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GPU Outlet uses a prepaid wallet for the common path and invoices for the cases where the wallet alone can’t recover by itself. You deposit credit, instances draw it down per-second. If a card declines or metered usage overshoots your balance, an invoice is automatically issued — pay it via a Stripe-hosted link, the wallet is credited (or the debt cleared), and you’re back online.

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The wallet

Every account has one wallet with three numbers:
  • Available — what you can spend right now
  • Reserved — held against currently-running instances (locks against underflow)
  • Total — available + reserved
The balance pill in the top-right of the dashboard shows Available. When it drops below $5, the pill turns yellow. When it reaches $0, all running instances stop within ~5 seconds.

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Invoices

Invoices represent money owed for cases beyond simple top-ups:

topup_failed

Auto-topup tried to charge the saved card, Stripe declined. The invoice is for the exact amount the auto-topup would have added. Paying it credits the wallet.

overage

Metered usage settled higher than the wallet held — the truncated difference becomes owed. Paying it clears the debt; the wallet is NOT credited (the meter already charged what it could).

manual

Ops-issued (refund correction, enterprise contract, wire transfer settlement). Behavior matches the reason in each case.
Each invoice is mirrored to a real Stripe Invoice. Stripe hosts:
  • A pay page (any card, no login) — hostedInvoiceUrl
  • A PDF — invoicePdfUrl
  • A receipt after payment — receiptUrl
  • Email reminders (Stripe’s automatic dunning — 3 days before due, 1 day after, ~weekly thereafter)
We store the URLs; we don’t host any of these surfaces ourselves.

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Invoice statuses

StatusMeaningWhat the user sees
openOwed, not paidRed pill, Pay ↗ button
paidSettled via Stripe (any path: card / ACH / wire)Green pill, Receipt ↗ button
voidVoided before paymentGrey pill
uncollectible30+ days open, written off by StripeWarn pill
draftServer is still building it (sub-second internal)Not surfaced in the dashboard

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What triggers an invoice

The overage threshold is $0 — every cent of metered-over-balance becomes an invoice. This is intentional: small invoices are cheap (Stripe Invoice fees are minimal), and we’d rather under-collect transparently than swallow the loss silently.

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Topping up the wallet

Three paths, unchanged from before invoices shipped:
  1. One-off — Stripe Checkout, any amount, deposits immediately on webhook confirmation.
  2. Saved card + Add credit — once your card is on file, top-ups skip the Checkout redirect.
  3. Auto-topup — set a threshold (when wallet < $X) and an amount (add $Y). We charge the saved card automatically. If that charge fails, an open invoice is created automatically (see above).
See Topping up for the dashboard walkthrough.

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The ledger

Every wallet movement is an immutable entry. Read via GET /v1/billing/ledger: 
curl https://gpuoutlet.ai/v1/billing/ledger --cookie "sid=$SID" | jq
Example
{
  "entries": [
    {
      "id": "led_01H...",
      "type": "stripe_topup",
      "amountCents": 5000,
      "balanceAfterCents": 5000,
      "createdAt": "2026-06-07T08:14:22Z",
      "stripeChargeId": "ch_3Q…"
    }
  ],
  "balanceCents": 4953
}
Negative amounts = debits. The ledger is append-only; even invoice payments write new positive entries (for topup_failed invoices that credit the wallet) rather than amending old ones.

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Refunds

We refund automatically in three situations:
  1. Failed provisioning — pod never went Running → full refund to wallet
  2. Crash within 60s — pod went Running then died → full refund to wallet
  3. Customer-initiated — email help@gpuoutlet.ai
Refunds always go back to the wallet as credit. If you want money OUT, email business@gpuoutlet.ai — we’ll wire the unused balance (minus Stripe’s processing fee).

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What’s NOT here

  • Monthly post-paid plans — on the roadmap. For now everyone is prepaid + invoiced. Email business@gpuoutlet.ai if you need monthly invoicing for a high-volume account.
  • Multi-currency — USD only.
  • Subscriptions — we don’t sell those. Invoices are one-off, never recurring.

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Privacy

We don’t store card numbers — Stripe holds them. We keep:
  • A Stripe customer_id (cus_…)
  • A Stripe payment_method_id (pm_…) — last 4 digits + brand for display
  • Every ledger entry indefinitely (required for tax/audit)
  • Every invoice indefinitely (same)
See Privacy Policy for the full scope.