Your wallet explained

What this is

An explanation of how paying for ByteDC services actually works, before you put any money in.

ByteDC runs on a prepaid wallet. You deposit funds first, then your running services draw down against that balance. There is no monthly invoice that arrives after the fact and no credit card kept on file that is charged automatically.

Before you start

You need a verified ByteDC account. Nothing else. You can look at the Wallet page with a zero balance.

Where to find it

Choose Wallet in the main sidebar. The page has three parts:

1. Your current balance. The money available to spend right now.

2. Deposit history. Every top-up, with the date, the amount and the method used.

3. Top up. The button that starts a deposit.

Screenshot needed: Wallet page showing balance, history and top-up button.

Your balance also appears on the Dashboard, so you can see it without opening the Wallet page.

How the wallet relates to orders

The two are separate steps, and this is the part people find surprising:

• A quotation costs nothing. You can configure a service and generate a quotation with a zero balance. The quotation is valid for seven days.

• Confirming an order needs funds. When you confirm a quotation into an order, a proforma invoice is issued and you proceed to payment. That is the point where your balance matters.

So you can price up anything you like before depositing a single dollar.

What happens at zero balance

This is the most important thing on this page, so it is worth being direct about it.

When your balance runs out, your running services stop drawing funds they do not have. What that means in practice for each service, how much warning you get, and whether resources are suspended or deleted, is set by ByteDC policy rather than by something you configure.

Get the exact suspension and grace period policy confirmed by ByteDC before you put production workloads on the platform. It is a fair question to ask your account manager directly, and the answer belongs in your own internal runbook.

Content pending: the precise zero balance and grace period policy is being confirmed with the ByteDC platform team. See How billing and consumption work.

Practical advice

Keep a buffer. Do not run your balance to the edge. A service that stops because of an empty wallet costs you more in disruption than the deposit would have.

Check the balance before you scale up. Adding pods, servers or storage increases what you consume per month. The Pricing Calculator will tell you the new figure before you commit.

Deleting a resource stops its consumption. If you are done with something, delete it. As long as it exists it continues to draw against your balance.

Common problems

I deposited but my balance has not changed. Confirmation is not always instant, and it depends on the payment method. Check Deposit history first, because a pending deposit appears there before it appears in the balance.

My balance is dropping faster than I expected. Every running resource contributes. Open My Orders to see everything you have active, and remember that a resource you stopped using but did not delete is still consuming.