Understanding billing

BareMeta charges by the hour. This guide explains exactly how billing works, what you'll be charged for, and how to keep costs predictable.

How billing works

• Billing starts when you create a server — the moment it's provisioned, the clock starts.
• Billing stops when you delete a server — not when you power it off.
• You're charged monthly — we add up your hourly usage and charge your payment method at the end of each month.
• Partial hours are charged — if you run a server for 90 minutes, you're charged for 2 hours.

Pricing

All prices include VAT where applicable for UK customers.

Included bandwidth

What happens when I power off my server?

Powering off (stopping) a server pauses the compute charges but storage is still allocated and billed. Think of it like parking a car — you're not using it but it's still taking up a space.

If you want to stop all charges, delete the server. Make sure you've backed up anything important first, as deletion is permanent.

Invoices

You'll receive a monthly invoice by email summarising your usage for the previous month. Invoices are also available in the dashboard under Billing.

Each invoice shows:

• Each server with hours used and cost
• Total before and after VAT
• Payment status

Controlling your costs

• Delete servers you're not using — the most effective way to reduce your bill
• Right-size your servers — start small and scale up only if needed
• Use the Starter plan for development — you don't need a Large server to write code
• Check your dashboard regularly — the VM list shows all running servers and their costs

Payment issues

If a payment fails we'll notify you by email and retry automatically. Here's what happens:

• Day 1 — Payment fails, you receive an email notification
• Day 3 — We retry the payment automatically
• Day 7 — If still unpaid, your account is suspended (servers stopped, data retained)
• Day 21 — If still unpaid, account and data may be deleted