Each server is a subscription, priced in US dollars. You pay for it in advance, and it renews every 30 days on the card you saved at checkout until you cancel. Plan and add-on upgrades are prorated, you can pay ahead, and if a renewal payment fails your server keeps running for 3 days so you can pay it.
Your subscription and renewal date
Your first payment at checkout covers the first 30 days. After that, the subscription renews automatically every 30 days. To see when, open Subscriptions in your account and choose the server. The Overview tab shows the Next renewal date and the plan and add-on amount; any tax is added on top.
A renewal charges your default card for the plan plus any add-ons (Dedicated IP or extra storage), minus any discount code that applies to every renewal. If tax applies to your billing address, it is added and shown on its own line on the receipt. You get a Subscription renewed notification in the panel, and the receipt is under Payments in your account. See Invoices and receipts.
There are no bills to pay by hand. Your billing history only lists receipts for payments already made.
Changing your plan or add-ons
- Upgrade to a bigger plan: you pay the difference in monthly price for the time left in your current period, straight away. The confirmation shows the exact amount before you agree.
- Downgrade to a smaller plan: nothing is charged today, and your next renewal is lower.
- Add an add-on: charged the same prorated way for the rest of the period. Remove an add-on: nothing is refunded, and your next renewal is lower.
Your renewal date doesn't move when you change plan or add-ons. A new storage size usually applies straight away; a new plan's memory and CPU apply after you restart the server. See Change your plan or storage.
Paying ahead
On the Overview tab, the Pay ahead card lets you pay for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months now. You pay your current monthly price times the number of months, plus any tax, and your renewal date moves out by 30 days for each month. There is no discount for paying ahead. Paying ahead also cancels a pending cancellation, so the subscription carries on renewing after the time you've paid for.
If a renewal payment fails
The subscription shows Payment due, and you get a Payment failed notification. Your server keeps running for 3 days after the missed renewal date. We don't retry the payment automatically, and saving a new card doesn't charge it by itself, so do both of these:
- Go to Billing (
/account/billing). Under Payment methods, click Replace on your card, or click Add card and then Make default on the new one. See Payment methods. - Open Subscriptions, choose the server, and click Pay now on the Payment required notice. This charges one month, and your new renewal date counts from the date you missed.
While a payment is due you can't upgrade or add resources, but downgrades and removals still work. If the payment isn't made within the 3 days, the subscription ends and the server is suspended. Suspension deletes nothing, but a Dedicated IP goes back to the pool. We email you when this happens. See Reactivate a suspended server.
Cancelling and refunds
You can cancel any time, and your server keeps running until the end of the period you've paid for. See Cancel your subscription. Your first hosting plan is covered by our 3-day money-back guarantee; see Refunds and the 3-day money-back guarantee.
If you paid on Stripe's checkout page
Some orders, generally from buyers outside the United States, are paid on a checkout page hosted by Stripe. For those, Link, Stripe's merchant of record service, is the seller: it charges your renewals monthly on Stripe's schedule, collects any sales tax or VAT, and emails your receipts. Stripe's page may show the price in your own currency, and the charge may appear on your statement as LINK.COM* MINEXHOST. To change your card, use link.com; the receipt email from Link explains how. Plan changes, add-on changes and paying ahead aren't available online for these subscriptions yet, so open a ticket and we'll make the change for you. You can still cancel from Subscriptions.