How Does Overage Billing Work?
Depending on your plan type, you may sometimes see additional charges on your monthly Prefinery bill. Each plan comes with an included quantity of Users. If your total User count ever exceeds the limit of your plan, we won’t interrupt your service. Instead, you’ll see an additional charge on your monthly bill.
In this article, you’ll learn about additional charges.
Current Overage Charges
If you exceed your plan's user limit, an overage charge of $5 per month per additional 1,000 users will apply. This is prorated as $0.005 per month per user.
An example calculation of monthly overage charges for an account with 25,000 Users with the Essentials Plan, which includes the first 15,000 Users.
10000 x .005 = $50
Legacy Overage Charges
Overage charges are billed per User per month. For customers still on one of our legacy plans, the following tiered overage charges apply:
Lite (07/2023), Essentials (07/2023), or Pro (07/2023)
| Users Count | Lite Plan (USD) | Essentials Plan (USD) | Pro Plan (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| For the first 1,001 - 2,000 | $0.0100 | Included | Included |
| For the next 2,001 - 5,000 | $0.0095 | Included | Included |
| For the next 5,001 - 10,000 | $0.0085 | $0.0090 | Included |
| For the next 10,001 - 25,000 | $0.0075 | $0.0080 | $0.0085 |
| For the next 25,001 - 50,000 | $0.0065 | $0.0070 | $0.0075 |
| For the next 50,001 - 100,000 | $0.0055 | $0.0060 | $0.0065 |
| For the next 100,001 - 200,000 | $0.0045 | $0.0050 | $0.0055 |
| For the next 200,001 - 500,000 | $0.0035 | $0.0040 | $0.0045 |
| For the next 500,001 - 1,000,000 | $0.0030 | $0.0035 | $0.0040 |
| For the rest, over 1,000,000 | $0.0025 | $0.0030 | $0.0035 |
An example calculation of monthly overage charges for an account with 108,000 Users with the Essentials Plan:
(5000 x .009) + (15000 x .008) + (25000 x .007) + (50000 x .006) + (8000 x .005) = $680
Business (02/2022) or Business (09/2017)
| Users Count | Business Plan (USD) |
|---|---|
| For the first 1 - 25,000 | Included |
| For the next 25,001 - 50,000 | $0.006 |
| For the next 50,001 - 100,000 | $0.0055 |
| For the next 100,001 - 200,000 | $0.005 |
| For the rest, over 200,000 | $0.004 |
About peak user amount
We calculate your monthly bill based on your plan, as well as the peak User amount during the billing period. This means that even if your User count decreases, your bill will reflect the highest number of Users stored at any point in your account that month.
About billing in arrears
The way overage usage is billed is different from the subscription plan. The monthly subscription charge is billed ahead of time (at the beginning of the billing cycle) for future usage. However, the overage charge is billed looking backwards (at the end of the billing cycle) for usage in the past. This is often called billing in arrears. Given this, you may be billed for overage which occurred in the past, even after you have cancelled your subscription.
For example:
- You subscribed to the Pro plan on Jan 1 (covering the period Jan 1 - Feb 1) and only got charged for that plan's monthly price.
- Some time between Jan 1 - Feb 1 you've gotten to 40k users already, which means an overage of 30k users. Even if you delete 5k users, your maximum overage in this period remains at 30k.
- On Feb 1, you got billed again for the Pro plan subscription renewal (to cover the incoming period Feb 1 - Mar 1) AND this time also for the 30k users overage from the previous billing period (Jan 1 - Feb 1).
- Between Feb 1 - Mar 1, you've reached 60k users, which means an overage of 50k users, but your campaign has also ended and you decided to cancel your Pro plan subscription effective immediately. This means you will no longer be renewed for the plan starting Mar 1, BUT on that date you will still be billed, for the last time, for the 50k users overage from the prior billing period (Feb 1 - Mar 1).
This way, you are only billed for the highest overage count when they have occurred within a billing cycle, and not in advance.