Guide

Billing

Layerbase plans are Free, Solo ($5/mo), and Pro ($15/mo), plus Custom for dedicated servers. This page covers what happens to your money and your databases when you change plans, run the Pro trial, or a renewal payment fails. Your data is never deleted by a billing change: over-limit databases lock, they do not disappear.

Upgrading and downgrading

Switching between Solo and Pro is an in-place change on your existing subscription. It is prorated and charged immediately: you pay (or are credited) the difference for the rest of the current billing period right away, not at your next renewal. The new plan limits and pool take effect at once.

Downgrading to a smaller plan never deletes data. If you have more databases than the smaller plan allows, or databases on an engine the smaller plan does not include, those databases are locked rather than removed. You choose which stay active up to the new limit, and the rest freeze until you upgrade again or free up a slot. See locked databases for the recovery paths.

Canceling a plan

Cancel from your plan page. Cancellation is scheduled for the end of the current paid period, not applied instantly: your subscription stays fully active until the period you already paid for runs out, then your account moves to Free-tier limits automatically. You are not charged again after you cancel.

A scheduled cancel is reversible. Click Resume before the period ends and the subscription continues as if you never canceled. Once the period lapses and you drop to Free, any databases over the Free quota lock (they are kept, not deleted), and you cannot create new databases beyond the Free quota until you subscribe again.

The Pro free trial

Pro ships with a 7-day free trial so you can use Performance engines and the always-on pool before paying. A card is required at checkout, you are charged $0 up front, and the trial auto-converts to $15/mo on day 7. Cancel any time during the trial from your plan page and you are never charged.

The trial is one per customer. It is matched by your normalized email and card fingerprint, so a second account or a re-checkout on the same card does not get another free week. If you are not eligible, checkout uses the "Start now, no trial" path and charges the plan price immediately.

Two things are restricted while you are trialing. You cannot switch plans (a Solo/Pro swap during a trial would consume the trial and leave you on the wrong plan), and add-ons like pool blocks and extra team seats are locked until the subscription is active. To unlock them early, use End trial & start now on your plan page: it converts the trial to an active subscription and charges the base price on the spot. Otherwise everything unlocks automatically when the trial converts on day 7.

When a payment fails

If a renewal charge is declined, your subscription goes past-due and the payment provider auto-retries the card over the next several days. If every retry fails, the subscription is marked unpaid. Both states suspend your account across every cloud server within seconds.

While suspended, new database creates and other account changes are blocked. Your existing databases keep running and stay reachable, so a failed card does not take your apps offline. You will get a past-due email with a link to the billing portal where you can update your card.

Recovery is automatic. Once a payment succeeds, the suspension is cleared for you (either the moment the provider confirms the charge, or by the daily billing reconcile as a backstop), and creates work again. You do not need to contact support to lift a past-due suspension. Canceling on purpose never suspends your account: it just drops you to Free at the end of the period.

Pool blocks and dedicated servers

Pool blocks are the one add-on: $10/mo each on Pro (and Custom), adding 1 GB always-on RAM, 1 vCPU, and 25 GB storage per block. They stack, are removable any time, and are prorated: adding or removing one charges or credits the difference immediately, the same way a plan swap does.

Dedicated (Custom) servers bill and cancel differently from Solo and Pro. A dedicated cancel is immediate and irreversible with no proration or refund, so it has its own page: dedicated servers.