Payment methods
How you pay for a VPSNine server, monthly or yearly, with prices in US dollars: Bitcoin or PayPal step by step, account credit, and payments that go wrong.
Where things stand: accounts are open at my.vpsnine.com, so you can sign up, confirm your email and add SSH keys today. Ordering servers opens at launch.
Prices and invoices are in US dollars, whichever way you pay. The ways to pay are listed on the plans page; this guide walks through Bitcoin and PayPal.
Paying in Bitcoin
Bitcoin payments go through BTCPay Server, a payment server we run ourselves: on-chain, and over the Lightning Network whenever our BTCPay store has Lightning turned on (see below). There's no payment company between you and us. (Old customers may remember the Bitcoin VPS page from 2019 to 2021. Same idea, new plumbing.) BTCPay works out the Bitcoin amount when you open the checkout and holds it while the checkout is open.
- Place an order. Its invoice appears in the panel under billing.
- Open the invoice and choose pay with Bitcoin. BTCPay's checkout opens with the amount, an address and a QR code.
- Pay from whatever wallet you like.
- Once the payment confirms, the invoice shows as paid and we start building your server.
Pay the exact amount the checkout shows; your wallet's network fee comes on top. The checkout only lasts a limited time, which it shows you. If it runs out before you've paid, go back to the invoice and choose pay with Bitcoin again to get a fresh one. An order that stays unpaid for 7 days is cancelled, and its invoice with it.
Paying over Lightning
When our BTCPay store takes Lightning, the panel says so: the pay button reads pay with Bitcoin (on-chain or Lightning). The checkout then shows a Lightning invoice next to the on-chain address; scan it with any Lightning wallet. A Lightning payment confirms in seconds, so the invoice shows as paid almost at once. When the panel says just Bitcoin, pay on-chain.
Lightning follows the same rules as on-chain: pay the exact amount while the checkout is open. A Lightning invoice can't be paid after its checkout has run out; start a fresh one from the invoice. Anything that does arrive late, short or over the amount is handled exactly as below, under "A payment went wrong".
Paying with PayPal
- Open the invoice in the panel and choose pay with PayPal.
- PayPal opens. Log in and approve the payment, from your PayPal balance or a card or bank account linked to PayPal.
- You come back to the invoice, and we take the payment then. The invoice shows as paid straight away, and a new server starts building.
The price is the same as with Bitcoin; we pay PayPal's fee. If you close the PayPal window before approving, nothing is charged, and you can start again from the invoice. If you approved it but didn't come back to the page, we still pick the payment up within a few minutes.
If a PayPal payment is reversed or disputed, the server it paid for is suspended while we look into it. Your data stays on the disk. Open a support ticket if you think that's a mistake.
Account credit
Credit sits on your account and pays your invoices before any Bitcoin does. When credit comes in and you have an invoice waiting, it goes to that invoice straight away, oldest first. If it covers the whole thing, the invoice is paid and there's nothing more to do. If it covers part, you only pay what's left. A new invoice uses any credit you have before it's sent to you.
You can also add funds ahead, with Bitcoin or PayPal, so renewals are paid from it. How account credit works has the details. A gift card someone sends you becomes credit too, and a promo code takes money off an order before credit pays it.
You get credit when you pay more than an invoice asked for, when a payment arrives after its checkout ran out and can't pay the invoice, when a refund is made as credit, or when an order can't be built. The billing page shows your balance. If an open invoice ever shows credit you haven't used, choose apply my credit on it.
Once credit has lowered an invoice, a checkout you opened before is for the old amount. Choose pay with Bitcoin again for a fresh one. If you'd already paid the old one, that payment becomes credit in full, which then pays what's left on the invoice.
How billing works
You choose monthly or yearly when you order. There's no setup fee either way. A yearly term renews for another 12 months unless you cancel; cancelling stops the next renewal but doesn't refund the unused part of the year. Prices are on the plans page.
- Monthly: one invoice a month. Each server renews on the same day of the month it was bought.
- Yearly: twelve months at once. The server renews on the same day a year later.
Either way, the renewal invoice arrives 7 days before the paid period ends. It lists the plan and each add-on on its own line. What happens if a renewal isn't paid has the dates that follow.
To switch, use the button in the Billing box on the server's Settings tab (Switch a server between monthly and yearly billing). The switch takes effect at your next renewal. Nothing changes for the period you've already paid for, and if that renewal invoice is already out, the switch starts with the one after.
You can cancel a server whenever you like. Unused time isn't refunded, monthly or yearly. If VPSNine isn't for you, the money-back guarantee covers your first order for 14 days, in full, a yearly one too. You get the dollar amount back; a Bitcoin payment comes back in Bitcoin or as account credit.
A payment went wrong
Don't pay a second time. First check the invoice in the panel:
- A payment for the full amount is still confirming. While it waits, a suspension, a deletion or the lapse of an unpaid order is held back for up to 72 hours past its date. After that the usual dates apply: if the server has been deleted, or the order has lapsed, by the time it confirms, the payment becomes account credit.
- You paid after the checkout ran out. If the full amount arrives, it still pays the invoice, as long as the invoice is open and its order or server is still there. Otherwise the dollar value we received becomes account credit. Either way we email you to say which.
- You paid only part of it, and the checkout ran out. The dollar value of what arrived becomes account credit, and it goes straight to the invoice, so you only owe the rest. We email you with what's left to pay. Choose pay with Bitcoin again for a fresh checkout for that amount.
- You paid too much. The extra becomes account credit, and the "Payment received" email says how much.
- Anything else, or the server never appeared: open a support ticket with the invoice number (it looks like
VPS9-000123) and the transaction ID from your wallet.