Billing and refunds
Per-second billing, minimum charges, extensions, storage and checkpoint prices, the finish alert, and exactly when and how much you are refunded.
How you are charged
- Prepaid wallet. Top up by card (Stripe); credits do not expire and are only spent on rentals and storage. The ledger under Wallet shows every charge and refund.
- Per second, from the moment the container is RUNNING:
price per hour × seconds ÷ 3600, applied every billing tick. Not during the image pull, not while a request waits for the host. - Minimum rental (host-set, usually 10 min) is the floor for a rental you stop early.
- Maximum duration is your hard cap. Extend while running (if the host allows) from the rental page; the quote shows the extra cost.
- Discounts: hosts may give a daily (≥ 24 h) or weekly (≥ 7 d) percentage, shown as a strike-through price. An accepted offer fixes the hourly price instead.
- Empty wallet: if the next tick cannot be paid the rental stops with wallet balance ran out; you are never charged more than you funded. The rental page shows how many minutes your balance covers.
- Host's share: the quote prints what the host receives and the platform fee (10 % by default). Nothing else is added.
Storage prices
| Who sets it | Billed | |
|---|---|---|
| Persistent workspace on a host | the host, per GB-month, with an optional free allowance | per second while the volume exists, running or kept |
| Checkpoints in FairGPU storage | the platform, per GB-month, first GB free per account | per second on READY bytes, until deleted or expired |
| Saved environment images | same as checkpoints | same |
| Container scratch disk | free | — |
Workspace storage shows up in the rental's cost line and in Workspaces; cloud storage charges are CLOUD_STORAGE_CHARGE lines in the ledger.
Paid add-on: finish alert
One SMS + email when the job exits, the machine goes idle, or the rental stops. Charged once when armed (price shown in the wizard, $0.99 by default). Refunded automatically when the host is at fault for the stop. Email notifications are always free.
Refunds
Refunds post to your wallet automatically; you do not need to ask. The rental page sidebar shows the rule that applies and, after an interruption, what was refunded.
| What happened | Refund |
|---|---|
| Host interrupted with proper notice (N-min notice host) | your setup window (start until your work began, 10–60 min) + the last 10 minutes; no minimum charge |
| Host interrupted without notice, or any host-side end on a Committed host (PC off, crash, Docker down, machine deleted) | every compute charge of the rental, host earnings and fee reversed, finish alert refunded; workspace kept free 24 h |
| Host did not show up for a scheduled start | nothing charged |
| Request declined or expired | nothing charged |
| Failed start (bad image, host error) | nothing charged |
| Workspace lost by the host | last storage tick refunded |
| You stop early, run out of credit, hit your cap, or idle auto-stop fires | no refund (minimum rental applies) |
| You cancel a reservation less than 1 h before start | the host's minimum rental is charged |
The setup window ends at workStartedAt: the first command, the first sustained GPU use, or the first SSH session. If you spent 25 minutes installing and the host reclaimed after two hours, those 25 minutes come back.
Receipts and ledger
Every ledger line has a type (RENTAL_CHARGE, REFUND, CLOUD_STORAGE_CHARGE, TOPUP, …), the rental it belongs to and your balance afterwards. Hosts see the mirror image (HOST_EARNING, reversals on refunds) under Earnings, with a downloadable ledger for taxes.
Questions
- Why did billing start before I could connect? It starts at RUNNING, which is when the container is up; the first ports can take a few more seconds. If the host's side failed, that time is refunded under the rules above.
- Can I get a refund for a slow host? Not automatically. Leave a review; reliability scores and the policy badge are how the marketplace routes work to good hosts.
- Top-up not credited? Wait a minute and refresh (Stripe's webhook applies it). Otherwise contact support with the Stripe receipt.