Aetherfy billing and spend caps

The Aetherfy plans

Multi-region placement in Aetherfy begins at the Performance plan. Free and Starter accounts run in a single region — see Regions and replication.

Current pricing detail is published at https://aetherfy.com/pricing .

What Aetherfy charges beyond the plan price

The Free plan does not overflow into charges. When a Free account reaches an Aetherfy limit, the action is refused rather than billed.

What counts as usage in Aetherfy

Four things accrue as usage on an Aetherfy account:

The agent-region rule is the one that catches people out: on Aetherfy the unit is the agent-region pair, not the agent.

How Aetherfy prices a task agent

A task agent is priced the same way every other Aetherfy agent is: by its memory, per region, per month. There is no separate rate for task compute and no separate allowance to keep track of — one plan, one usage figure.

Its machine sleeps between runs and wakes for one, so the time it spends running is treated exactly like the awake time of an agent that is not always-on: see Uptime and the price of an auto-sleep Aetherfy agent below for how that works and when it changes what you pay. An agent that runs tasks occasionally costs what its size costs; one whose tasks keep its machine awake continuously converges on the always-on price for that size, which is the same rule a service agent runs under.

Spawned task agents follow it too, priced by their own memory.

Your live usage for the current period, per agent, is on the usage page at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/billing .

When Aetherfy charges you

The Aetherfy billing period has a deliberate offset between its two components:

So a statement shows the base fee for the current period plus usage from the previous one. This one-month offset is intentional, not a lag or a billing error.

Your live usage for the current period is visible at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/billing .

When an Aetherfy billing period starts and ends

Your Aetherfy billing period runs on your subscription’s anniversary, not the calendar month. A subscription started on the 14th bills on the 14th, and its period is the span between those dates — so “this month’s usage” means the current anniversary period, which is usually not the current calendar month.

All Aetherfy timestamps are UTC. If you are reconciling usage against your own records, line them up on the period boundaries shown on the usage meter  rather than on month ends.

Unused Aetherfy allowance does not roll over

Whatever your plan includes is per period. Anything you do not use expires when the period closes and does not carry into the next one, so a quiet month does not buy headroom for a busy one.

Changing configuration part-way through an Aetherfy period

Usage is accrued daily, not decided once at the start of the period. Anything that changes what an agent costs re-prices it from that day forward, and the period’s total is the sum of those days:

There is no proration penalty and no minimum term on any of these — turning something off part-way through the period stops it accruing from then on. That is why shrinking your way back under a spend cap works immediately rather than at the next cycle.

Uptime and the price of an auto-sleep Aetherfy agent

An agent that is not always-on is priced on the assumption that it sleeps some of the time, and Aetherfy holds that assumption as a monthly budget rather than a daily one. While an agent’s uptime averaged across the period stays inside that budget, it costs what the price card says.

An agent that stays awake beyond the budget accrues gradually toward the always-on price for its size instead. This is a smooth, proportional effect, not a cliff and not an enforcement action: nothing is throttled, paused or suspended for being awake. An agent that is genuinely awake all the time ends up costing what always-on costs, which is the point — the two ways of being continuously available are priced the same.

Because the budget is monthly, individual busy days do not matter. An agent that spikes to full uptime on a few days and idles the rest stays inside its budget and its price does not change.

A fan-out spends that budget faster, and this is the one case where the arithmetic surprises people. Spawning the same task agent several times over runs each spawn on its own machine, and awake time is summed across those machines, not averaged over them: three machines awake for a minute is three machine-minutes of budget, the same as one machine awake for three. The monthly price card charge for the agent-region does not change and the extra machines are released once they go idle, so a fan-out costs you awake time and nothing else. How wide a fan-out can go at once is the runs-in-flight row on Limits.

The corollary is worth stating plainly: always-on is a runtime promise, not a billing exemption. Turning it on asks Aetherfy to keep the agent warm; it does not change how the agent is metered. A keep-warm agent that really does stay awake bills its always-on rate either way.

Changing your Aetherfy plan

Upgrades and downgrades behave differently on purpose.

An upgrade applies at once — you get the higher limits straight away and pay the difference for the days remaining. A downgrade is scheduled rather than applied: you keep the plan you paid for until the period ends, then move down. Nothing is refunded, because nothing is cut short.

A scheduled downgrade can be cancelled before it lands, at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/settings/billing , which leaves you on your current plan.

Aetherfy only downgrades an account whose resources fit the target plan. That is checked twice: when you schedule the downgrade, and again shortly before the renewal that would apply it — because in between you are still on the higher plan and can legitimately grow past what the lower one allows. If the account no longer fits at the second check, the downgrade does not land: your current plan continues, and Aetherfy emails you the specific resources that are over the target plan’s limits. Bring them within the limits and schedule the downgrade again. If Aetherfy cannot complete that second check — a platform problem on our side, not yours — the scheduled downgrade is left as it is and re-checked on the next pass, so a temporary outage neither cancels your downgrade nor sends you an email about one.

Agent count, memory, regions and workspaces are all lower on lower plans, and the dashboard tells you what would be over the line before you schedule anything.

Cancelling an Aetherfy subscription

Cancelling sets the Aetherfy subscription to end at the current period’s end. The subscription runs to that date with full service, and you can resume before it without losing anything. Usage accrued during the final period is invoiced at period end, following the same offset described above.

Failed payments on an Aetherfy account

After a failed payment, Aetherfy applies a 14-day grace period. During it, existing agents keep running while the payment issue is unresolved, and Aetherfy freezes growth with HTTP 403 and the code DUNNING_FROZEN: new deploys and configuration changes are refused. Both resume once a payment succeeds, and the freeze clears automatically — there is nothing to re-enable by hand.

If the grace period ends without a successful payment, Aetherfy suspends the account, and that is the point at which running agents stop. Suspension stops machines; it does not delete anything:

Settling the account reverses it: Aetherfy returns those agents to running and their machines start again. Nothing needs recreating, and no configuration is lost.

Update the payment method at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/settings/billing .

Setting your own spend cap in Aetherfy

You set your own limit at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/settings/billing .

The Aetherfy spend cap is expressed in total-bill dollars — base price plus usage, not usage alone.

A cap at or below the base price is rejected by Aetherfy, because the running total starts at the base price on day one of every period; such a cap would pause the account instantly.

What Aetherfy does when the limit is reached

There are two distinct stages, and the difference matters.

Stage 1 — growth freezes. Aetherfy blocks new deploys, new spawns, new task runs, enabling always-on, and raising memory. Your existing agents keep running. Cost-reducing actions are never blocked, so you can always shrink your way back out. The API returns HTTP 403 with the code SOFT_CAP_EXCEEDED.

Stage 2 — machines pause. Aetherfy pauses machines only if you are also past your plan’s included usage. Within the included allowance the runtime is already paid for, so pausing would save nothing while denying you service you have already bought.

Raising or removing the cap resumes Aetherfy service immediately. It does not wait for the next billing cycle.

Scheduled tasks while an Aetherfy account is over its limit

While an Aetherfy account is over its limit, scheduled task occurrences are recorded as missed rather than firing. Nothing needs re-enabling: the next occurrence fires normally once you are back under the limit. Missed occurrences are not backfilled, so a task that should have run five times during the freeze runs once, at its next scheduled time.

Deploy-time cost confirmation in Aetherfy

At deploy time, an Aetherfy deployment that would add usage prompts for confirmation first. The API answers HTTP 402 with the code OVERAGE_CONFIRM_REQUIRED, naming the added monthly amount.

This is informational, not a block. The CLI’s --yes flag proceeds past it — see afy deploy.

Aetherfy has no deploy rate limit

There is no per-hour deploy throttle in Aetherfy. Deploying repeatedly is not itself restricted; the spend cap is the only bound on deploy-driven cost.

Where to find billing information in the Aetherfy dashboard

Aetherfy billing FAQ

When am I charged?

Aetherfy charges the flat plan fee at the start of each billing period and charges usage at the end of the period, collecting it on the following period’s invoice. That means a single statement mixes two periods: the base fee for the period beginning now, and the usage accrued during the period that just closed. The one-month offset on usage is intentional. If your first invoice looks like it is missing usage, it is not — that usage will appear on the next one.

What happens when I hit my spend limit?

Two things happen in sequence, and only the first is guaranteed. First, growth freezes: Aetherfy refuses new deploys, new spawns, new task runs, enabling always-on and raising memory, returning HTTP 403 SOFT_CAP_EXCEEDED. Your existing agents keep running throughout, and any action that reduces cost is still permitted. Second, machines pause — but only if you are also past your plan’s included usage. Inside the included allowance, Aetherfy leaves your machines running, because that runtime is already paid for and pausing it would save you nothing. Raising or removing the cap resumes service immediately rather than at the next cycle.

Can I set my own spend limit, and what range is allowed?

Yes, on Starter and Performance, at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/settings/billing . The Aetherfy cap is expressed in total-bill dollars — base price plus usage — and must be strictly above your plan’s base price and at or below your plan’s system limit, which is approximately $120 on Starter and approximately $437 on Performance. Aetherfy rejects a cap at or below the base price because the running total starts at the base price every period, so the account would pause the moment the period opened. Free and Enterprise accounts have no spend-cap control.

Is there a deploy rate limit?

No. Aetherfy enforces no per-hour deploy throttle, and there is no cooldown between deploys. The only bound on deploy-driven cost is your spend cap, which is why setting one is worthwhile if automation in your pipeline can trigger deploys without a human in the loop. Note that a deployment which would add usage still prompts for confirmation with HTTP 402 OVERAGE_CONFIRM_REQUIRED — that is a cost disclosure, not a rate limit.

My payment failed — what happens?

Aetherfy gives you a 14-day grace period. During it your existing agents keep running, but growth is frozen: new deploys and configuration changes are refused with HTTP 403 DUNNING_FROZEN. Fix the payment method at https://app.aetherfy.com/dashboard/settings/billing ; once a payment succeeds the freeze clears automatically and deploys and configuration changes resume. You do not need to contact anyone or re-enable anything by hand. If the 14 days elapse without a successful payment the account is suspended, which stops your agents’ machines and moves each agent to the stopped status — reversed, with no data loss and nothing to recreate, as soon as the account is settled.

Suspension is not indefinite. See the next answer for what happens if it is never settled.

How long does a suspended account keep its data?

Thirty days. A suspended account keeps everything for 30 days after the suspension begins — day 44 of the lifecycle, counting from the failed payment — and settling the balance at any point in that window restores the account completely, with nothing to recreate.

If the 30 days elapse without payment, your running agents and your vector collections are permanently deleted. This is the one irreversible step in the lifecycle: the vectors are gone, and so is anything the deleted agents were holding. Aetherfy cannot restore them afterwards, on request or otherwise.

Your account itself is not deleted. Your account and your login remain, so you can sign back in and resubscribe at any time. Everything that ran or stored data is removed: your agents and their machines, their deployed apps and code bundles, and your vector collections. None of it comes back when you resubscribe — you recreate your agents and collections from scratch.

Your credentials are removed with them. The secrets you stored for your agents and workspaces are deleted, and your API keys are revoked: requests made with them are refused. Aetherfy also removes its record of your GitHub connection and stops using it, but the Aetherfy GitHub App stays installed on your GitHub account until you remove it there. To revoke its access completely, uninstall the App from your GitHub settings.

You are warned before it happens. Seven days ahead of the deletion Aetherfy emails you a final notice saying how many days remain, and paying at any time before the deletion runs stops it. Before the deletion you receive five emails in all — the failed payment, two reminders during the grace period, the suspension, and the final notice — and a sixth confirms the deletion once it has happened.

Does always-on cost extra?

Yes, on every plan where it is available. Always-on is not offered on Free. On Starter it is an add-on of $24/mo per agent and is available up to 1 GB. On Performance it costs $24–66/mo depending on the agent’s memory and is available up to 2 GB. On Enterprise it is included. In all cases where it is an add-on, always-on counts as usage in Aetherfy, which means it accrues against your spend cap and against your plan’s included usage.

Does a 3-region agent cost 3×?

Yes. The billable unit in Aetherfy is the agent-region pair, not the agent, so an agent deployed in three regions consumes three of them. On Performance, agent- regions beyond the plan’s inclusion are billed at $12/mo each. This is the single most common surprise on an Aetherfy invoice, and it is worth checking your region list before scaling agent count.

I removed a region from aetherfy.yaml — why am I still billed for it?

Because removing a region from aetherfy.yaml is a compute-only change in Aetherfy. The machines in that region come down, but your vector data remains there and the replica keeps being billed until you explicitly release it. Editing your deployment configuration never deletes data — that is deliberate, since a config edit silently destroying a region’s vectors would be far worse. To stop being billed for the data, release the replica explicitly. See Regions and replication.

What happens if I cancel mid-period?

Cancelling sets the Aetherfy subscription to end at the current period’s end rather than terminating it on the spot. Your agents keep running to that date, and you can resume before it without any loss of state. Usage accrued during the final period is invoiced at period end, following the same one-month offset as any other period, so expect one final statement after the subscription has ended.