Billing
Billing — ɳSelf documentation.
nself Cloud billing is handled by Stripe. This page covers subscriptions, metered usage, invoices, plan changes, and cancellation.
How Billing Works
You pay two separate charges:
- nself Cloud management fee: charged by nself.org via Stripe (monthly or annual)
- Hetzner infrastructure cost: charged directly by Hetzner to a payment method you add in their portal
The management fee covers provisioning, monitoring, SSH bridge, backups, and support. Infrastructure cost is passed through at Hetzner list prices with no markup.
Plans
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Servers | Plugins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $5/mo | $49/yr | 1 | 31 free MIT |
| Pro | $15/mo | $149/yr | 3 | All pro plugins |
| Elite | $29/mo | $289/yr | 10 | All pro + email support |
| Business | $79/mo | $799/yr | Unlimited | All pro + 24h support |
Annual plans save ~17% vs monthly.
Metered Usage
Certain events are metered and may appear on invoices for high-volume plans:
| Event | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
api_call | Per 1,000 requests | Hasura GraphQL requests through your server |
storage_write | Per GB | Objects written to MinIO (if enabled) |
storage_read | Per GB | Objects read from MinIO |
compute_minute | Per minute | Custom service CPU usage above baseline |
Metered events are recorded via /api/metering/usage and visible in Dashboard → Usage.
Starter and Pro plans include generous free tier allowances. Metered overages apply to Elite and above.
Payment Methods
Add a card or bank account via the billing portal (Dashboard → Billing → Manage Payment Method). This opens the Stripe customer portal.
Invoices
Invoices are generated by Stripe at the end of each billing period. They are sent to your account email and available in the Stripe customer portal.
Changing Plans
Dashboard → Billing → Change Plan.
- Upgrade: takes effect immediately; prorated credit applied
- Downgrade: takes effect at the end of the current billing period
- Downgrading below your current server count prevents the downgrade until servers are destroyed
Cancellation
Dashboard → Billing → Cancel Subscription.
On cancellation:
- Subscription ends at the current period’s end date
- Servers continue running until the period ends
- After the period ends, servers are suspended for 7 days then destroyed
- You can reactivate within the 7-day grace period without losing data
Payment Failure
If a payment fails, Stripe retries automatically (day 1, day 3, day 5, day 7). During retries:
- Your servers continue running
- A banner appears in the dashboard with the outstanding amount
If payment fails after all retries:
- Servers are suspended (stopped but not destroyed)
- A 14-day reactivation window begins
- Pay the outstanding balance to reactivate
Webhook Events
nself Cloud listens for Stripe webhooks at /api/webhooks/stripe:
| Event | Action |
|---|---|
checkout.session.completed | Trigger server provisioning |
customer.subscription.updated | Apply plan changes |
customer.subscription.deleted | Schedule server cleanup |
invoice.payment_failed | Suspend server after grace period |
invoice.payment_succeeded | Restore suspended server |