Say Hello to Overage Budgets
We all know how tricky it can be to keep track of costs, especially when your projects spike or with the latest feature that your users love. That's why we've been working on a solution to ensure you never have surprise billing due to on-demand occurrences. Introducing our latest feature to give you both flexibility and control: Overage Budgets.
Why a need for Overage Budgets:
Traditionally, our billing model for occurrences operates on an "on-demand" basis, allowing for unlimited occurrences beyond plan limits. While this ensures uninterrupted service, it can sometimes lead to surprises in billing, especially after a spike in usage. The choice was binary: keep on-demand events on and adapt to the possibility of plan upgrades or turn them off and risk not being able to observe your errors.
We’ve heard from you that this decision causes discomfort and most of you weren’t happy when you received the surprise bill, so it became clear that a more nuanced solution was needed—one that respects both the dynamic nature of your projects and the predictability of your budgeting.
Introducing Flexibility and Control with Overage Budgets
With the launch of Overage Budgets, we're changing how on-demand events are managed. This feature divides on-demand events into three categories: Off, Budgeted, and Unlimited
Off mode will not change; your account will process the number of occurrences in your plan. Once you have reached your occurrences, we will stop processing errors, and you’ll have to wait until the start of the next month for errors to be processed again.
Budgeted puts the control in your hands. Set a monthly budget limit for overage charges you're comfortable with. If a big update or release is coming and you expect a usage spike, just set your budget. We'll stick to your limit, so there are no unexpected bills or forced plan upgrades.
Unlimited allows for continuous, unlimited occurrences, with the option to upgrade to higher occurrence accounts. So, if you know that you have a new release and expect a spike for just a month, you can have unlimited occurrences without an upgrade. If your occurrence charge is higher than it would be to upgrade to the next plan, then we'll do it for you automatically, and you won't be charged for the overages.
Note, that once your account has been automatically upgraded, it will remain at the new plan level for future billing cycles. You can change your plan anytime by going to Account Settings → Choose Plan. If you choose a lower plan level, the change will take effect at the start of your next monthly billing cycle.
Upgrades to Communication
Also, we’ve heard that we haven’t been great at communicating with you about your plan changes. So, we're rolling out upgrades to our UI on your plan page and improving our communication emails. This means better transparency and no surprises. You'll get clear updates and alerts about your usage and spending, so you're always in the loop.
This new feature is about making your life easier, but we know there's always room to grow. Got feedback, questions, or a cool idea? Send us an email at [email protected]. Let's make managing costs a breeze together.
