Hosts of America Documentation Reseller Guide

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Billing

 

Related Docs:  

Reseller Billing Introduction to Billing Managing Accounts

This document explains the concepts and procedures of the Hosts of America billing system. If you find that explanations in this document are vague or incomplete, please e-mail support@psoft.net.

 

Plans

Hosting resources and services are sold in plans or packages. A new customer that signs up for a plan gets an account with home directories on the web and mail servers, a certain amount of free web and mail disk space, a certain amount of traffic to use for free, a certain number of free mailboxes, and some other resources. The quantity of such free resources is different in each plan and is changed with plan wizards.

When a user needs more disk space or mailboxes or any other resources, he can buy them at the price which is set for his plan. You can set prices when you create a plan or at any later time.

Should the need arise, customers can change their hosting plan. You can configure which plans customers can upgrade from and to as suggested in the Compatible Plans guide.

 

To create a new hosting plan in the system:

  1. Select Plan Wizards in the Info menu.
  2. Click Select for the type of the plan you would like to create.
  3. Follow the wizard. Explanations to the wizard can be found here.

To edit resources or prices in an existing hosting plan:

  1. Select Plans in the Info menu.
  2. Click the name of the plan you want to edit.
  3. Follow the wizard. Explanations to the wizard can be found here.

These are the types of plans you may need:

Plan(s) Used to: Related docs
Administrative administer your hosting system  
Tech Support Admin answer trouble tickets and assign them to other support staff Providing Technical Support
Tech Support answer trouble tickets only Providing Technical Support
System (Service) manage your corporate (promotion) site Hosting Your Own Domain
Unix provideUnixx-based hosting services  
Windows provide windows-based hosting services  
Zeus host customer accounts on Zeus web server  
E-Mail Only provide only e-mail services  
Real Unix provide Unix-based RealMedia hosting  
Real Windows provide Windows-based RealMedia hosting  

 

Billing Types

No Billing: Plans in Hosts of America can be commercial and free. Free plans are typically used to host your corporate site or to disable billing for any other reasons. To disable billing in a plan, select Without Billing in the Billing Type field of the Plan Wizard, and any references to billing information will disappear from the signup wizard. Billing profiles won't be created, and users won't be charged for any resources or services including those provided by third parties, such as domain registration by Enom or OpenSRS. To collect payments only for Enom or OpenSRS services, create a paid plan and enter prices only on the second page of the wizard.

Credit Cards: Commercial plans require payments by credit cards or checks. Once you have added and configured at least one Merchant Gateway, Hosts of America begins to accept credit cards and the credit card option appears in the signup wizard. Removing all merchant gateways will remove the credit card option from the signup wizard.

See also adding custom credit card brands and activating credit card accounts.

Checks: users send checks to the location you have specified. After you have received a payment, you should process it as suggested in Processing Check Payments. You can also enable or disable check payments:

  1. Select Merchant Gateway in the Settings menu.
  2. Turn Accept Checks on or off.

Turning off check payments will affect the whole system, not individual plans. After you have enabled check payments, existing check payment users will still be able to use this form of payment, but new customers won't see this option in the signup forms.

Online Payment Systems: Starting with version 2.3, you can collect payments using online payment providers, PayPal and WorldPay. See also Online Payment Providers.

Trial: Commercial plans can allow trial hosting for a limited period of time. Trial users are not charged for the resources they use, but when they decide to become pay users, they have to choose how they want to pay, by credit card or by check. When they become pay customers, they are charged for the resources they have used during the trial period. Their custom settings remain unchanged. See also Providing Trial Hosting.

 

Billing Profiles

A billing profile is a set of billing details that is required to collect payments from a customer. One customer can have multiple billing profiles, but only one active at a time. For instance, a user can have two credit cards, VISA and MASTERCARD, and a check account. This user can have three billing profiles, two for credit cards and one for checks. If the VISA billing profile is set active, the MASTERCARD won't be charged and no check payments will be necessary.

One billing profile can be used for multiple accounts. This means a user with several accounts can pay with one card or receive all bills at one mailing address.

Trial users don't have billing profiles until they choose to become pay users. The system, however, tracks all trial user's purchases and includes them into the first bill.

Once a billing profile is created, it cannot be modified: the user has to create a new profile. If a user several billing profiles, those that are not active can be deleted. See also How Do I Create A Billing Profile? of the user manual.

 

Prices

Prices apply to resources used beyond Free units. When we talk about free units, we actually mean free gigabytes of traffic, free megabytes of disk space, free subdomains and mailboxes, etc. a user will get for free with the hosting account. Free isn't applicable to resources that can't be measured in units, such as Directory Index or SSH Access. Changes to free units affect both existing and new users.

You can set the following types of prices for resources and services:

  • Setup: a single-time amount payable at the moment of purchasing a unit of this specific resource. It is also charged for disk space quota when the latter is changed. Setup fee is not charged for free resources. Changes to setup prices apply only to new users; existing users don't get affected.
  • Recurrent: the amount payable ahead at the beginning of the billing period. If a resource is purchased in the middle of a billing period, the recurrent fee is calculated for the period from the moment of purchase to the end of the billing period. Recurrent fee is charged whenever a new billing period starts, including:
    - when a suspended account is resumed;
    - when a user changes plan or payment interval.
    Changes to recurrent prices apply only to new users; existing users don't get affected. Recurrent fees are refundable and adjusted for refund percentage.
  • Usage (same as extra and overlimit): the payment for every resource unit used over the limit by the closure of the billing period:
    - when the billing period naturally expires;
    - when the account is suspended;
    - when a user changes plan or payment interval.
    Changes to usage prices affect both existing and new users.

See Creating And Editing Plans on how to set/change prices.

 

Limiting Resources

You can limit each type of resources a customer can have by setting the Max units value:

  1. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
  2. On the page that appears, click RESOURCE.
  3. Select Edit next to the resource you want to limit.
  4. You will be taken to the Resource Settings page:

  5. In the Max field, enter the maximum of this resource you allow per one customer in this plan. For example, if you set Max disk space to 200, no single user of this plan will be able to set disk space quota higher than 200 MB.

Disk space usage and traffic are also controlled by disk space usage limit and traffic limit. Users set their disk usage and traffic limits based on how much disk space and traffic they are going to use, and pay for this amount at the recurrent price. If they exceed this limit, they pay for the excess at the usage (overlimit) price.

However you can't stop them from using more traffic, summary disk, MySQL database by just Max value utility.
Let's say you are providing 10 MB of traffic for free, allowing to use more at the price of $1 for MB and charging $5 MB for going over the user predefined traffic limit.

With 100MBs as Max value for traffic recourse you allow customers to increase their traffic limit to 100MB. However even if they raise their limit to 100 MB paying $90 recurrent fee, they will be able to go over it.

Setting higher overlimit prices doesn't always agree with you price policy.
In this case you can configure the system to automatically suspend customer accounts when they use more resources then set in percents of the user predefined limit.
To do this, go to Settings->User warnings. On the screen that shows up, set the percentage of user predefined limit, reaching which their accounts will be suspended.

 

Billing Periods and Discounts

Billing periods determine how far in advance users pay for resources and services. In each hosting plan, you can create one or more billing periods for users to choose from at signup.

Billing periods allow you to set discounts for each individual price type - setup, recurrent, and overlimit. The bigger billing period, the bigger the discount. For example, you can create a monthly, a quarterly, and a yearly billing periods, each with its own discounts. Prices for the actual billing periods will be calculated as the default billing period prices multiplied by the duration of the billing period in months, adjusted for the refund percentage if specified. All resources are discounted the same way, which means that account registration will be discounted by the same percentage as domain creation.

Also, you can explicitly set prices for each type of resource in actual billing periods using plan creation / edit wizards. IMPORTANT: If prices are set explicitly in the plan wizards, discounts won't apply.

When a new account is activated upon signup, a billing period opens, which makes it start differently for each individual account. A new billing period starts:

  • on activating paid account (accounts can be created but not activated as in case of account moderation)
  • on switching from trial to paid account
  • on resuming suspended account
  • on switching to another plan
  • on switching to another billing period

A billing period closes:

  • on quitting hosting
  • on suspending account
  • on switching to another plan
  • on switching to another billing period

To create a billing period:

  1. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
  2. On the page that appears, click Settings for the hosting plan to edit.
  3. Make sure Billing is ON.
  4. In the Billing Configuration section, click the Add icon:

    • Interval: the time unit used to specify payment interval duration.
    • Size: the number of such time units in this payment interval.
    • Setup D, Usage D, Recurrent D: discounts for different type of fees.
    • Control: click the Edit icon to modify settings for the above parameters.

In Hosts of America billing periods cannot be deleted, but you can change their duration. For instance, if you decide you don't need your yearly billing period, you can change its duration to two months. Warning: Don't change the duration of a billing period if it has live accounts, as this will mess up billing for them. Instead you can create an identical plan with the same set of resources but different billing periods and move accounts to this plan. Once you know you have no accounts under this billing period, you can safely change its duration.

To set or change discounts for a billing period:

  1. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
  2. On the page that appears, click Settings for the plan to edit.
  3. Make sure Billing is ON. In the Billing Configuration section, click the Edit icon for the selected billing period.
  4. On the page that appears, enter discounts for each price type:

Example: Entering 2 in the Size box and 10 in the Recurrent Discount box will reduce the recurrent fee by 10% for all accounts with the payment interval of 2 months.
Users signed up for one month billing period pay $10 as a recurrent fee each month.
Users signed up for two months billing period pay $18 every two months.

 

Credit Limit

In credit card payment accounts, the system accumulates fees up to a certain amount called credit limit. When the cumulative fees exceed the credit limit, the customers are charged.

When the credit limit is reached in check payment accounts or invalid/expired credit cards, users become unable to buy more resources. However recurrent and usage fees will still be accrued. This way, the negative balance will grow with every new billing period (unless you configure the system to suspend debtors).

Example: If you set the credit limit to $10, a user with a $0 balance purchasing $5 resource won't be charged, although his balance will become -$5. This is also true of invalid credit card or check payments. If this user decides to buy some extra $10 of resources, he will get charged $15, and his balance will become zero. But in case of an invalid credit card or a check payment, this user won't be able to buy these extra $10 of resources, and his balance will remain -$5. If this is the case, and if his usage fee equals $20, at the end of the payment interval his debt will increase to ( $5 + $ 20 = ) $25.

To set plan's default credit limit:

  1. Launch plan edit wizard
  2. On the first step at the bottom of the form you'll find the Credit Limit entry.

Plan's default credit limit is the same for all accounts in this plan. However, you can enlarge or reduce credit limit for individual accounts and reset credit limit for all users in the system in one go.

 

Traffic

 

Traffic Calculation

Hosts of America Control Panel calculates traffic per server, e.g. web server, mail server, Windows server, etc. with its own built-in utility that collects:

mail traffic logs with /hsphere/shared/scripts/cron/mail_anlz.pl
ftp traffic logs with /hsphere/shared/scripts/cron/ftp_anlz.pl
http traffic logs with /hsphere/shared/scripts/cron/cron_analyze.pl

parses them every 24 hours with java psoft.hsphere.tools.TrafficLoader and then adds up to make up Summary Traffic. Summary Traffic statistics is updated every 24 hours and is shown to end users in their Control Panels. Because of that, Summary Traffic doesn't include the current day traffic consumption. It is not broken up into incoming or outgoing. Nor is it differentiated by the platform (operating system), however users can see Traffic Details for specific kinds of traffic consumption such as FTP User, Mail, HTTP, Real Server FTP traffic, etc.

Besides Hosts of America control panel allows end customers to enable and use third-party tools like Modlogan, Webalizer, etc. to calculate HTTP traffic statistics on users' domains. As these add-ons generate statistics only for HTTP traffic it will allways differ from control panel Summary Traffic readings.

 

Traffic Cycle

Regardless of account's billing period, traffic usage is calculated at the end of traffic cycle which is one month or less if traffic cycle is forced to close with a traffic limit change or other events, such as billing period closure, changing to another billing period, or other plan. For example, if a customer signs up on March 7 for a billing period of 6 months, traffic will be closed and reset on the 7th of each month.

 

Traffic Pricing

Traffic prices are set with plan edit wizards.

  • Free: GBs of traffic you allow your user to run up to during one traffic cycle for free.
  • Recurrent: traffic cycle payment for each GB of increased traffic limit; pre-paid for the whole billing period.
  • Extra: overlimit payment for each GB consumed over the traffic limit; calculated and accrued at the end of each traffic cycle.
    * The pricing for extra traffic is fractional, per KB. So if you set the price of $1/GB, and user used only 10 MB, he will be charged $0.01.

 

Traffic Limit

Initially, users get some free traffic they can run up without being charged. That makes up their traffic limit. If they go beyond this traffic limit, they are charged for each GB of excess at the extra (overlimit) price, which is usually quite high.

If users have or expect high hit rates, to prevent overlimit charges, they can book more traffic in advance by setting higher traffic limit (initially it equals free units). After this, they will pay for the whole booked amount at the recurrent price, which is usually lower than the extra (overlimit) price. Recurrent fee is charged in advance for the whole billing period (not for the traffic cycle) for traffic limit minus free units and is non-refundable if the user fails to use it all up.
Recurrent fee is prorated for the period left to the end of the billing period, if the user changes their traffic limit in the middle of the billing period.

When a traffic cycle ends, the user traffic limit is subtracted from total traffic run up to obtain the excess, and, if the result is positive, it is charged at extra (overlimit) fee. For example, you host a user with the account's billing period of 6 months, 0 free units, and the traffic limit of 6GB. During the first traffic cycle, the user runs up 6.5GB, which is 0.5GB higher than traffic limit. The payment for 0.5GB excess traffic is charged as the extra (overlimit) fee right at the end of the first traffic cycle.

 

Changing Traffic Limit

When a user changes traffic limit, the current traffic cycle closes, and the following calculations are performed:
1. Traffic limit for a traffic cycle is prorated to the period from the start of the traffic month to the day when the traffic limit is changed.
2. The resulting GBs are subtracted from total traffic run up by this day.
* the traffic run up during the last day of the traffic cycle is transferred to the next traffic cycle charges 3. If the result is positive, it is charged at usage fee.
4. The user traffic is reset.
5. A) The user is charged recurrent fee prorated to the time left to the end of the billing period for MBs of increased traffic limit.
B) The user is refunded recurrent fee prorated to the time left to the end of the billing period for MBs of decreased traffic limit.
As the result of traffic cycle interruption the billing period for traffic becomes different from the billing period for the account.

For example, you host a user with 0 free units, the traffic limit of 6 GB, and the billing period of 6 months starting 1 January. By 15 January, the user runs up 3.5 GB of traffic and increases his traffic limit.
1. 6 GB of traffic cycle limit is prorated to 15 days which makes 3 GB.
2. Prorated traffic limit of 3 GB is subtracted from 3.5 GB of traffic run up for 15 days which makes 0.5 GB.
3. 0.5 GB of excess traffic is charged at a usage fee.
4. Traffic is reset.
5. A new traffic cycle is open and since then will close on the 15th of each month.

 

Restricting Traffic Usage and Traffic Limit

Traffic usage can be restricted, which means when end users run up a certain amount of traffic, their sites will get suspended, and visitors won't be able to see the pages, and mailboxes and virtual ftp accounts will stop working. Read here for instructions.

Also, you can restrict the maximum possible traffic limit end users can set. To set the Max value:

  1. Select Plans in the Info menu.
  2. Click Resource for the selected plan.
  3. Click Edit for the Summary Traffic resource.
  4. In the Max field, enter the maximum allowed traffic limit value (in GB).

 

Charging for Traffic

This table uses examples, starting with easy further to more difficult, to explain how end customers are charged for using traffic.

# Plan & Account Settings: Traffic consumption: System Behavior:
1. Billing period = 1 month;
Free = 10GB;
Recurrent = $2;
Usage = $4;
Traffic Limit = Free = 10GB (Initially, traffic limit always equals free units)
User stays within Free units. User pays nothing.
2. By the end of the traffic month, user runs up 15GB. User pays for ( 15GB - 10GB Traffic Limit = ) 5GB overlimit. The amount of charge is ( 5GB x $4 usage ) = $20.
3. On the 15th day of the traffic month user changes traffic limit. By then, he has already run up 4GB. When the user changes traffic limit, traffic month closes. The old traffic limit is prorated to the number of days in the closed period: ( 10GB / 30 days ) * 15 days = 5GB. This means, the user having run up 4GB for 15 days hasn't exceeded the prorated to 15 days 5GB traffic limit and will be charged $0.
4. On the 15th day of the traffic month user changes traffic limit. By then, he has already run up 6GB. Just like in the previous example, prorated traffic limit (which equals free units) makes 5GB. The user has exceeded it by ( 6GB - 5GB prorated traffic limit = ) 1GB and will be charged ( 1GB overlimit x $4 usage = ) $4 usage fee.
5. Same as in 1-4, but user has previously changed traffic Limit to 20GB User stays within Traffic Limit. No matter how much traffic user has run up, if he stays within traffic limit, he pays for the ( 20GB Traffic Limit - 10GB Free Units = ) 10GB of booked traffic, which makes ( 10GB x $2 recurrent = ) $20 recurrent fee.
6. By the end of the traffic month, user runs up 25 GB. User pays for ( 20GB Traffic Limit - 10GB Free Units = ) 10GB of booked traffic at the begining of the traffic month plus ( 25GB - 20GB Traffic Limit = ) 5GB overlimit at the closure of the traffic month.. Recurrent fee = ( 10GB booked x $2 = ) $20. Usage fee = ( 5GB overlimit x $4 = ) $20. The total fee is ( $20 recurrent + $20 usage = ) $40.
7. On the 15th day of the traffic month user changes traffic limit. By then he has run up 9GB. When the user changes traffic limit, traffic month closes. Traffic limit is prorated to the number of days in the closed period: ( 20GB / 30 days ) * 15 days = 10GB. This means, the user hasn't exceeded the traffic limit and will be only refunded prorated half ($10) of the $20 recurrent fee charged at the beginning of the interrupted traffic month for (20GB Traffic Limit - 10GB Free Units = ) 10 GB booked at $2 recurrent price. The total fee for this traffic period is $10 recurrent fee.
8. On the 15th day of the traffic month user changes traffic limit. By then he has run up 12GB. Just like in the previous example, prorated traffic limit makes 10GB. This means, the user has exceeded the traffic limit by ( 12GB - 10GB = ) 2GB and will be refunded prorated half ($10) of the $20 recurrent fee charged at the beginning of the interrupted traffic month (see previous example) and charged ( 2GB overlimit x $4 usage price = ) $8 usage fee. The total fee for this traffic period is ($10 recurrent + $8 usage =) $18.

 

Traffic Configuration Changes

This example shows how traffic configuration changes affect end user account billing:

Free 2 GB
Traffic Limit 4 GB
Monthly (recurrent) for 1 GB $3
Extra (usage) for 1 GB $5
Billing period 2 months

In the middle of the billing period's first month traffic configuration is changed from the plan edit wizard:

Increasing prices

Decreasing prices

Free 2 GBs -> 5 GBs Free: 2 GBs -> 1 GB
Monthly (recurrent) $3 -> $4 Monthly (recurrent) $3 -> $1

Extra (usage)

$5 -> $6

Extra (usage)

$5 -> $2

By the end of the 1st month the customer runs up 8 GBs.

  • Traffic limit remains 4 GBs.
  • Recurrent fee isn't recalculated.
  • Usage calculations are based on new free 5 GBs that cover traffic limit and $6 of usage fee:
    8GB run up - 5GB free = 3GB overlimit
    3GB overlimit x $6 new usage = $18.
  • Traffic limit remains 4 GBs.
  • Recurrent fee isn't recalculated.
  • Usage calculations are based on traffic limit of 4 GBs that cover new free GBs and $2 of usage fee:
    8GB run up - 4GB of traffic limit = 4GB overlimit
    4GB overlimit x $2 new usage = $8.

The first traffic cycle is closed. User traffic is reset. A new traffic cycle is open. Calculations for the 2nd traffic cycle are the same as for the 1st one.
The end of the billing period closes the second traffic cycle. User traffic is reset. A new billing period opens a new traffic cycle.

  • Traffic limit remains 4 GBs.
  • User isn't accrued any recurrent fee as now his 4GB traffic limit is covered by 5GB free.
  • Traffic limit remains 4GB.
  • User is accrued $6 recurrent fee:
    4GB of traffic limit - 1GB free = 3GB;
    3GB x $1 recurrent x 2 months = $6.

Tip:

  • when decreasing plan's free traffic, use mass mail feature available at the bottom of the search result page to let your customers know they will be charged recurrent fee unless they decrease their traffic limit to new free.
  • when increasing plan's free traffic, use mass mail to let your customers know they can increase their traffic limit to new free without being charged.

Tracking End User Traffic Consumption

To see how much traffic your customers consumed over a certain period, use Transfer Traffic Report.

 

Disk Space

Disk Space Cunsumption Charge Strategies

Starting with version 2.3, you can choose whether to charge your customers for

In case of Summary Disk Usage end users are allocated free disk space for all disk space consuming resources combined together (without differentiating between FTP, mailboxes and DBs) which makes up their initial Summary disk usage limit that they can change. Users can exceed their summary disk usage limit and are charged then for each excessive MB. While under Disk Space Reservation plans end users are allocated free disk space separately for FTP, each mailbox and DB which makes up their quotas that they can change but can't exceed.

 

Disk Space Reservation (FTP, Mailbox and DB Quotas)

If you configure the system to charge end users for disk quotas, they will pay recurrent fee for each MB of disk space they have reserved (not necessarily consumed!) by setting various kinds of disk quota, such as FTP, mailbox and db quota, unless they decide to stay with free quotas that they initially get on account registration. They can't upload more files than their disk quotas, and will get an error message if they try to do so. Initially, disk quota equals Free MBs, and when end users need more disk space, they can increase their disk quota or, in other words, purchase more disk space.

In disk quota, recurrent fee is calculated by the formula:
( Disk quota - Free Units ) x recurrent price
and is measured in $/MB. The recurrent fee is charged at the beginning of the account's entire billing period. If customers haven't used up all disk space allocated by the end of their billing period, they aren't refunded recurrent fee for the unused MBs they reserved. Usage fee is not applicable for the disk quota resource, because disk quota can't be exceeded.

This table uses examples, starting with easy further to more difficult, to explain how end customers are charged for disk space quota.

# Plan & Account Settings: Summary Disk Usage: System Behavior:
1. Billing period = 1 month;
Free Disk Space Quota = 10MB;
Recurrent = $2;
Disk Space Quota = Free = 10MB ( Initially, Disk Space Quota equals Free units )
User stays within Free units of 10MB. User pays nothing.
2. User attempts to upload files to have the total of 12MB. User gets an error saying that disk space quota can't be exceeded.
3. On the 15th day the user tries to upload files to have the total of 12MB and gets an error, so he raises disk quota to 15MB and then uploads the files. When the user changes disk quota, the old disk usage cycle closes. Then the user is charged recurrent fee for the remaining 15 days for ( 15MB - 10MB free = ) 5MB over free units:
( 5MB x $2 recurrent) x 15 days left to the end of the billing period/ 30 days = $5.
4. Same as in 1-3, but user has previously raised disk space quota to 15MB. User stays with 12MB throughout the whole month. At the beginning of the month, user pays for the difference between disk space quota and free units: ( 15MB quota - 10MB free ) x $2 recurrent = $10.
5. User stays with 15MB disk quota the first 15 days, then raises disk quota to 20MB. At the beginning of the month, user pays for the difference between disk space quota and free units: ( 15MB quota - 10MB free ) x $2 recurrent = $10. On the 15th day, the disk quota cycle closes, user is refunded half of the recurrent fee ($5) and then is charged recurrent fee for the remaining 15 days: ( 15 days x ( 20MB quota - 10MB free ) / 30 days ) x $2 recurrent = $10, of which $5 will be taken from the refunded amount.

 

Configure Plans to Charge Users for Disk Space Reservation

  1. Launch plan edit wizard
  2. On the first step make sure to uncheck Summary Disk Usage resource box.
  3. Skip Registrar Domain Pricing form.
  4. On the second step set:

    Resource Free Monthly Extra
    Disk space Quota - MBs you restrict your users to consume by their home FTP directory without being charged
    - can't be exceeded
    - can be increased
    recurrent payment you charge your users for each MB of increased FTP quota N/A
    (users can't upload more than their FTP disk quota allows)
    Mailbox quota - MBs you restrict your users to consume by each of their mailboxes without being charged
    - can't be exceeded
    - can be increased individually for each mailbox
    recurrent payment you charge your users for each MB of increased quota on each mailbox N/A
    (users can't upload more MBs than their mailbox quota allows)
    MySQL database quota - MBs you allocate your users with (per each MySQL db) that they can consume without being charged
    - can be exceeded! on the contrary to FTP, mailbox and MS SQL quotas
    - can be increased
    recurrent payment you charge your users for each MB of increased quota on each MySQL DB payment for each MB consumed by individual user DB over its quota
    PGSQL database quota - MBs you allocate your users with (per each PGSQL db) that they can consume without being charged
    -can be exceeded! on the contrary to FTP, mailbox and MS SQL quotas
    - can be increased
    recurrent payment you charge your users for each MB of increased quota on each MySQL DB payment for each MB consumed by individual user DB over its quota
    MS SQL Quota - MBs you restrict your users to consume by each of their MS SQL DBs without being charged
    - can't be exceeded
    - can be increased individually for each mailbox
    recurrent payment you charge your users for each MB of increased qutoa on each MSSQL DB N/A
    (users can't upload more MBs than their MSSQL quota allows)

 

Disk Space Quota Changes

Increasing Free MBs
Decreasing Free MBs
Disk Quotas won't change in user CP. Please use the Mass Mail feature available at the bottom of the search result page to let your users know they can increase their disk quotas to new Free without being charged.
Example: A user had 5MB free and it made up his FTP disk quota. Later, you increased free units to 10MB. User's quota will stay at 5MB and he won't be able to upload more than 5MB, until he manually increases it.
If you increase Free in the middle of the billing period, the user isn't refunded the recurrent fee for the remaining days of the disk quota cycle.
Disk Space Quota won't change in user CP. But starting from the next billing period users will be charged recurrent fee for each MB of the difference between new Free and their Disk Space Quota. Please use the Mass Mail feature available at the bottom of the search result page to let your customers know you decreased Free for disk space quota and if they don't want to be charged for the difference, they should change their quota to new Free.
Example: Plan allowed 5MB free and $1 recurrent payment per MB. A user paid $2 for his 7MB FTP disk quota. Later, you decreased free units to 4MB. User's quota will stay at 7MB, but starting from the next billing period he will be charged $3 for his quota.

 

Prevent End Users from Increasing Disk Space Quotas

  1. In your admin control panel select Plans in the Info menu.
  2. Click the Resource link next to the plan.
  3. Click the Edit icon next to the Disk Space Quota / Mailbox Quota / MySQL, MSSQL and PGSQL DB quota resource.
  4. In the Max field, set the maximum allowed disk space quota in megabytes that users under this plan can increase their quotas to.

 

Summary Disk Usage

If you configure the system to charge end users for disk usage, they will pay recurrent fee for each MB of total disk space reserved setting Summary disk usage limit (unless they decide to stay with free Summary disk MBs that they initially get on account registration) plus usage or overlimit fee in case they exceed this limit.

Used disk space on different types of servers (web, mail, MySQL, Windows, etc.) is summarized every 24 hours to make up Summary Disk Usage. Summary Disk Usage statistics is updated every 24 hours and is shown to end users in their Control Panels: Disk Usage bar in Control/Info area on the left below the traffic bar (No Menu skin) or on the Quick Access page (Left Menu skin). Because of that, Summary Disk Usage doesn't include the current day disk space consumption. Summary disk usage is not differentiated by the platform (operating system).

 

Summary Disk Usage Limit

Initially, users are allocated some free disk space (not differenciated by types: FTP, mail, DB) that they can use without being charged. This makes up their Summary Disk Usage Limit. If they go beyond this free amount, they are charged for each MB of excess at the usage (overlimit) price, which is usually quite high.

 

Summary Disk Usage Cycle

The disk usage cycle (one month by default) determines when users that have exceeded their summary disk usage limit are chraged overlimit fee. However it can be less than a month if it is forced to close with a disk limit change or other events. For example, if a customer signs up on March 7 for a billing period of 6 months, and then changes disk limit on March 21, the new starting date for the disk usage cycle will then become the 21st of each month, except for September (the last billing period's month) when disk usage cycle is interrupted with billing period closure.

 

Changing Summary Disk Usage Limit

If users have a lot of web/mail/etc content, they can raise their summary disk usage limit. When a user changes summary disk usage limit, the current summary disk usage cycle closes, and the following calculations are performed:
1. Summary Disk Usage is recalculated (see Summary Disk Usage Calculation)
2. A new summary disk usage cylce is open.
3. Refund for remaining days of billing period is issued (if users prepaid for summary disk usage limit at the begining of the current billing period).
4. Recurrent fee prorated to the remaining days of the billing period (not disk usage month) is charged for new disk limit minus free units.
* Recurrent fee is non-refundable if the user fails to use it all up, but is refunded for the unused days of billing period.

 

Prevent Users from Increasing Summary Disk Usage Limit

  1. In your admin control panel select Plans in the Info menu.
  2. Click Resource for the selected plan.
  3. Click Edit for the Summary Disk Usage resource.
  4. In the Max field, enter the maximum allowed Summary disk usage limit value (in MBs).

 

Charge Calculation for Summary Disk Usage

Every day all servers are scanned, and all actually used disk space including free units is added up throughout the summary disk usage cylce, then the cumulative amount is divided by the number of days elapsed since the beginning of the current summary disk usage cycle, and the resulting average is displayed in the end user's control panel. This accounts for numerous questions why disk usage in end user's control panel is different from the disk space actually occupied by user's files.

At the end of the summary disk usage cycle, the cumulative amount is divided by the number of days, and if the resulting average exceeds summary disk usage limit (prorated to the duration of the summary disk usage cylce if it is prematurely closed) the customer is charged overlimit fees for the excess amount.

Example: You set free summary disk usage at 100 MB, monthly at $1 and extra at $2. Also, you zero all quota prices. If the customer sets disk limit to 200 MB, he will pay monthly recurrent fee for the ( 200MB - 100MB = ) 100MB of disk space. Now imagine that on the first day of the billing month the user uploaded several big files, and the used disk space became 210MB, and so it was until the end of the billing month. At the end of the billing month, the user will pay ( 10MB x $2 = ) $20 overlimit fee.

The next billing month, the customer uses 210 MB for 15 days, then deletes several files, and stays with 190 MB for the second half of the billing month. As the result, the prorated disk usage will equal ( (15days x 190MB + 15 days x 210MB) / 30days = ) 200MB, which stays within the disk limit, so the customer is not charged the overlimit fee.

This table uses examples, starting with easy further to more difficult, to explain how end customers are charged for summary disk usage.

# Plan & Account Settings: Summary Disk Usage: System Behavior:
1. Billing period = 1 month;
Free Summary Disk Usage = 10MB;
Recurrent = $2;
Usage = $4;
Disk Usage Limit = Free = 10MB (Initially, disk usage limit always equals free units)
User stays within Free units of 10MB. User pays nothing.
2. Throughout the month, user occupies 15MB of disk space. User pays for ( 15MB - 10MB Disk Limit = ) 5MB overlimit. The amount of charge is ( 5MB x $4 usage ) = $20.
3. The fist 15 days of the month user stores 5MB of files. On the 15th day, user uploads another 10MB of files. The remaining 15 days, user stores 15MB of files. The used amount will be averaged to one month: ( ( 15days x 5MB + 15days x 15MB ) / 30days ) = 10MB. The user has stayed within the disk limit and pays nothing.
4. The fist 15 days of the month user stores 15MB of files. On the 15th day, user changes disk space limit from 10MB to 15MB. On the 15th day when the user changes the disk space limit, the disk usage month closes, and the used amount is recalculated: ( ( 15days x 5MB overlimit ) / 30 days = ) = 2.5MB overlimit. The overlimit fee is ( 2.5MB x $4 usage = ) $10.
5. Same as in 1-4, but the user has previously changed Disk Usage Limit to 15MB. Throughout the whole disk usage month, the user had 12MB of files. The user pays ( ( 15MB limit - 10MB Free ) x $2 recurrent = ) $10 at the beginning of the disk usage month.
6. Throughout the whole disk usage month, the user had 17MB of files. The user pays ( ( 15MB limit - 10MB Free ) x $2 recurrent = ) $10 at the beginning of the disk usage month plus ( ( 17MB - 15MB limit ) x $4 overlimit = ) $8 at the end of the disk usage month.
7. Throughout the first 15 days of the month, user had 17MB of files. On the 15th day of the month user changed disk quota from 15MB to 18MB. The user pays ( ( 15MB limit - 10MB Free ) x $2 recurrent = ) $10 at the beginning of the disk usage month. On the 15th day, the unused recurrent fee for the remaining 15 days ($5) is refunded, i.e. credited to account balance. The prorated overlimit disk usage for the first 15 days is ( 15 days x ( 17MB - 15MB ) / 30 days = ) 1MB, so the due amount at the end of the month would be ( 1MB x $4 overlimit = ) $4. This amount will be taken from the account balance. As a result, the user won't be charged overlimit fee on the 15th day, but will be charged recurrent fee for the subsequent disk usage month.

Configure Plans to Charge Users for Summary Disk Usage

Even if you charge your customers for summary disk usage, disk quota can't be removed, because it's an obligatory system resource. Instead, you need to do all of the following:

  • set free units for Summary Disk Usage;
  • set Summary Disk Usage prices;
  • delete all Disk Space Quota prices to make sure that your users aren't charged twice for the same disk space;
  • enter some free megabytes of Disk Space Quota, so the system doesn't keep end users from uploading their web content.

To enable Summary Disk Usage for a certain plan:

  1. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
  2. Click the name of the plan to start the Plan Edit wizard.
  3. Include Summary Disk Usage on the first step.
  4. On the subsequent steps, don't set prices for web, mail, and other disk quotas unless you want to charge your customers twice, for disk quota and disk usage. Instead, set prices for Summary Disk Usage.
  5. Log into each existing user account under this plan, go to Account -> Quick Access and press the Add button in the Summary Disk Usage section.

 

User Summary Disk Usage Doesn't Coincide with Actual User Home Directory Size

All files with the user's ID including those outside user's home directory (e.g.Transfer, Referrer, Agent and Error logs that are used for user site's statistics) are counted toward used disk space. This accounts for frequent differences between used disk space shown by the control panel and the actual files in user home directory.

 

Suspending Debtors

You can specify how many days your customers can stay in debt before they get a negative balance warning and then have their account suspended or deleted. To configure when users will be warned and suspended:

  1. Select Suspending Debtors in the Settings menu.
  2. On the page that appears, check the actions you would like Hosts of America to perform, edit the default warning messages for each action, and enter days to wait before sending the warning or suspending/deleting accounts in debt:

  3. Click Save.

Let's take a closer look at the Outstanding Balance Notice. Normally, you would like to have your customers notified when they hit negative balance, so you check the box on the left of Outstanding Balance Notice. You may also want to change the default days next to Notify After. To have your customers notified the day they enter negative balance, leave the days box empty. The notification will be sent to the customer's address during the accounting process which is scheduled in your cron. Finally, you may want to edit the text of the notification message, and this is where you can benefit from the AutoInserts utility at the top of the form:

  1. Choose the Outstanding Balance Notice option
  2. In the Tag box choose the variable to enter into the message text
  3. Click the Insert button to insert the variable. The variable will be appended to the end of the message text, so you will need to copy-paste it into the proper place.

Now let's proceed to Pre-Suspension Notice. Check the box and set the days to wait before sending the suspend warning. The count will start after sending the notification above. If you choose not to send the notification (first checkbox unchecked), the count will start when the account enters negative balance. The day of the second notice is counted from the day of the first pre-suspension notice. To avoid sending one of the notices, leave the days box empty.

The Suspension Notice is sent the moment the account is suspended. The days are counted from the last pre-suspension notice.

Account Deletion Warning works identically to Pre-Suspension Notice. The first count starts on the day of the suspension notice.

Finally, Account Deletion Notice works similarly to Suspension Notice. Accounts are deleted with all user content.

 

Money Returns

Customers can get their money back in two cases:

  • Complete refund:

    When a user quits hosting during the Moneyback period, he gets back 100% of all recurrent fees for all the resources he has used. The Money Back amount does not include the Setup Fee and is not affected by the refund percentage.

  • Partial refund:

    When a user quits hosting after the Moneyback period, he gets back his recurrent fees adjusted for the refund percentage for the time remaining till the end of the current billing period.

Partial refunds are calculated according to the following formula:

refund = (recurrent fee x time left to the closure of the billing period)/ (duration of the billing period x refund percentage)

Example: A user's one-month billing period started on November 1 and closes on November 30. Recurrent fee for a dedicated IP is $3. At the beginning of the billing period the user was charged $3 for the dedicated IP. On November 10 this user switched to a shared IP. With a 10% refund percentage the user will get back $0,2 refund.

IMPORTANT: Refunds can't be issued to credit cards. The money must be returned either by check or by crediting the account balance.

To set the moneyback period:

  1. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
  2. Click the name of the plan to start the wizard.
  3. Scroll down to the Settings section and check Enable in the Money Back Guarantee field. Enter the duration of the Money Back period in days.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check Don't change resources prices.
  5. Complete the wizard.

To set the refund percentage:

  1. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
  2. Click Resources for the plan.
  3. On the page that appears, click Price next to the resource to set refund percentage for:

  4. In the Refund Percentage field, enter which part of the recurrent fee that will be returned to the user:

Example: User's billing period started on November 1 and is closing on November 30. The recurrent price for dedicated IP is $3. At the beginning of the billing period the user was charged $3 recurrent fee for dedicated IP. On November 10 the user switched to shared IP. With 10% refund percentage he will get back $0,2 refund. The refund will be added to the account credit.


Related Docs:  

Reseller Billing Introduction to Billing Managing Accounts



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