Billing Cycles
A billing cycle defines how often a service is priced and charged — from hourly pay-as-you-go to multi-year subscriptions.
Billing cycle is selected by the customer at provisioning time (from the cycles enabled for your deployment). Prices for each enabled cycle are set per package in a rate card under Billing cycle and pricing.
Billing cycle works together with:
- Payment mode — how the customer pays (prepaid, postpaid, manual)
- Billing rules — how charges are calculated (pro-rata, calendar alignment, date-to-date)
CMP path: Settings → Billing Setup → Rate Cards → [Rate Card] → Packages → [Service Type] → Billing cycle and pricing
| Cycle | Duration | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | Per hour | Variable workloads, dev/test |
| Monthly | 1 month | Steady production VMs |
| Quarterly | 3 months | Mid-term commitment |
| Semi-annually | 6 months | Longer commitment |
| Annually | 12 months | Annual discounts |
| Bi-annually | 24 months | Two-year plans |
| Tri-annually | 36 months | Three-year plans |
Invoice timing depends on your deployment's billing rule (for example, FIXED_PRORATA, DATE_TO_DATE) — not on the cycle alone. Hourly always uses FIXED_PRORATA with month-end consolidated invoicing.
Admin tip: CMP does not auto-fill prices across billing cycles — you enter each cycle on the package form. A common approach is to set monthly first, then use Pricing Formulas to calculate hourly, quarterly, yearly, and other cycles before entering them.
Pages in this section
- Hourly — pay-as-you-go; consolidated month-end invoicing
- Monthly — recurring monthly; all payment modes
- Quarterly — 3-month billing; pro-rata and calendar rules
- Semi-annually — 6-month billing
- Annually — yearly / annual billing
- Bi-annually — every 2 years
- Tri-annually — every 3 years
The seven billing cycles
| Cycle | Also called | Charging model |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly | PAYG, pay-as-you-go | Per hour of actual usage |
| Monthly | — | Fixed recurring monthly period |
| Quarterly | 3 months | Fixed recurring 3-month period |
| Semi-annually | 6 months | Fixed recurring 6-month period |
| Annually | Yearly, annual | Fixed recurring 12-month period |
| Bi-annually | Every 2 years | Fixed recurring 24-month period |
| Tri-annually | Every 3 years | Fixed recurring 36-month period |
Hourly: Create ──●──●──●──●── delete → bill = hours used (invoice at month end)
Fixed cycles: Create ──────────────────── → bill = full period upfront
No refunds on early deletion — fixed cycles
CMP does not support refunds when a customer deletes a fixed-cycle service before the period ends. The full committed period is still charged. Customers who need flexibility should choose hourly billing where available.
Billing cycles and payment modes
| Cycle | Prepaid | Postpaid | Manual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | ✅ | ✅ Recommended | ✅ |
| Monthly | ✅ | ✅ Recommended | ✅ |
| Quarterly and longer | ✅ Recommended | ❌ Not recommended | ✅ |
Use postpaid only with hourly and monthly billing cycles.
Do not offer quarterly, semi-annual, annual, bi-annual, or tri-annual cycles on postpaid accounts:
| Risk | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Revenue delay | You may wait months or years to collect payment for a long committed period |
| Fraud exposure | A customer can consume services for the full cycle and leave before paying |
Monthly limits outstanding exposure to one billing period — acceptable for postpaid. Hourly bills usage at month end with threshold controls.
For quarterly and longer cycles, use prepaid (wallet collected upfront) or manual (offline payment with admin verification). See Postpaid.
Mandatory hourly billing
The following service types always use hourly billing. Monthly and longer cycles are not available on their package forms:
| Service type | CMP package |
|---|---|
VM_SNAPSHOT | VM Snapshot |
BS_SNAPSHOT | Volumes Snapshot |
BACKUP | VM Backup |
BS_BACKUP | Block storage backup (OpenStack) |
BANDWIDTH | Unit Pricing (bandwidth) |
ACCOUNT_TEMPLATE | Template |
ISO | ISO |
See Hourly — mandatory hourly services for details.
Configure billing cycles on packages
Billing cycles are enabled at the application level — typically during initial deployment with StackConsole. CMP does not support enabling or disabling billing cycles per service type or per package.
If a billing cycle is enabled for your deployment, you must enter a valid price for that cycle and each supported currency on every package in a rate card. Do not set price to 0 to skip a cycle for one service — that is not supported.
The only service-level exception is mandatory hourly billing: some service types always use hourly billing and never show monthly or longer cycles on the package form.
- Confirm which billing cycles are enabled for your deployment (application-level setting — contact StackConsole before go-live)
- Open Settings → Billing Setup → Rate Cards → [Rate Card] → Packages → [Service Type]
- On each package, enter pricing for every enabled billing cycle and currency
Orchestrator package guides:
Reference formulas for admins
CMP does not derive one cycle price from another. Use these formulas when deciding what to enter for each cycle on the package form:
| Conversion | Formula |
|---|---|
| Monthly → Hourly | Hourly = Monthly ÷ (30.5 × 24) |
| Monthly → Yearly | Yearly = Monthly × 12 |
See Pricing Formulas for the full reference.