Manage billing and usage
On this page
Open Billing on the boxes.dev website to check your usage and manage your team's plan. You need team admin access to change plans, payment methods, paid seats, or prepaid credits. If you are a member, you can check your status and send a team admin the exact blocking message you saw.
Check usage
- Open Billing and find Usage for your current billing period.
- In Usage history, choose the last 24 hours or seven days. The seven-day chart starts with daily bars; select 1 hour for more detail.
- Select Per-box contribution to see which machines used those box-hours. The chart identifies the six highest-usage machines and groups the rest with their count.
These figures show your own box-hour usage, including when you're a team admin.
History covers completed hourly windows and updates on the hour. The current hour's activity will appear after that hour finishes.
For a quick check in the desktop app, hover over or click the usage icon just left of Help in the account row at the bottom of the sidebar. It shows your current box-hour usage, the billing period end date when available, and awake-devbox usage. Choose Manage billing in the popover to open usage history in Settings → Billing & usage. That section also lets admins change plans, update payment, and buy credits. Use the website for seat assignments and auto-reload. Mobile Settings shows billing and usage status.
You can also ask an agent in any thread, for example "What plan am I on?" or "How many box-hours do I have left?" The agent will check the same plan, usage, awake-devbox, and credit details that Billing shows.
Assign seats and manage payment
As a team admin, open Billing on the website:
- Under Plan, select Choose plan to start a paid plan, or Adjust plan to change an existing one. Complete any checkout shown.
- Under Payment, use Add card or Update to set the team's payment method.
- Under Members, find the person who needs access and select Assign seat. Each paid seat receives the plan's included box-hours each billing period. Assigning a seat will collect the prorated charge immediately. Use Remove seat when that person no longer needs a paid seat; unused time will be credited on the next bill. The last paid seat shows Cancel plan instead, since a paid plan needs at least one paid seat.
To stop paying, select Cancel plan on the last paid seat or at the bottom of the page. The plan and its paid seats will stay active until the end of the billing period, and you can select Keep plan before then to continue it. Billing portal will open Stripe's billing portal in your browser.
Signup offers
If you create a new team through one of these links, you'll receive Pro free for a limited time:
- boxes.dev/launch-yc: three months, with a card
- boxes.dev/conductor: one month
- boxes.dev/alien: three months
The offer includes 300 box-hours each month for your first Pro seat. Only boxes.dev/launch-yc asks for a card, to prevent abuse of the offer. Choose Continue without a card to take the smaller trial with 20 free box-hours instead. Adding a card will not enable automatic charges for extra usage or renew Pro automatically. Extra usage will require prepaid credits. Pro will end when the offer does unless you choose Keep plan in Billing. Keeping it will continue at the normal Pro price. The offer won't change an existing account's or team's billing.
Add prepaid credits
Each paid seat's included box-hours belong to that user; prepaid credits are the team's shared pool. boxes.dev draws from a user's included allowance first, then from the shared credits. You need team admin access and an active Starter, Pro, or Max plan to buy credits or set up auto-reload.
Your team can spend up to $1,000 on credits each calendar month on Starter, Pro, or Max. Purchases made by auto-reload count toward the same limit, and months follow UTC. Credits you've bought stay in the balance after the month ends. If your team needs more, email hi@boxes.dev.
Buy credits once
On the website's Billing page, select Buy credits under Usage credits. Enter an amount to pay, such as $35 or $35.50, or select $20, $100, $250, or $500 to fill it in. The amount can be anything from $20 up to your team's remaining limit for the month. Then select Continue to checkout and complete the payment.
Bulk discounts apply to the whole purchase based on how much you pay:
| Payment | Discount | Credits added |
|---|---|---|
| $100 | 5% | $105.26 |
| $250 | 7.5% | $270.27 |
| $500 | 10% | $555.55 |
Each discount continues up to the next threshold; purchases of $500 or more receive 10% off. Credits are rounded down to cents. The dialog shows what you'll pay and receive before checkout. Monthly limits count your payment, not the extra credits. Credits are shared across box overage, mobile devices, and builders.
The dialog shows how much your team can still buy this month. If you close a checkout without paying, its amount will stay reserved for about 30 minutes.
Turn on auto-reload
- On Billing, select Turn on under Auto-reload.
- Enter the balance threshold and the reload amount.
- To limit how much auto-reload can spend each month, enter a monthly auto-reload limit. Leave it blank to allow automatic purchases up to your team's monthly credit purchase limit. Credits you buy yourself don't count toward this limit.
- Confirm Turn on. boxes.dev will charge the card on file for the reload amount whenever the balance drops to the threshold.
Each reload receives the same bulk discount as a manual purchase of that amount. For example, a $100 reload will charge $100 and add $105.26 in credits.
Use Edit to change the settings or turn auto-reload off.
If auto-reload has not replenished the balance, check the payment method, any failure shown under Auto-reload, and both monthly limits. Once both included usage and credits are exhausted, new work may be blocked until an admin updates billing.
Mobile devices
Agents can run your iOS or Android app on cloud iPhone simulators and Android emulators, which are billed by the minute from your team's usage credits. As a team admin, turn them on with the switch under Mobile devices on Billing, or in Settings → Billing & usage in the desktop app. The first time your team turns them on, it will get a one-time $10 credit.
The same section lists each device's price and any pending device charges. Team admins can also see recent device sessions with their member, project, run time, and amount. To learn how charges work and how to watch a device, see Test your app on mobile devices.
Resolve a limit
| What the product reports | What to do |
|---|---|
| Awake devbox limit | Sleep an idle devbox, then retry the work. |
| Project limit | Delete a project after saving its work elsewhere, ask an admin to upgrade if available, or contact support about a higher limit. |
| Trial ended or paid seat required | Ask a team admin to assign a paid seat or update the plan. |
| Credits depleted | Ask an admin to add credits or check auto-reload and payment. |
| Monthly credit purchase limit reached | Ask an admin to email hi@boxes.dev to buy more credits this month. |
| Payment required, past due, or unpaid | Ask an admin to update payment in Billing. |
After an admin resolves the block, retry the action that was blocked, such as the setup, wake, or automation run.
A billing block can stop project setup, machine creation or waking, and automation runs. If a machine is already awake, existing terminal, shell, port, and agent connections will remain available until it sleeps. The block may prevent boxes.dev from keeping it awake longer. Resolve the billing problem before trying to wake it again.
For the difference between usage and capacity, see Plans, seats, and box-hours.