Billing and usage

Billing belongs to the billing account that funds your current organization, not to the organization itself. You reach it through the organization: choose Billing in the organization’s sidebar, next to Members. The organization Dashboard’s View billing button and every See plans link in the portal lead there too. The note at the top of the page says how many other organizations share the plan and quota.

Permission billing:view

Without billing:view the page shows Could not load billing, with “You do not have permission to do this. Ask an admin of this organization.” The request meter on the organization Dashboard, the Paid features are paused notice and the lock notice stay visible to every member.

Plans and pricing

GraphPilot has four plans: Glider (Free), Jet (Starter), Airliner (Business) and Jumbo (Enterprise). What each includes and costs is on the pricing page.

One billing account, several organizations

A billing account pays for one or more organizations, at most 3 on every plan (see organizations per billing account). Its plan and its allowances apply to all of them together: the services, custom domains and requests of every organization it funds are counted against one allowance. The billing page shows the billing account of the organization you opened it from, so it changes when you switch organizations. The Account tab lists the organizations the account funds when there is more than one.

Everything the plan unlocks follows from the billing account too, for example which Insights filters and columns an organization’s members see.

The billing page

The top of the page shows your current plan and its state, with what you can do about it. Below it are four tabs.

The billing page shows its buttons to everyone who can open it. Changing the plan, canceling, the payment method, the billing address and paying an invoice need billing:edit; without it, the action is refused with “You do not have permission to do this. Ask an admin of this organization.”

Plan states

State	The banner says	What you can do
Active	”Renews automatically on” the renewal date.	Change plan, or cancel my subscription.
Scheduled change	”You are switching to” the new plan on the date it takes effect.	Cancel plan change, or Change plan.
Past due	”Payment failed. Update your payment method if it changed, then pay the open invoice to keep your plan.” The payment is retried automatically, and until it is paid the services run in lean mode; see Overdue payments for what follows if the payment does not arrive.	Update payment method, or Pay open invoice, which opens the Invoices tab.
Incomplete	”Your subscription setup is incomplete.” The paid plan applies once its first payment goes through.	Complete payment, which reopens the checkout.
Canceled	”Your subscription ends on” the date, after which the account moves to Glider (Free).	Keep subscription takes the cancellation back; Change plan.
Inactive	”Your subscription is currently inactive.”	Upgrade or Change plan.

On Glider (Free) the banner offers Change plan. An account without any subscription, for example after its paid plan was terminated for non-payment, sees Upgrade instead.

Tab	Shows
Overview	Current cycle: a preview of the upcoming invoice, and Usage. When a coupon applies, the preview lists the Subtotal, a Discount row with the coupon’s name and the amount it takes off, and the total after it.
Payment	Your Payment method and billing address, each with a button to change it.
Invoices	Payment history: previous and upcoming invoices.
Account	Account details: your billing account ID, the organizations it funds, and Copy support details and Contact support for a billing question.

Overdue payments

When a renewal payment fails, the plan stays and the payment is retried automatically. From the first failed attempt until the payment arrives, every service the billing account funds runs in lean mode: requests are still served, without the edge cache and without stored request telemetry, and a Paid features are paused notice says why. The services run in full mode again once the payment arrives.

Reminder. One payment reminder goes out by email, with the amount due and the last day to pay: the 14th day after the reminder. Days end at midnight UTC. The reminder names the day the account is locked.
Lock. If the payment has not arrived by the end of that day, the account is locked within the first hour of the next day (UTC), and its services are suspended: the API is no longer served, lean or full, and only billing can be changed and the plan canceled. Every member sees a lock notice, which takes the place of the lean-mode notice. The amount stays due, and nothing is deleted: the services’ hostnames and certificates are released at the edge, while every organization, service, deployment, configuration and domain is kept. The lock email names the last day before the paid plan is terminated.
Termination of the paid plan. If the payment has still not arrived by the end of the 30th day after the lock, the paid plan is terminated for non-payment: the subscription ends and the account moves to Glider (Free). It stays locked until the amount is paid.

Paying what is outstanding ends this at any point, and nothing else is needed: no new plan. The account unlocks on its own and its services are redeployed, usually within minutes: on its plan before the termination, on Glider after it, from where a paid plan can be chosen again on the billing page. Custom domains get a new certificate with that redeployment, which can take a few minutes; if you removed their DNS records while the account was locked, add them again.

While the account is locked, the billing page opens with Unlock your account: the amount still open, with a Pay button (or View invoices when several invoices are open). Change plan is disabled. The only changes accepted are paying, the payment method and the billing address; contacting support and deleting your account also still work. Canceling the plan also still works: it takes effect at the end of the current period, so the plan does not renew. It does not pay or cancel the open invoices; they stay due and the account stays locked until they are paid. Taking the cancellation back is not possible while the account is locked.

GraphPilot can also lock an account that misuses the service. The notice then reads Account suspended: “This account is locked and its services are not served. Nothing is deleted. Please contact support to have it reactivated.” Only support lifts that lock.

Fair use

Glider (Free) is offered under fair use: an account whose traffic goes far beyond what Glider is meant for is warned, and can then be locked until the start of the next month or a move to a paid plan. Two notices sit directly below the toolbar on every page of every organization the account funds, the billing page included. Neither can be dismissed, and every member sees them, including members whose role cannot open the billing page.

State	The notice says	Action
Warned this month	”Traffic beyond fair use: the services may be suspended. By date, this account had sent traffic far beyond what Glider is meant for. Glider is offered under fair use: if this goes on, the account is locked and its services are suspended. Such a lock lifts at the start of the next month, on date, or at once on a paid plan. Nothing is deleted.” While the account is also in lean mode over its request allowance, the notice says so and takes that notice’s place. While it runs lean for another reason (a suspension or a payment), the lean mode notice stays, with its own action, and this one is not shown.	Upgrade opens the plan selection.
Locked this month	”Services suspended: traffic beyond fair use. This account sent traffic far beyond what Glider is meant for. Glider is offered under fair use, so the account is locked and its services are not served. Nothing is deleted, and only billing can be changed. The lock lifts at the start of the next month, on date, or at once on a paid plan, and the services are then redeployed.”	Upgrade opens the plan selection.
Locked this month, with a payment overdue	”Services suspended: traffic beyond fair use. This account sent traffic far beyond what Glider is meant for. Glider is offered under fair use, so the account is locked and its services are not served. Nothing is deleted, and only billing can be changed. The fair-use lock lifts at the start of the next month, on date. A payment is also overdue: please pay the outstanding invoice by date. If it is still unpaid then, the account is locked for the overdue payment, and that lock does not lift at the start of a month. A paid plan can be chosen once the invoice is paid.” The second date is the last day to pay that the payment reminder named.	Go to billing opens the billing page, where the invoice is paid.

The lift date is the 1st of the next month (UTC). The warning notice goes away at the start of the next month, once the account is locked, or once it is on a paid plan. After the start of the month, until the lock has lifted, the lock notice says the lock is lifting now. A fair-use lock does not end through paying an invoice, and a lock for an overdue payment does not end at the start of a month: see fair use.

Payment method

The Payment tab shows the payment method on file, or No payment method, with Add or Change:

A card: its brand, last four digits and Expires date.
SEPA Direct Debit: the account holder, the last four digits of the IBAN, the Bank and the country.
Link: the Connected Account of a Link (by Stripe) wallet, for one-click checkout. A card saved through Link shows as a card with the Link mark.

Invoices

Payment history lists each invoice with its Status (for example Paid or Open), Date, Due date and Amount. Expand a row to see its line items, in the order the invoice PDF lists them. Line amounts are before discounts: an invoice with a coupon, or with tax, also shows its Subtotal, a Discount row per coupon, Tax and the Total. PDF downloads the invoice. An open invoice has a Pay button, which opens the Pay invoice page: it charges the saved payment method, or asks for Confirm payment when the bank wants a confirmation. To pay with another method, change it on the Payment tab first. An invoice that could not be collected has a Pay button that opens the payment provider’s hosted invoice page.

An invoice is addressed to the name and address on the billing address. Changing the billing address on the Payment tab, or from the order step, asks for this name as an organization’s name, not a person’s. An order with a new payment method saves the billing address entered with it in the same way. An invoice keeps the name it was issued with: a later change applies to the invoices that follow. The same dialog takes an optional VAT ID.

Usage

Usage shows these figures against your plan’s allowance:

Figure	What happens at the limit
Request units	Counted per billing period, which the row shows, in request units: one per started 10 KiB of uncompressed response body, at every edge location the request passed through (a request through the shield counts at two), so the figure is higher than the request count in Insights when responses are larger than 10 KiB or go through the shield. On Glider (Free), edge caching and stored request telemetry are paused until the plan changes or the period resets, and requests served meanwhile still count; traffic that continues beyond fair use, as set out in the terms, can have the services suspended. On paid plans, further request units are billed as overage, per started million (see the request quota); after a plan change within the period, the row shows the current plan’s allowance against the whole period, while the invoice applies each plan’s allowance to its own part of it.
Logged requests	Paid plans only. Counted per billing period, which the row shows: the requests kept for Insights, each counted once, against the plan’s allowance of logged requests. Further logged requests are billed as overage, per started million. The count is read by the hour, so the hour the period starts in counts whole; after a plan change within the period, the invoice applies each plan’s allowance to its own part of the period, while the row shows the current plan’s allowance against the whole period. Glider (Free) has no such row: recording stops with lean mode when the request units are used up.
Custom domains	Further ones are refused. Glider (Free) includes none.
Services	Further ones are refused.

When the Request units figure is higher than the number of requests clients sent, because request units count a response once per started 10 KiB and a request through a shield at two edge locations, the row names that number below the period, for example 200K client requests. Large responses and requests through the shield use more than one request unit. Insights shows the same client request count. When the two are equal the line is not shown.

When a figure cannot be read, its row shows This value could not be loaded. with Try again, and the rest of the page loads as usual. The Request units this period meter on the organization Dashboard, the payment method and the preview of the next invoice do the same. See when something does not load.

Paid features are paused

While the billing account runs in lean mode, a Paid features are paused notice sits directly below the toolbar on every page of every organization the account funds, the billing page included. It cannot be dismissed: it goes away when lean mode ends.

Cause	The notice says	Action
The allowance is used up	”The allowance on this plan is used up, so edge caching and stored request telemetry are paused across every service this account funds until the plan changes or the period resets on date.”	Upgrade opens the plan selection on the billing page. Otherwise the period resetting on the date shown restores it. On Glider (Free) this is the request allowance.
GraphPilot paused the account	”Edge caching and stored request telemetry are paused across every service this account funds. Please contact support to have them restored.”	Contact support. No upgrade is offered, because no plan lifts it.
A renewal payment failed	”A payment failed and is being retried, so edge caching and stored request telemetry are paused across every service this account funds until the payment goes through. Check the payment method on the billing page.”	Go to billing, where the payment method is updated and the open invoice can be paid. Lean mode ends when the payment arrives; see Overdue payments.
Any other reason	”Edge caching and stored request telemetry are withdrawn across every service this account funds.”	None. See lean mode.

Every member sees the notice, including members whose role cannot open the billing page.

While the notice shows, requests are still counted against the allowance but not recorded: they do not appear in Insights or gpilot requests, and changing the plan does not bring them back. Recording resumes for requests served after the plan changes.

The pages that go quiet say why instead of showing their usual empty state:

Insights: on the Requests and Operations tabs, an empty request log reads No requests are recorded while this account is in lean mode, with the same action as the notice, and an empty top list reads Nothing is recorded in lean mode.
Purges: an empty history reads Nothing is recorded while this account is in lean mode. Purges you run still take effect; they are only not listed.
Service dashboard: the service shows Lean: served without edge caching beside its name, linking to the notice.

The Usage figures keep counting in lean mode. At the limit on Glider (Free) the Request units row says so.

What else lean mode changes is on lean mode.

The organization Dashboard shows the same figure as Request units this period, with the same client request line.

Billing emails

Billing emails come from billing@graphpilot.io.

To the billing account’s email address: receipts for paid invoices, with the invoice PDF attached, a failed payment (except for a renewal, which the overdue payment emails below cover), refunds, and requests to confirm a payment with your bank. A request to confirm links to the invoice’s Pay invoice page in the portal.
To everyone with the Admin role in each organization the billing account funds: a plan change, a scheduled plan change and its withdrawal, a cancellation and its withdrawal, the renewal of a yearly plan, and every overdue payment email (the reminder, the lock, the termination and the unlock). Members with any other role receive none of these.

GraphPilot sends these emails itself, receipts included; Stripe sends none of its own.

The billing account’s email address is the email address of the person who created the billing account’s first organization, as it was when the billing account was set up. Nothing in the portal changes it later: not the billing address, not a new payment method, and not a change to the email address of that person’s login. To have receipts and invoices sent to a different address, contact support.

Change your plan

Permission billing:edit

On the billing page, select Change plan, which Glider (Free) shows too. An account without any subscription shows Upgrade instead.
Pick a plan and a billing interval. Glider, Jet and Airliner are always shown. Each plan is marked Current, Recommended, Upgrade or Downgrade. A plan that cannot be ordered here is grayed out with the reason: Glider (Free) is never ordered here. From a paid plan, it is reached by canceling the subscription, and an account without any subscription is put on it automatically. Jumbo (Enterprise) is not offered here.
Select Continue. The next step lists the plan’s usage-billed items with their price per block of requests; they come with the plan and are not chosen. Without a saved payment method, it also asks for a payment method and a billing address, with the organization’s name; your invoices are addressed to this name and address, and a billing address already on file is offered there. The summary lists the charges before discount, the Subtotal, a Discount row for each coupon that applies, tax, and what is Due today after them. With a 100 % coupon, that is €0.00. On a change in the middle of a period, Stripe prices the discount into the prorated charge (“Remaining time on Jet (with 100.0% off)” on the invoice); the summary shows that charge before discount and the discount as its own Discount row, named after the coupon. Below the summary, enter a Promotion code (optional) if you have one and select Apply (see Promotion codes).

Billing period shows when the plan renews and the amount of the renewal before tax. With a coupon in effect, that amount is the renewal as Stripe previews it with the coupons that still apply then, and each coupon says how long it lasts: it applies to every renewal (a coupon for ever), until the date Stripe ends it (a coupon for a number of months), or to this order only (a coupon for one invoice). When the renewal cannot be previewed (a coupon that can no longer be redeemed still applies to the plan, or Stripe does not answer in time), no amount is quoted: the line shows the plan’s price before discounts. Without a coupon, the renewal is at the plan’s price. Below the summary, the checkout states when the plan can be canceled: a monthly plan at any time, effective at the end of the billing period; a yearly plan to the end of its term, after which it renews for another twelve months. The date shown is the end of the period Stripe bills for the plan.
With the saved payment method, Invoice to shows the name, city and country of the billing address the invoices are addressed to. Select Edit to change it in the Billing Address dialog. Without a billing address on file, the step asks you to add one first (Add billing address), and the order waits for it.
Under Business details, tick I am ordering for a company or as a self-employed professional, not as a consumer. It is required: paid plans are available to businesses (§ 14 BGB) only. With a new payment method, a VAT ID (optional) field follows, which asks for the VAT ID only.
Tick the box to accept the Terms of Service, a separate box, and select Order now. The button stays disabled until the business confirmation, the acceptance and the billing address are given.

Every paid order accepts the terms in force again, including a change from one paid plan to another, so an account created before a change of the terms accepts the new version with its next order. GraphPilot records each acceptance with the version of the terms, the time, the user who ordered (with the email address and name of their login at that moment), the organization and the billing account, before the order is sent. The Privacy Policy is linked below the box for information; it is not something you accept. A change to Glider (Free), which in the portal is cancel my subscription, asks for none of this.

The order sends no name of its own: the invoice of the order and every later one, a reverse-charge invoice included, are addressed to the name on the billing address.

Promotion codes

A promotion code is entered on the order step, below the summary, and checked when you select Apply, before anything is ordered. An accepted code is shown as applied and the summary is calculated again: the code shows as a Discount row with its coupon’s name, and the order is charged that amount. Order now waits until the summary is up to date. A code that cannot be used for this order is not applied and the summary stays as it was: the reason shows under the field (for example, the code does not exist, has expired, has been redeemed as often as it may be, is for a first order only, needs a higher order amount, or does not apply to the chosen plan). Remove takes an applied code off and calculates the summary again without it. The order uses the code the summary shows, also when a new payment method is confirmed first. A code is checked again when the order is placed. Going back to the plan selection starts the order without a code.

A code entered on a plan change replaces a discount the subscription already has. Glider (Free) takes no code.

A discount the subscription already has carries over to a plan change that takes effect at the end of the period, unless that change brings a code of its own. The order summary shows it as well.

A plan change that takes effect at the end of the period shows as scheduled at the top of the page, and Cancel plan change withdraws it.

An upgrade, the switch from monthly to yearly billing, and a first paid plan take effect at once and are charged at once. A change to a lower plan or to a shorter interval (yearly to monthly) takes effect at the end of the current period, also when it moves to a higher plan at the same time. The checkout’s Starts line says which: Immediately or At next renewal. An upgrade replaces a scheduled plan change or a scheduled cancellation, but only once its payment has gone through: if the payment fails, both stay as they were.

A change to a plan that keeps Insights history for a shorter time deletes the older history. From the day the change takes effect (today for a change that applies at once, otherwise the end of the period), request telemetry older than the new plan’s retention is deleted, and a later upgrade does not bring it back. Canceling counts as a change to Glider (Free), which keeps one day. The checkout and the cancel dialog show this as Insights history is deleted, with the date. To keep a copy, ask support for an export before that date.

When your bank asks you to confirm the payment

Your bank can ask you to confirm a payment (3D Secure), which is common for cards issued in the EU. When it does for your first paid plan (ordered from Glider (Free), paying by card or Link), the checkout closes and your bank’s confirmation opens on the billing page.

You confirm it: the order shows as complete, and the new plan applies once the payment has gone through.
You cancel it, or the bank declines it: Payment not confirmed says why, and that your plan has not changed. Nothing is charged. Choose Change plan to order again.

Until the payment is confirmed you stay on your current plan, with its features and its scheduled changes. Scheduling another plan change in that time is refused with “A plan change is waiting for your bank to confirm its payment.”, until the payment is confirmed or the change is discarded. A plan change that is still waiting for a confirmation after about 23 hours (sooner when the billing period ends first) is discarded, together with its invoice. Until then its invoice is listed as Open on the Invoices tab, and paying it there completes the change.

A declined card (one that needs no confirmation) fails the order at once, and the plan stays as it is.

Ordering again while a confirmation is outstanding replaces the earlier order, whose invoice is then discarded. The exception is a billing account without any subscription, for example one whose subscription ended after it was locked. There a new order is refused with “An earlier order is still being completed.” while the earlier one waits for its confirmation or its payment is still being processed. Confirm it from its invoice on the Invoices tab, or wait until it has gone through or been discarded.

A change from one paid plan to another (an upgrade, or monthly to yearly billing) cannot be confirmed this way: when the bank asks for a confirmation there, the order fails with “The payment did not go through”, and the plan, its scheduled changes and its cancellation stay as they were. The message then points to Contact support in the same view: support completes the change with you, and you confirm the payment on the invoice’s payment page. Paying with a card that needs no confirmation, or with SEPA Direct Debit, also completes it.

To end a paid plan, use cancel my subscription under the plan. It runs to the end of the current period, and Keep subscription takes the cancellation back until then.

Renewal of a yearly plan

A plan billed yearly renews automatically for another twelve months at the end of its term, and can be canceled until the last day of the term. One month before it renews, the members with the Admin role in every organization the billing account funds receive a reminder by email: the renewal date, the plan’s price before tax, and a link to the billing page where the plan can be canceled. The reminder goes out on the day one calendar month before the renewal date (UTC), or on the last day of that month when it is shorter (a renewal on 31 March is announced on the last day of February). Each renewal is announced once.

No reminder goes out for a plan billed monthly, for a plan that is already canceled or has a plan change scheduled for the end of its term (a downgrade, or a switch to monthly billing), or while a payment is overdue: the overdue payment emails apply then. None goes out either once the deletion of the account has started, or while every organization the billing account funds is being deleted. When only some of them are being deleted, the reminder goes to the organizations that stay. A plan whose cancellation is withdrawn, or whose overdue payment arrives, before the renewal still gets its reminder, within a day.

Quotas and lean mode
Custom domains
Your account: deleting an account that pays for organizations