Overview
The Account Balance feature offered by Genesis Cloud allows customers to prepay for our services by adding funds to their account. This prepaid amount is then used to pay for resource usage, offering enhanced control over spending and ensuring uninterrupted access to our services.
How it Works
Adding Funds to Account Balance
Customers can fund their account by adding a specific amount through an attached payment method (e.g., credit card). This amount becomes their Account Balance, which is used to cover charges incurred from consuming our services such as Compute, Storage and Inference.
Usage-Based Deduction
As resources are consumed, charges are automatically deducted from the available account balance in real time.
If the balance reaches $0, the account is automatically suspended and all instances are stopped. Please make sure to clean up the account or recharge it as the remaining resources (e.g. stopped instance (boot volume storage), snapshot, storage, floating IP) will still be billed. Once the customer adds funds to the account balance, the account will be automatically reinstated.
Auto-Recharge Configuration
To ensure continuous access to services, customers can enable the Auto-Recharge feature. This allows them to configure:
- Trigger Threshold: The minimum balance that should trigger an automatic top-up (e.g., $10).
- It is set in the "When balance goes below the value:" field by clicking the 'Auto recharge' button under the 'Account balance' section and enabling the toggle. Learn more here.
- Target Balance: The balance level the system will restore the account to once the trigger is met.
- It is set in the “Bring my balance back up to:" field by clicking the 'Auto recharge' button under the 'Account Balance' section and enabling the toggle. Learn more here.
- Example: When my balance drops below the trigger threshold (e.g., $20), automatically recharge it back up to the target balance (e.g., $100).
Auto-recharge transactions are processed via the customer’s selected payment method, and the system charges only the amount needed to reach the target balance, ensuring the account remains funded without manual top-ups.
Low Balance Notifications
Customers can configure email alerts to notify them when their account balance falls below a specified threshold. This ensures timely action, particularly if auto-recharge is not enabled.
Manual Top-Up Option
Customers may also manually add funds to their account at any time using their saved payment method.
Balance Rollover and Refund
Any unused funds in the account balance will remain available beyond the current billing cycle. They do not expire at the end of the month.
If the customer wants a refund of any unused balance, the remaining account balance will be refunded once the invoice is generated during the next billing cycle, which occurs on the 1st of each month.
If there are no active resources (such as active or stopped instances, snapshots, block storage volume, object storage, file storage, or floating IPs) in a customer's account, the account balance will remain unchanged.
However, if there is any active resource in the account after the invoice is generated on the 1st, the remaining account balance will continue to decrease. In this case, we will not be able to refund the remaining balance. The customer will need to wait until the next billing cycle for the invoice to be generated again, and this process will repeat until there are no active resources remaining.
Account Balance Benefits
Predictable Spending: Enables proactive budgeting and cost control.
Service Continuity: Prevents disruptions due to insufficient funds.
Flexible Fund Management: Supports both manual and automated recharge options.
Transparency: Email alerts provide timely awareness of low balances.
Financial Flexibility: Unused funds do not expire and can be refunded when needed.