Committed nodes

Most node plans are billed by the minute at an hourly price, with no commitment. A committed node trades that flexibility for one price over a fixed term you choose, with bigger savings on longer terms. Converting deducts the full cost of that term from your infra credits right away, or bills it in full if you are on postpaid. Either way, that payment covers the whole term, however long you keep the node. You can still delete a committed node early if your plans change, and what you have already paid for the term stays paid. Infra credits are the prepaid balance on your account that committed-node charges come out of. Postpaid means you are billed for your usage after the fact rather than paying in advance.

Committed billing pays off when you are confident the node runs for the whole term, since that is when the discount outweighs paying up front. For a node you are likely to replace or delete sooner, staying on-demand usually costs less overall, since you only pay for what you use. A committed node can be upgraded to a bigger plan too, and the leftover balance is prorated toward the new plan. See Upgrade a node’s plan.

Converting a node to committed billing

Convert to Committed appears on a node only when its plan offers committed pricing. It is offered on hourly nodes, except spot nodes. A spot node is priced for spare capacity and reclaimed when that capacity is needed. Converting takes a few minutes, and you get an email once it is done. Auto-renewal turns on by default. The node moves straight into another committed period unless you change that first. See Convert a node to committed billing for the steps.

What happens when the term ends

Open a committed node’s Committed Settings to see the percentage you are saving and when the commitment ends. From there, choose what happens next: keep auto-renewing, or switch to hourly billing at the base rate once the term ends. You can also have the node delete itself automatically at that point.

If you are going to keep the node but want a different committed plan next term, switch to that plan before the current period ends, so it is the new plan that auto-renews. A change you make mid-term only takes effect once the current period ends.

If you choose hourly billing, the node switches to the hourly rate at the end of the period; from then on you can terminate it at any time.

If you choose auto-deletion, the node and all its backups are deleted when the term ends. Save an image of the node first if you want to keep anything from it.

Auto-deletion is offered only here, after converting. It is not available on a node launched as committed, or on a committed database node, which can auto-renew or switch to hourly.