minute billing: Usage is tracked per second and billed per minute
  • Automatic deduction: Charges are deducted from your account automatically
  • Separate components: Compute and storage are billed separately
    • Compute charges only apply while CVMs are running
    • Storage charges apply to both running and stopped CVMs

Stopped CVM Billing

When you stop a CVM:

  • Compute charges stop immediately - you won't be charged for CPU/memory
  • Storage charges continue - your disk data is preserved
  • To stop all charges, you must delete the CVM

This allows you to preserve your data and configuration while reducing costs during idle periods.

CVM Credits and Balance

Your account has two types of funds:

  • CVM Credits: Free credits given by us ($20 when you verify your account)
  • Balance: Money you add to your account

How they work:

  • Credits never expire
  • Credits work only for CVM usage (not for GPU instances)
  • We use your free credits first, then your balance
  • You can get a refund for unused balance by emailing us from your registered email
  • If you run out of funds, you'll see overdue charges

When Your Account Goes Overdue

If your balance runs low:

  • We'll email you right away
  • Your CVMs will keep running for 14 days
  • After 14 days, we'll stop your CVMs
  • We keep your data for 3 months

Payment Options

We offer several ways to pay:

  • Credit Card: Pay through Stripe
  • Cryptocurrency: Pay through Coinbase using any ERC20 token on Base chain that can swap to USDC (Coinbase charges transaction fees)
  • Wire Transfer: Available for business accounts with annual contracts

About Credit Card Verification

We verify your identity through a temporary credit card charge:

  • We temporarily authorize a $1 charge during verification
  • The $1 charge will be automatically refunded within 7 business days
  • This verifies the card is valid and active
  • This verification helps prevent fraud and abuse
  • After successful verification, you can add funds at your convenience

Enterprise Options

For larger teams, we offer:

  • Annual billing
  • Volume discounts
  • Custom payment terms
  • Detailed reports

Email us at [email protected] for enterprise options or if you have questions about unexpected charges.

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