---
title: "Prepaid and postpaid accounts"
description: "How a prepaid MyAccount account pays from infra credits and a postpaid one by invoice, what a low balance means, and how licensed and committed plans bill."
content_type: "concept"
product: "billing"
platform: "MyAccount"
url: "/myaccount/billing/concepts/prepaid-and-postpaid-accounts/"
---

# Prepaid and postpaid accounts

Every MyAccount account is either prepaid or postpaid. The products cost the same either way;
what differs is when you pay.

## Prepaid: infra credits first

A new account is prepaid. You buy infra credits, and everything you use is paid from them. One
infra credit is worth one unit of your account's currency before GST: one rupee on an INR
account, one dollar on a USD account. A balance of 10,000 credits on an INR account covers
10,000 rupees of usage.

Usage is metered by the minute and deducted once every few hours, shown as **Daily usage** debits
on your statement. The same balance pays for MyAccount and for TIR: a TIR charge shows on the
same transaction list and usage report as a node.

Credits stay on the account they were bought for and cannot be moved to another account. Credits
you buy have no fixed expiry date while you use the account; see
[When do prepaid credits expire?](/myaccount/billing/faq/#when-do-prepaid-credits-expire).
Unused credits you paid for can be refunded on request while the account is in active use; see
[Can I get a refund of infra credits?](/myaccount/billing/faq/#can-i-get-a-refund-of-infra-credits).
A coupon must be redeemed by its expiry date, shown with the coupon.

### When the balance runs low

Usage is still deducted when the balance reaches zero, so it can go negative. Keep the
account funded: you get an email as soon as the balance turns negative, and reminders by
email, and by SMS and WhatsApp where you have turned them on, while it stays negative. While
the balance is negative you cannot launch new services, save an image, or upgrade a plan.

If the dues are not paid within 5 days, the account's services are suspended. A few days after
suspension, they may be deprovisioned: their resources are deleted, and once that is done the
data cannot be recovered.

A suspended account shows a banner across the top of MyAccount. Adding enough credits, or redeeming a coupon
that brings the balance back to zero, restores the services; see
[Restore a suspended account](/myaccount/billing/how-to/restore-a-suspended-account/).

[AutoPay](/myaccount/billing/how-to/set-up-autopay/) keeps the balance topped up without you
watching it, and a [low balance alert](/myaccount/billing/how-to/set-a-low-balance-alert/)
tells you before it gets low.

## Postpaid: invoice first

A postpaid account is arranged with E2E. Each billing cycle ends with an invoice for what the
account used, and you pay it from **Pay Now**, by bank transfer, or automatically with AutoPay.
A payment settles unpaid invoices first, and anything left over stays on the account as an
advance against the next one.

Automated reminders to pay the pending amount go to the account's billing contacts. An
account suspended for non-payment is restored once E2E has confirmed payment of the outstanding
amount.

## Plans with a licence

A plan that includes a third-party licence, such as Windows, cPanel, Plesk, or RHEL, carries a
minimum monthly charge that covers the licence. It is applied when the node is launched and
again on the first of every month, and the plan's hourly rate starts to count once the month's
usage passes it. The licence covers a calendar month, so a licensed node launched on the last
day of a month is charged for that month and again the next day, and one launched and deleted
in the same hour is still charged once.

## Committed plans

A committed plan is paid for its whole term when you take it: from infra credits on a prepaid
account, on the invoice on a postpaid account. The term is yours whether or not you keep the
resource to the end, so deleting early does not return the amount, and minimum billing amounts
already charged stay charged. Each product's committed page says what happens when a term
ends; for nodes, see [Committed nodes](/myaccount/node/concepts/committed-nodes/). E2E's
[refund policy](https://www.e2enetworks.com/policies/refund-policy) has the rest.

## Services E2E sets up for you

A service E2E sets up for you is billed monthly in advance from the date in the email that
says it is ready. To stop it, your technical contact emails cloud-platform@e2enetworks.com with
the date, and asks without conditions; billing ends on the date in E2E's confirmation, or at the
end of the commitment if there is one. If it stops before the end of a month paid in advance,
E2E may return the unused part as a credit note, infra credits, or a refund. The service's data,
backups, and monitoring are deleted with it.