Billing questions
One account and one monthly invoice for every product, within limits you set. Paid usage stays off until someone with billing rights on the account switches it on.
- Do I need a payment card to start?
- No. An account needs no card to start. Every account has the same free allowances on every product, renewed each month, and free usage is never charged; Ironfang Agent starts on its Free plan. The free tools on this site need no account at all and are not counted against one.
- What happens when I use my free allowance?
- That kind of work stops until the next month, and nothing is charged. Paid usage never starts on its own: to keep going, someone with billing rights switches on Pay as you go in the portal, with a payment method and a monthly limit. The free allowances stay the same, and only the usage past them is charged, at the graduated rates on this page.
- Can I cap my monthly usage?
- Yes. Pay as you go needs a monthly usage limit for the account, set before VAT, and you can set a limit for any product as well. Paid work is admitted only while every limit it falls under has room for it, and free allowances use none of a limit. When a limit is reached, paid work stops until you raise it or the next month starts. A limit caps the new usage of the month; a payment can also collect a balance carried from earlier months, and tax. Until a payment from the account has succeeded, the account can also owe at most £20.00 before VAT for paid usage, counting this month's paid usage and any balance not yet paid, whatever your own limits; after that, only your own limits apply.
- When do free allowances reset?
- On the first day of each calendar month, UTC. Each service has its own allowance, and unused allowance does not carry over to the next month or move to another service.
- When will my card be charged, and what does the £5.00 threshold mean?
- Usage is settled after each calendar month (UTC) closes. The card is charged only when the account's uncollected balance, before VAT, is at least £5.00; then the whole balance is collected with its tax in one payment. While the account is open, a balance below £5.00 is carried forward to a later settlement and the card is not charged. A carried balance is not overdue, and it is never raised to £5.00: this is a threshold for collecting, not a minimum fee. Going past £5.00 during a month charges nothing; money is only collected when a month is settled. When an account is closed, a balance below £5.00 is written off if no payment from the account ever failed, was disputed or could not be collected; any other balance is collected.
- How are VAT and billing details handled?
- Every price on this page excludes VAT. VAT, or another tax where one applies, is calculated on each invoice by our payment provider from the billing address on the account, and shown on its own line. Each payment has one invoice covering every product on the account, with a line for each month and meter it charges, and each month keeps its own statement: the quantities, the free allowance, the bands and the rates in force when the month began.
- What happens if a payment fails?
- New paid work stops at once, and free allowances keep working. Updating your payment method charges it to the new one straight away, and our payment provider also retries it. If it has failed and is still unpaid at the next monthly settlement, we cancel that invoice and collect its balance together with the new month in one payment, so nothing is charged twice; if it was paid in the meantime, it is not collected again. While an invoice is waiting for you to authenticate its payment, that settlement waits until the payment succeeds or fails. If the provider stops retrying, paid work stays stopped until that invoice is paid.
- Can prices change?
- Rate changes are published before they apply, with reasonable notice, and take effect only at the start of a UTC calendar month. A month is always priced by the rates in force when it began, so a change never reprices a month already under way.