Billing, plans and leaving¶
One flat price per month for one box, however many apps you put on it. This page is what that means in practice; the Terms are the binding version.
Early access
Allocus is early-access: young, run by one person, and improving quickly. Subscribing is open to anyone — a live subscription is the only thing that provisions a box.
What you're paying for¶
A virtual machine in Paris, a fixed size, yours alone, plus the platform around it (the deploy pipeline, the registry namespace, wildcard HTTPS, the dashboard). The price depends on the size of the box, not the number of apps — that's the whole product, and there is no usage meter anywhere. Deploying your tenth app costs nothing extra, and overloading the box gets you a slow box rather than a bill.
Billed monthly in advance, in euros, through Stripe's hosted checkout. Your card and billing email go to Stripe and never reach Allocus, which sees a customer id, a subscription id, and a status.
Invoices come from an individual
Allocus isn't a registered company yet, so invoices are issued by a private individual and carry no VAT. If your accountant needs something specific, ask early — it's much easier to sort out before the first invoice than after the fifth.
Changing plan¶
Pick a different size under Box size on your dashboard. Box sizes covers what happens to the machine; here's the money half:
Going up. Your subscription moves to the new price and the difference for the rest of this month is charged to your card immediately, less credit for the time you didn't use at the old size. So you pay the difference, not a second full month. From next month you just pay the new price.
If that payment fails, nothing happens at all — your plan stays where it is and your box isn't touched. There's no half-applied state to clean up.
Going down. Nothing is charged. The time you'd already paid for at the larger size comes back as credit, applied automatically to your next invoice, so your next bill is the new lower price minus whatever was left over. There's no refund to your card and nothing to claim.
Either way the box restarts at the new size — about a minute offline — and your apps, volumes, disk and IP address all survive. Prices only ever change with at least 30 days' notice, and never mid-period.
If a payment fails¶
You'll be told, and given a chance to fix it before anything is suspended. Your dashboard shows the failed state and puts you back through checkout.
An account suspended for non-payment stops being able to deploy — but note what suspension deliberately does not do: your box keeps serving traffic, and the cancel-subscription route stays open, because nobody should be made to keep paying for an account they can't use.
Cancelling¶
Dashboard → Subscription → Cancel subscription.
Your box keeps running until the end of the month you've already paid for. Then it is deleted, along with everything on it. That deletion is permanent — there is no grace bin and no undo, so export anything you want to keep first.
Cancelling is reversible right up to that date: while a cancellation is pending, the dashboard shows the date and offers Keep my subscription, which puts you back to renewing normally.
Cancelling is not the same as destroying the box¶
Two different buttons, and it's worth knowing which you want:
| Does what | Subscription | |
|---|---|---|
| Cancel subscription | Box keeps running to the end of the paid period, then is deleted. | Ends |
| Destroy box | Wipes the box now. You can launch a fresh, empty one afterwards. | Continues |
Destroy box is an emergency brake, not a way to leave — reach for it when a box is in a state you'd rather start over from than debug. Everything on it is lost immediately.
Refunds¶
- Within 14 days of your first payment: email and you get it back, no argument.
- After that: partial months aren't normally refunded. But if something on the Allocus side genuinely broke your service, say so and it'll be dealt with fairly.
- Consumers in the EU/EEA: your statutory right of withdrawal applies on top of this and isn't reduced by anything written here or in the Terms.
- If Allocus shuts down: at least 90 days' notice, and a refund of any period paid for beyond the shutdown date. It's an early-stage project run by one person; that outcome is possible and the notice period is written into the Terms because of it.
What you have to keep current¶
A working email address on your account. The dashboard asks for one before it will show you anything else, and this isn't friction for its own sake: several promises in the Terms — telling you about a security incident, a price change, or the service closing — cannot be kept otherwise, and a breach notice is a legal obligation rather than a courtesy.
It's used for those notices and nothing else. No newsletter, no product marketing, never passed on. There's no mailing list to unsubscribe from because there is no mailing list.
Where a notice can't be delivered, posting it on the public service notices page counts as having given it — so that page is worth a look if you ever suspect your address has gone stale.
Also worth knowing¶
- Your API key acts as you. Anyone holding it can deploy to your box. Treat it like a password; if it leaks, revoke it from the dashboard and generate a new one.
- You need to be 18.
- Terms changes come with at least 30 days' notice, by email and on the notices page. If you don't accept them, cancel before they take effect and you're refunded for the remainder of the period.
- Restrictions for reasons other than payment — a takedown, a suspension — work differently and come with an explanation and an appeal. See The rules, in practice.