# How hourly billing works at DataPasa

> How DataPasa charges servers by the hour from your balance, when you get a low balance email, and what happens to a server when the money runs out.

Every VPS and game server at DataPasa is paid by the hour from your prepaid balance. You pay only for the hours a server exists, with no setup fee and no minimum term.

## How a server is charged

- **When you order**, the first hour is charged immediately.
- **Every hour after that** the next hour is charged in advance. The **Next renewal** column in **Cloud Servers** shows when that happens.
- **When you delete** the server, charging stops. Hours already paid are not returned.

The monthly price shown on the order form and on the [pricing page](https://datapasa.com/en/pricing) is the hourly price multiplied by 730 hours, the average length of a month. It is a guide for budgeting, not a separate plan.

> **Example.** A plan at $0.004847 per hour costs about $3.54 for a full month. If you run it for 10 hours to test something and then delete it, you pay less than $0.05.

## Low balance warning

Once an hour we compare your balance with the monthly cost of your active servers. If the balance drops below 30% of that amount, we send the email "Your DataPasa Cloud balance is running low". You get it at most once a day.

## What happens when the balance runs out

1. **The server is suspended.** If there is not enough money for the next hour, the server status changes to **SUSPENDED** and the virtual machine is stopped. Your data is still there.
2. **You have 24 hours to top up.** As soon as you [top up your balance](https://datapasa.com/wiki/billing/top-up-balance), the server resumes and starts automatically.
3. **After 24 hours the server is deleted** together with its disk and IP addresses. Deleted servers cannot be restored.

The same rules apply to game servers.

> **Keep backups.** If your server holds important data, keep the balance topped up and store backups outside the server.

## Bonus credits and discounts

Promo codes add bonus credits. When a server is charged, eligible bonus credits are used first and your balance covers the rest. See [promo codes and bonus credits](https://datapasa.com/wiki/billing/promo-codes-and-bonus-credits).