Change an instance's plan or cancel it

An instance's Billing tab shows its plan and what it costs. On this tab you move the instance to another billing period, such as from monthly to quarterly, or cancel it.

The size you ordered sets the instance's vCPU, memory, disk and monthly traffic allowance, and it stays with the instance. Get a different size explains how to move to another one.

Change a service's plan and Cancel a service explain how plan changes and cancellations are billed for every product. This page covers what they do to an instance.

• The service must be active. You cannot change the plan of a suspended instance until you pay the open invoice.
• A plan change shuts the instance down and starts it again, even though its size stays the same. Choose a time when a short outage does no harm.

1. In the dashboard, go to Cloud Compute, open the instance and select the Billing tab.
2. Read the Current plan card.

Product

The product you ordered.

Plan

The size and billing period the instance is on now, such as RX-2 (Monthly).

Price

What the plan costs for each billing period.

Status

The state of the service, such as Active or Suspended.

Next renewal

The date of the next invoice. An hourly instance shows Used this month instead: what it has cost so far this month.

Set up

When we created the instance.

Service ID

The number to quote when you contact support.

The Activity table under the card lists setup, renewals and plan changes, with who made each one.

1. On the Billing tab, select Change plan… on the Current plan card.
2. In New plan, choose the plan you want. The list holds the other billing periods of the instance's size, such as RX-2 (Quarterly), each with its price.
3. Select Preview. The preview shows how many days are left in this billing period and what the switch costs today:
   • Credit for unused time is the value of the days left on your current plan.
   • Charge for the new plan is the price of the new plan for the same days.
   • Due now is the difference.
   • When you move to a cheaper plan, Credit you receive is the credit we give you.
4. Select Apply change.

If the switch needs a payment, we take it from your credit balance first. When your balance does not cover all of it, the dashboard shows Pay the upgrade invoice to apply the plan change. Pay the invoice, and the new plan applies once it is paid.

When the new plan applies, we shut the instance down and start it again. An instance that was stopped starts too.

You cannot change the size of an existing instance. The New plan list offers only the billing periods of the size you ordered. To move to more or fewer vCPUs, more memory, a larger disk or a larger traffic allowance:

1. Create an instance of the size you want.

2. Copy your data to it, for example with rsync over SSH:

   Shell

   rsync -a /srv/ alex@203.0.113.20:/srv/
   

3. Point your DNS records at the new instance's address. Floating IPs that you ordered on their own can move to the new instance instead, as Attach and detach a floating IP describes.

4. Cancel the old instance, as below.

Contact support if you need help with the move.

1. On the Billing tab, select Cancel service… on the Cancel service card.

2. Under When, choose when the instance ends:

   • At the end of the current term keeps it running until the paid period ends. The dialog shows the date.
   • Immediately stops and deletes it now. We do not refund the unused time.

   An hourly instance has no choice. It ends at once, and billing stops at the hour.

3. Type cancel and select Cancel service.

When the instance ends, we delete:

• the instance and its disk, with every snapshot on it
• every backup of the instance
• the IPv4 address that came with the instance, wherever it is attached, which goes back to our pool
• the instance's tags

Other floating IPs you attached to the instance are detached and stay on your account. We keep billing them until you cancel them. DNS records and web proxies that point at the instance also stay, so delete them once the instance has gone.

After a plan change, the Current plan card shows the new plan and the Activity table lists the change. The instance runs again once it has restarted.

After you cancel at the end of the term, the tab shows Cancellation scheduled with the date the instance ends. The instance keeps running until then. After an immediate cancellation, we stop and delete the instance.

No other plan to switch to in place of Change plan…

The instance's size has no other billing period on offer. Keep the plan, or move to another size as Get a different size describes.

Could not check that the host can take the new plan. Try again in a moment.

The check the dashboard runs before a plan change did not get an answer. Select Apply change again. If the message stays, contact support.

Service is not active

The instance is suspended, or its service has ended. Pay the open invoice to lift a suspension, then change the plan.

Pay the upgrade invoice to apply the plan change

Your credit balance did not cover the switch. Pay the invoice. The plan applies when it is paid.

The instance is stopped after a plan change

The restart did not finish. Select Start in the instance header. If it does not start, contact support.

Cancellation scheduled

You asked for the instance to end at the end of its term. To keep it, contact support before the date shown.

Suspended

We suspended the instance, usually for an unpaid invoice. The alert gives the reason. Pay the open invoice to restore it.

• Change a service's plan
• Cancel a service
• How hourly billing works
• Create an instance
• How instance traffic is counted
• Cancel a floating IP

A plan change goes through the services API, which accepts the instance's UUID as the service reference. Read the service to find its product_id and pricing_id, then read the product. Its pricing list holds one row for each billing period, and each row's id is a plan you can move to.

curl -s https://api.coritan.com/api/v1/services/$INSTANCE_UUID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CORITAN_TOKEN"

curl -s https://api.coritan.com/api/v1/products/$PRODUCT_ID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CORITAN_TOKEN"

Preview the cost, then change the plan:

curl -s "https://api.coritan.com/api/v1/services/$INSTANCE_UUID/upgrade-preview?new_pricing_id=42" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CORITAN_TOKEN"

curl -s -X POST https://api.coritan.com/api/v1/services/$INSTANCE_UUID/change-plan \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CORITAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"new_pricing_id": 42}'

The response's status is applied when the new plan applies now. It is payment_required when the switch waits for its invoice, whose number is in invoice_id. A plan from another product answers 400 with New pricing must belong to the same product or Plan changes must stay within the same hardware tier. The change also answers 400 with Service is not active or Already on this plan, and 404 with Pricing tier not found.

Before it changes the plan, the dashboard sends the new plan's vCPU, memory and disk to resize-preview. A field you leave out keeps its current value.

curl -s -X POST https://api.coritan.com/api/v1/client/vps/$INSTANCE_UUID/resize-preview \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CORITAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"cpu_cores": 2, "memory_mb": 2048, "disk_gb": 40}'

{
  "current": {"cpu_cores": 2, "memory_mb": 2048, "disk_gb": 40},
  "requested": {"cpu_cores": 2, "memory_mb": 2048, "disk_gb": 40},
  "hotplug_eligible": true,
  "requires_stop": false
}

hotplug_eligible is true when the disk stays the same, vCPU and memory do not shrink, and the instance is running. requires_stop is its opposite. A plan change restarts the instance whatever they say. A disk_gb smaller than the instance's disk answers 400 with Disk can only grow.

To cancel, send immediate as true to end the instance now, or false (the default) to end it at the end of its term. reason is optional. keep_snapshot keeps nothing for an instance, and the response's snapshot_taken is always false.

curl -s -X POST https://api.coritan.com/api/v1/services/$INSTANCE_UUID/cancel \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CORITAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"immediate": false, "reason": "Moved to a larger instance"}'

The response gives the new status and the termination_date. A second request answers 400 with Service already scheduled for end-of-term termination or Service already cancelled/terminated.

The Cloud Compute API reference and the services API reference list every field.