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This
document answers the most important questions connected with
billing:
How
do I pay?
You
may have a possibility to choose between these types of payment:
- Credit
card - this type of payment allows you to pay for resources
online. Contact technical support if your credit card brand
is not supported. Sometimes, the account may require system
administrator to approve of your registration, in which
case the account will not be available immediately.
- Check
- you must send a check to the specified location. After
the check is received, your account is made available for
use. Check payments can be disabled.
- Trial
- depending on the plan, trial registration may be disabled.
If you don't like the services, you won't have to pay anything.
If you like them and decide to become a pay user, you will
be charged for the services you have used during the trial
period. When the trial period expires, your account gets
suspended and you receive a notification. See How
do I become a pay user? for more.
- PayPal
- this type of payment allows you to pay for resources via
online payment provider. Your credit card info won't be
stored in your billing profiles and billing info won't show
in the control panel. In order to pay via PayPal, you should
have a web-based Personal account registered in the PayPal
system.
- WorldPay
- this type of payment allows you to pay for resources via
online payment provider. Your credit card and billing info
won't be stored in your billing profiles. In order to pay
via WorldPay, you should have a web-based Personal account
registered in the WorldPay system.
- 2CheckOut
- you can pay via web-based payment provider if you have
online account registered with 2CheckOut. When you are to
pay, you are sent to the 2CheckOut website and all further
payments take place beyond H-Sphere. The scheme of 2CheckOut
account in H-Sphere is similar to a check account.
Important:
If you choose to pay with PayPal, WorldPay,
or 2CheckOut, you need to make an advance payment not
less than the registration fee. Until the payment gets processed,
you won't have your account enabled and you won't be able
to purchase hosting resources and services, including control
panel account or domain registration.
How
Do I Create A Billing Profile?
Billing
profile is the collection of details used to contact you on
financial or related matters. You can have several billing
profiles and use them in turn, activating the one you would
like to be charged.
You
can share one billing profile between your accounts, if you
have more than one. This means you can pay with one card /
receive bills at one address for all your accounts. Settings
are configured individually for each billing profile.
If
you sign up as a trial user, no billing profile is created.
The system, however, keeps track of all your purchases and
includes them into your bills available in the Online
Invoice.
To
edit a billing profile, click Billing Info on the control
panel home page. You would be taken to a page similar to this:
- Edit
Billing Profile: After the edit, the old data will be
preserved in an old billing profile.
- Receive
the invoice by e-mail?: With this option ON, you will
receive invoices that will inform you of accruals, charges
and your current balance status.
- Change
Billing Profile: If you activate an alternative billing
profile, the current one becomes deactivated.
- Delete
Billing Profile: Permanently delete the billing profile
you don't need any more.
How
Do I Enable Automatic Email Invoicing?
To receive invoices by email, do the following:
Click
Billing Info on the control panel home page.
On the page that shows, click the OFF icon to Enable
Receiving the invoice by e-mail. With this option ON,
you will receive invoices by email.
When
Do I Pay?
Upon the account activation, your new billing
period opens. It defines WHEN the system charges the fees.
For fee types see Online Price.
A new billing period opens:
- when
your account is activated after signup
- when
your suspended account gets resumed
- when
you switch to another plan
- when
you change your billing period
A
billing period closes:
- when
you quit hosting
- when
your account gets suspended
- when
you switch to another plan
- when
you change your billing period
What
Do I Pay For?
To
see your plan's prices, click Online Price on the
control panel home page. The following table will appear
- Free:
the minimum number of units you initially get for free.
- In
Use: the number of units you are currently using.
- Max:
the maximum number of units you can have.
- Setup:
single-time amount payable at the moment when a unit of
this specific resource is purchased beyond free units.
- Recurrent:
the amount payable at the beginning of each payment period
for this type of resource. If a resource is purchased
in the middle of the payment interval, the recurrent fee
is calculated for the period from this moment to the end
of the payment interval. Recurrent fee is refundable adjusted
for refund percentage (see below).
- Usage
(i.e. extra): payment for every unit of this resource
used over the set quota. It is charged:
- at the end of each billing period;
- when you change to a different plan;
- when you delete this resource, in which case it is calculated
for the period from the beginning of the payment interval
to the moment of resource deletion or plan change.
Usage fee is nonrefundable.
- Refund
Percentage: If you delete this resource, you will
be returned recurrent fee adjusted for the refund percentage
for the days left to the end of the current billing period
when you quit using the resource.
E.g.: Your billing period is 1 month long. It started
on November 1 and will be closed on November 30. Recurrent
fee for dedicated IP is $3. At the beginning of your billing
period you were charged $3 for dedicated IP. On November
10 you are switching to shared IP. With 10% refund you
will get back $0,2.
Refund is calculated according to the following formula:
money to be refunded = (recurrent fee x time left to
the closure of the billing period)/ duration of the billing
period.
IMPORTANT: Refunds are not placed on credit card
accounts. Instead, money is either put on your hosting
account balance or is sent to you by check.
Empty
Fees fields mean that nothing is charged for this
resource. If all fields for a specific resource are empty,
this resource is completely free.
Billing is the same for most resources.
However, some resources have a special nature that requires
a different billing scheme:
|
Resource
|
Free
|
In
Use
|
Max
|
Setup
|
Recurrent
|
Usage
|
Refund
|
|
Standard
resources
|
Units
that you get for free
|
Units
you are currently using
|
Maximum
number of units you can have
|
Charged
when you purchase a new unit of this resource beyond
free units
|
Charged
at the beginning of each billing period for each unit
beyond free units
|
Charged
at the end of each billing period for each unit beyond
free units
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
billing period debited to your account when you cancel
the resource
|
|
Dedicated
IP Address
|
Number
of dedicated IPs that you get for free
|
Number
of dedicated IPs you are currently using
|
Maximum
number of dedicated IPs you can have
|
Charged
when you purchase a new dedicated IP beyond free units
|
Charged
at the beginning of each billing period for each dedicated
IP beyond free units
|
Charged
at the end of each billing period for each dedicated
IP beyond free units
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
billing period debited to your account when you switch
to shared IP or otherwise cancel this resource
|
|
OpenSRS
|
N/A
|
Domains
registered with OpenSRS
|
N/A
|
The
cost of domain registration for 1 year
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
%
of the prorated recurrent fee for the remaining part
of the billing period debited to your registration
with OpenSRS
|
|
Web
quota
Mail quota
Real quota
|
MB
of disk space that you get for free
|
MB
of disk space that you are currently subscribed for.
The size of your web site must be smaller than web
disk quota by at least a couple of megabytes to ensure
correct performance of web statistics packages, such
as Webalizer or ModLogAn
|
MB
of disk space you can have. For web quota, this amount
includes both your web site and web statistics files
|
N/A
|
Charged
at the beginning of the billing period for the difference
between the limit and the free units
|
Charged
at the end of the billing period for the amount used
beyond free units
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
billing period debited to your account for each canceled
megabyte of disk quota
|
|
Traffic
(all kinds)
|
GB
of traffic you don't pay for
|
Prorated
GB of traffic booked for the current billing month.
The billing month can start on any day of the calendar
month
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
Charged
once at the beginning of the billing period for the
difference between the limit and the free units. This
is what you pay for 1 GB of additionally booked traffic
|
Charged
at the end of each month of the billing period for
the prorated amount you run up beyond the limit
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
whole billing period
|
|
MySQL/
PGSQL
db quota
|
MB
of database disk space you get for free
|
MB
of database space that you are currently subscribed
for
|
MB
of database space you can have
|
N/A
|
Charged
once at the beginning of the billing period for the
difference between the limit and the free units
|
Charged
at the end of each month of the billing period for
the amount you use beyond the limit.
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
billing period debited to your account for each canceled
megabyte of database quota
|
|
MS
SQL
db quota
|
MB
of database disk space that you get for free
|
MB
of database space that you are currently subscribed
for. The size of all your MS SQL databases can take
no more than half of the MS SQL database quota, leaving
the rest of the space for transaction logs
|
MB
of MS SQL database space you can have. This includes
both your databases and transaction log files
|
N/A
|
Charged
once at the beginning of the billing period for the
difference between the limit and the free units
|
N/A
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
billing period debited to your account for each canceled
megabyte of database quota
|
|
Real
User
|
Simultaneous
connections to RealServer that you get for free
|
Simultaneous
connections to RealServer that you currently have
|
Simultaneous
connections to RealServer that you can have
|
N/A
|
Charged
at the beginning of the billing period for the difference
between the limit and the free units
|
N/A
|
%
of the recurrent fee for the remaining part of the
billing period debited to your account when you cancel
the resource
|
How
do I view my billing history?
To
see your charges by billing profiles for one account, click
Online Invoice on the control panel home page. An
invoice consists of consequent bills:
Balance
shows how much money you have on your balance. A negative
balance shows how much you owe for the services used. This
is usually appropriate for users who pay by check and for
credit card users whose credit cards failed to be charged.
Credit restricts your ability to buy new resources
in case your credit card fails to be charged or you have
run out of your 'check' money.
- Description:
the name of your current account.
- Amount:
the amount accrued for the billing period. This amount
consists of accruals for all resources, including the
setup, recurrent and usage fee. However, it does not include
or depend on factual charges, nor is it related to debits
and credits to the account. For example, if you were accrued
$10 setup fee, the Amount will show $10.00, even
if your credit card has been immediately credited by this
amount.
- From:
the beginning of the payment period.
- To:
the end of the payment period. In the example illustrated
above, Opened means that the billing period has
not finished.
A
new bill is created for every new payment interval The initial
setup fee is put in a separate bill.
To
view details of any bill in the invoice, click its Description
in the first column. The picture below illustrates details
of the initial setup bill:
Total
shows the amount due for factual services offered. It does
not include most of the items highlighted by yellow, such
as items that were immediately charged off the credit card,
credits or debits to the account balance by the administrator,
etc.
*To
get a printable version of your bill, click the Printer
icon in the bill header which will open it in a separate
window suitable for immediate printout (version 2.08 and
higher).
How
do I become a pay user?
If
you are a trial user, you will get this window at the end
of the trial period:
This
means you need to become a pay user. For this, all you need
to do is create a billing profile
using the Billing Profile utility.
- Check
payments: You need to send a check payment for the
amount due plus, if possible, an amount to cover possible
future costs. After the administrator receives your payment
and credits it to your account, you will become a pay
user.
- Credit
card payments: If the credit card is valid, the outstanding
amount is charged, and you will become a pay user.
In
either case, if the account was suspended, it resumes.
How
Can I Get My Money Back?
When
using H-Sphere, you can claim all your recurrent and usage
payments back if you decide to quit hosting during the Money
Back period. Mind that the setup fees for any resources
will not be returned.
Not
all plans allow to claim money back. To find out whether
this feature is available under a plan, go to the signup/login
page and click the link that says: To compare available
hosting plans and price schemes, please click here.
In the form that appears, check the boxes to the plans you
want to compare or click the Plan group link to compare
grouped plans and their price schemes. In the first section
of the chart that appears find Money Back Guarantee.
To
claim the money back, click Money Back on the control
panel home page. The following page will appear:
After
you click the first link, your account will be suspended:
The
amount due will be sent by check to the address you specified
in the Billing Info.
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