Billing FAQ

The answers below cover the questions support sees most often about how Driftstack billing works.

How does the free tier work?

Every new account starts on the Free tier: a perpetual evaluation tier capped at 1 concurrent session and 1 profile, with sessions up to 20 minutes each — drive them from the API/SDK or the desktop GUI client. No card is required, and it never expires; there is no usage metering, no credit, and no auto-charge. All API keys use the ds_live_… prefix; there is no separate ds_test_ namespace today. Subscribe to a paid tier when you need higher limits — more concurrency, more profiles, or longer sessions.

How does upgrading to a paid tier work?

Visit /pricing and pick a tier. You can pay with a credit/debit card (Stripe Checkout) or with crypto (NowPayments — BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT, and more). The upgrade applies immediately on payment confirmation; usage from the moment of upgrade is billed against the new tier.

What about proration on upgrades / downgrades?

Upgrades are prorated by Stripe: you pay the pro-rata difference for the remainder of the current billing cycle, then the new full price from the next cycle. Crypto upgrades (NowPayments) charge the full new tier price and reset the billing cycle to the upgrade date — crypto is pay-as-you-go-style because we cannot guarantee in-cycle reconciliation against an on-chain payment.

Downgrades take effect at the end of the current cycle (you keep the higher tier until then). No refund is issued for the unused portion of the higher tier.

Can I get a refund?

Card payments: full refund within 14 days of payment if you haven't run sessions beyond a brief evaluation. Past the 14-day window we do not refund unless the issue is on our side (extended outage, billing error).

Crypto payments: non-refundable. Once a crypto payment settles on-chain it is committed for the billing period it covers. You can cancel anytime — cancellation stops future billing periods — but the current period is not refunded. If a failed-delivery scenario occurs (you paid but the entitlement didn't unlock), we re-provision the entitlement; we don't send the crypto back.

Why do crypto payments take longer to confirm?

Crypto payments are subject to on-chain confirmation latency. Most BTC payments take 10-30 minutes; USDC/USDT on Polygon or BSC typically settle in 1-5 minutes. Until NowPayments reports finished, the order is in confirming state and the tier change is not applied. The team admin dashboard shows the order state live; you'll also get an email confirmation when the payment lands.

What if I send the wrong amount in crypto?

• Underpayment: the order transitions to partial and stays there. Support reaches out to arrange a top-up (send the difference to the same address) or a tier downgrade.
• Overpayment: the order completes as paid and the difference is recorded as account credit usable against the next renewal. Surplus credit does not expire.
• Wrong currency / network: contact support — recovery depends on the chain. We can usually recover ETH and USDC sent to the wrong address; we cannot recover BTC sent to a Lightning address or vice versa.

How do I see what I've been billed?

The Billing view in the dashboard (/docs/cost-monitoring) shows your current cycle's spend, the cost breakdown by line item (sessions, recordings, egress), and the next renewal date. Stripe customers also get an emailed invoice within 24h of each renewal. Crypto customers get an order receipt email within 24h of payment confirmation.

How do tax / VAT work?

Stripe handles VAT on card payments automatically — EU + UK customers see VAT added at checkout based on their billing country. Crypto payments are quoted VAT-exclusive; VAT for EU/UK customers is invoiced separately in EUR after the crypto payment confirms (you'll receive a follow-up payment link for the VAT amount). B2B customers can provide a VAT number on /docs/teams for reverse-charge invoicing.

What happens at the end of a billing cycle?

Stripe customers are auto-renewed; the new cycle starts the moment the renewal payment confirms. Crypto customers receive a renewal reminder 7 days before the cycle ends with a link to the next checkout. If a crypto renewal is not paid within 48 hours of cycle end, the account drops to a read-only grace state for 7 days, then is downgraded to the Free tier until renewal.

Cancel anytime

Cancellation is available via the dashboard at any time — no retention friction. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current cycle; the account continues to function fully until then. Sessions, profiles, recordings, and API keys stay accessible for 30 days after the cycle end, then are purged.

Support

Billing-specific questions: [email protected]. For payment-stuck-in-pending issues, include the order_id from the checkout-confirmation email so we can look up the NowPayments status.