Billing, Credits & Elastic Seat Licensing

Understanding how credits, billing, and proration work

Elastic Seat Licensing

SmtpMan uses elastic seat licensing - you only pay for active staff. Archive seasonal or departed staff to stop billing instantly.

Active Staff

$0.99

per user / month

Archived Staff

$0.00

no cost while archived

Proration

Daily

fair adjustment

Cost Savings

Archive seasonal workers when off-season to stop billing. Restore instantly when they return - data is preserved, costs are $0.

How Billing Works

Credit System

Your account uses prepaid credits. Credits are deducted as staff use the service.

  1. Purchase credits in advance
  2. Active staff consume credits based on your billing cycle
  3. Archived staff cost nothing
  4. Auto-reload when balance is low

Transaction Types

Monthly Deducted on your billing date each month
Credit When archiving staff mid-month
Charge When adding staff mid-month
Top-up Adding credits to your balance

Daily Proration

When you add or remove staff mid-month, billing is adjusted proportionally by day.

Archive Mid-Month

Example: Archive a staff member after 20 days. You stop paying immediately and receive a credit for the remaining 10 days.

Add Mid-Month

Example: Add a new staff member 15 days into the month. You're only charged for the remaining 15 days of that month.

Invoices & Payment

All transactions are recorded and invoices are automatically generated.

Accessing Invoices

  1. Go to Billing
  2. Navigate to Invoices tab
  3. View monthly invoices and proration adjustments
  4. Download PDF for your records

Invoice Format

Monthly Invoice: INV-2025-011 (November 2025)

Proration: PROR-2025-047

Top-up: PAY-2025-089

Supported Payment Methods

Credit/Debit Cards, ACH Bank Transfer (US only), PayPal

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