Billing and subscriptions

Billing is an account-level concern on the hosted SenseCrypt service: the account you created at sign-up is the entity that carries the trial, the subscription, the saved card, and the invoices. This guide is for the account owner (or a delegated admin with billing access) working in the admin console. It covers viewing pricing, understanding the trial and subscription lifecycle, adding and managing payment methods, and downloading invoices.

How billing works

SenseCrypt bills per account, usage-based, monthly. Usage is metered per tenant and summed across all the tenants your account owns, so one card and one invoice cover everything under the account. There are three billable dimensions:

• Workforce seats — one per provisioned workforce seat, volume-priced.
• External MAU — one per monthly-active external user, on its own (separate) volume curve.
• KMS keys — a flat monthly fee per active KMS-custody signing key, with no minimum.

Pricing is volume-based: the more of a dimension your account totals, the lower the per-unit rate for that dimension, applied uniformly to every tenant's line. A workforce-seat minimum is always committed (10 seats by default) — if your account occupies fewer, a top-up line bills the shortfall. External MAU and KMS keys never count toward that seat floor.

Viewing pricing and plans

The live rate schedule is public and config-derived — the same numbers power the pre-login pricing page, the in-app rate schedule, and the invoice math. Fetch it any time from GET {tenant-host}/v1/billing/pricing (no authentication), or read it in the console.

Screenshot: the Billing page Rate schedule, showing the workforce and external volume bands with the account's current band highlighted, the KMS-key fee, and the seat minimum.

The trial and subscription lifecycle

Your account is always in exactly one billing state. GET {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/subscription is the single source of truth, and the Billing page renders it as a status ribbon:

The subscription payload also carries a live cost estimate for the open period at your current usage and rates (estimate_lines + estimate_total, in the currency's minor units — cents), plus a per-tenant usage breakdown, so you can see what the next invoice will look like before it is cut.

Screenshot: the Billing page status ribbon (the gold "Free trial" ribbon with days remaining) above the live cost estimate and per-tenant usage breakdown.

When a card is on file at trial end, SenseCrypt charges it immediately for the first period's seats, KMS keys, and seat minimum (external MAU is billed in arrears, and trial MAU is free). Adding a card during a live trial does not end the trial early — the trial is honored to its end date.

Adding a payment method

Cards are added through Stripe's embedded Payment Element, rendered directly in the Billing page — there is no redirect to a hosted checkout.

Screenshot: the Add payment method panel with the embedded Stripe Payment Element open in the Billing page.

Managing saved cards

The Billing page lists every saved card with its brand, last four digits, expiry, default flag, and (for Indian cards) mandate status. From the list you can:

Screenshot: the saved-cards list showing brand, last four digits, expiry, the default badge, and an "auto-pay on" indicator on a mandated card.

Payment-health banners

While an account is active, three finer signals surface as a banner before any hard suspension, so you can fix the card while everything still works:

• "Payment failed — update your payment method" — a charge failed but the account is still active. Add or switch to a working card; the next successful charge clears it.
• "Confirm your payment" — the charge is not a decline but needs on-session authentication (3D Secure / OTP), typically an Indian e-mandate charge over the AFA threshold or mandate cap. Follow the link (Stripe's hosted invoice page) to authenticate; the banner clears once the invoice is paid.
• "Card expiring soon" / "Card expired" — surfaced from the saved card's expiry before a charge ever fails. Add or replace the card in-app.

Viewing and downloading invoices

Past invoices are listed on the Billing page from GET {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/invoices. Each invoice is itemized per tenant (one line per tenant × dimension) plus the seat-minimum top-up line when seats are under the floor.

Screenshot: the Invoices history table listing invoice number, period, total, status, and the PDF / hosted-invoice links.

Closing or reopening the account

Cancelling the subscription is closing the account — there is no separate "downgrade" or "pause". The account owner can self-delete (a soft delete with a 30-day grace window) and reactivate within that window from the same Billing page. Because deletion tears down every tenant the account owns, it is documented separately.

Using the Management API

Everything above is done in the admin console. The read and payment-management endpoints also live on the tenant Management API at {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/*, driven with a machine-to-machine (M2M) access token passed as Authorization: Bearer {mgmtToken}. Reads need a token carrying billing:read; mutations need billing:manage. See Machine-to-machine for how to mint {mgmtToken}.

The public pricing endpoint needs no auth:

curl {tenant-host}/v1/billing/pricing

{
  "currency": "usd",
  "trial_days": 30,
  "min_users": 10,
  "kms_key_price_cents": 2000,
  "workforce_bands": [
    { "up_to": 50, "cents": 100 },
    { "up_to": 500, "cents": 75 },
    { "up_to": null, "cents": 50 }
  ],
  "external_bands": [
    { "up_to": 1000, "cents": 50 },
    { "up_to": 10000, "cents": 30 },
    { "up_to": null, "cents": 20 }
  ]
}

up_to: null is the unbounded top band; cents is the per-unit rate. (These are the shipped defaults; the live values come from the operator's configuration.)

Read the subscription, usage, and estimate

GET {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/subscription (needs billing:read):

curl {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/subscription \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {mgmtToken}"

{
  "status": "trialing",
  "trial_end": "2026-08-15T00:00:00Z",
  "trial_days_left": 30,
  "current_period_start": null,
  "current_period_end": null,
  "has_payment_method": false,
  "payment_failed_at": null,
  "payment_retry_at": null,
  "payment_action_required_at": null,
  "payment_action_url": null,
  "card_exp_month": null,
  "card_exp_year": null,
  "suspended_at": null,
  "deletion_requested_at": null,
  "purge_date": null,
  "per_tenant": [
    { "tenant_id": "6f9c1e2a-3b4d-4c5e-8a9b-0c1d2e3f4a5b", "name": "Default", "seats": 3, "mau": 120, "kms": 0 }
  ],
  "totals": { "workforce": 3, "external": 120, "kms": 0 },
  "estimate_lines": [
    { "description": "Default · Workforce seats", "quantity": 3, "unit_amount": 100, "amount": 300 },
    { "description": "Default · External users", "quantity": 120, "unit_amount": 50, "amount": 6000 },
    { "description": "Minimum commitment (10 seats)", "quantity": 7, "unit_amount": 100, "amount": 700 }
  ],
  "estimate_total": 7000
}

All amounts are in the currency's minor units (cents). The example above shows the seat-minimum top-up: 3 occupied seats bill 7 extra to reach the 10-seat floor.

List, set-default, and remove saved cards

GET {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/payment-methods (needs billing:read) returns the saved cards in the standard list envelope:

curl {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/payment-methods \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {mgmtToken}"

{
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "pm_1AbCdEf...",
      "brand": "visa",
      "last4": "4242",
      "exp_month": 12,
      "exp_year": 2030,
      "is_default": true,
      "is_india": false,
      "mandate_active": false
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "limit": 1,
  "offset": 0
}

Make a saved card the default (needs billing:manage; returns 204 No Content):

curl -X POST {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/payment-methods/{pm_id}/default \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {mgmtToken}"

Remove a saved card (needs billing:manage; returns 204 No Content):

curl -X DELETE {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/payment-methods/{pm_id} \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {mgmtToken}"

Both operations verify the card belongs to your account's Stripe customer; an unrecognized {pm_id} returns 404 with no existence leak.

List invoices

GET {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/invoices (needs billing:read):

curl {tenant-host}/v1/admin/billing/invoices \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer {mgmtToken}"

{
  "items": [
    {
      "number": "ABCD-0001",
      "created": "2026-08-15T00:00:00Z",
      "period_start": "2026-08-15T00:00:00Z",
      "period_end": "2026-09-15T00:00:00Z",
      "total": 7000,
      "currency": "usd",
      "status": "paid",
      "pdf_url": "https://pay.stripe.com/invoice/.../pdf",
      "hosted_url": "https://invoice.stripe.com/i/..."
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "limit": 1,
  "offset": 0
}

pdf_url and hosted_url are Stripe-hosted per-invoice links; total is in the currency's minor units and status is Stripe's (draft / open / paid / void / uncollectible).

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