How Mail Hosting and SMTP Relay are billed

Each Mail Hosting or SMTP Relay service is on one plan, and you pay that plan's price each billing cycle. The plan sets what the service may hold and send. Each service has a Billing tab, where you see the plan, follow its billing history and cancel it.

The Mail page and the order pages list the plans, what each includes and its price.

Mail Hosting

A number of mailboxes, storage for each mailbox and a number of domains. The storage is one pool for the whole service (What the plan sets). Aliases do not count against the plan.

SMTP Relay

A number of emails a month, a buffer over that number on paid plans, and a number of sending domains. Plans of 250,000 emails a month and more include a dedicated sending address (How SMTP Relay sending limits work).

You pay the plan's price once each billing cycle. A Mail Hosting plan can have more than one billing cycle, and its order page offers the ones it has. Relay plans are billed monthly.

Nothing on a mail service is charged by use. A relay's buffer costs nothing extra, and there is no charge for mail over the allowance: once the allowance and its buffer are used up, the relay refuses mail until the 1st (What happens near the allowance).

The one extra charge is a dedicated IP add-on, which is a service of its own (Dedicated IP add-ons). You find and pay a mail service's invoices on the Invoices tab under Billing, as for any service (Pay an invoice).

In the dashboard, go to Email, open the service, then the Billing tab. It works from the moment you order, before the service is set up.

The Current plan card shows:

Product

The mail plan the service is on.

Plan

The billing cycle you pay on.

Price

What one billing cycle costs.

Status

The service's status, such as active or suspended.

Next renewal

The date the next invoice for the service is due.

Set up

When the service was set up, or Pending until then.

Service ID

The number to give support when you ask about the service.

Change plan… in the card's header moves the service to another billing cycle of the same plan (Change a service's plan). A plan with one billing cycle shows No other plan to switch to in its place, and so does every relay plan.

The Activity table lists the service's billing history, such as its setup, renewals and plan changes. By says who or what made each change.

Two alerts can appear above the card. Suspended means an invoice is unpaid (When a payment is late). Cancellation scheduled gives the date the service ends. The Cancel service card at the bottom ends the service (Cancel a mail service).

Each mail plan, such as a Mail Hosting plan with more mailboxes or a relay plan with more emails a month, is a product of its own in the catalogue. Change plan… moves a service only to another billing cycle of the same plan, so it cannot give a service more or less of anything.

Only our staff can change what an existing service allows. Contact support with the Service ID and the plan you want. Before a move to a smaller plan, delete the mailboxes, SMTP credentials and domains that are over the smaller plan's numbers. On Mail Hosting, also shrink mailbox quotas until they fit in its storage. A change that would leave the service holding more than the plan allows is refused.

For a relay, you can instead order a relay on the plan you want, move your sending to it, and then cancel the old relay. The new relay starts on the probation tier with the starting hourly limit, however long the old one has been sending (Sending tiers). A domain can be on one mail service at a time, and a relay removes a domain only after its SMTP credentials are deleted (Remove a domain). So your applications cannot send from a domain while you move it. Giving the new relay a new sending domain, such as mail.example.com, avoids that gap.

Each account can hold one free relay. The free plan has no buffer and stops at its allowance (The monthly allowance). Ordering it needs the verification check on its order page (Order Mail Hosting or SMTP Relay).

A free relay counts against that limit until it has ended, including one you have cancelled at the end of its term. While it counts, ordering another free relay fails with You already have 1 free SMTP Relay. Upgrade or remove one to create another.

To send more than the free plan allows, order a paid relay. Paid relays do not count against the limit, so you can keep the free one or cancel it once your applications use the new relay.

A dedicated address you order from a relay's Sending IPs card is an add-on: a service of its own, with its own invoice and renewal date. The Sending IPs card and its order page show its price, and Dedicated sending addresses explains what it does. The address that comes with a plan of 250,000 emails a month or more is part of the plan and has no service of its own.

An add-on does not appear in the Email list. To reach its billing, select Services in the sidebar, then the add-on, which is listed as an SMTP Relay service. Its page opens on a tab that shows Could not load this service; select the Billing tab, which works as on any mail service.

While an add-on's invoice is unpaid and the add-on is suspended, the relay stops sending from its address and the Sending IPs card shows Disabled beside it. The relay sends from its other addresses meanwhile. Paying the invoice turns the address back on. When you cancel an add-on and it ends, we release its address.

When a mail service's invoice stays unpaid, we suspend the service (Failed payments and suspended services). The service's status becomes suspended, and its Billing tab shows Suspended with the reason, or Pay the open invoice to restore the service.

While a service is suspended:

• Its mailboxes cannot sign in to webmail or a mail app, and cannot send or receive mail.
• The relay's SMTP credentials cannot sign in, and the send API answers 401 with Invalid API key.

Nothing is deleted while the service is suspended. Pay the open invoice to restore it as it was. A service left unpaid is later cancelled, and its mail is then deleted.

On the Billing tab, select Cancel service…. Under When, choose At the end of the current term to keep the service running until the date the dialog shows, or Immediately to end it now. Then type cancel and select Cancel service. Cancel a service describes each choice and what the dashboard shows afterwards. We do not refund unused time.

When the service ends:

• Its mailboxes, aliases and stored mail are deleted, and so are a relay's SMTP credentials. Its API keys stop working.
• Every webmail session of its mailboxes ends.
• Its domains stop working on it, and you can add them to another mail service. We delete the records we published in DNS zones you host with us. Records you added at another DNS provider stay there until you delete them (Mail DNS records).
• A relay's dedicated addresses are released, add-ons included.

• Change a service's plan
• Cancel a service
• How SMTP Relay sending limits work
• Request a higher hourly limit

A mail service is billed through the same endpoints as every service. Change a service's plan previews and applies a switch to another billing cycle, and Cancel a service cancels it. Pass the service ID as service_ref.