Cloud Servers
Cloud Server Pricing and GST
Cloud server prices are shown excluding GST in your account's billing currency, and the same figure the panel shows you is the figure the charge is built from, so there is no gap between the price on the page and the amount that leaves your card.
This article explains how the prices are displayed, exactly when GST is added and when it is not, how the recurring monthly fee works, what a one-time setup fee is and which products carry one, and what happens to your bill when you resize a server.
Prices Are Shown in Your Billing Currency
Every price in the panel is shown in the currency your account bills in, formatted with a symbol that cannot be confused with another dollar: NZ$ for New Zealand dollars, US$ for United States dollars, A$ for Australian dollars, and so on.
Those are not converted display figures sitting on top of a New Zealand number. Each currency has its own catalogue price, and it is the price the charge is calculated from. What you are shown is what you are charged.
For example, the entry ARM tier starts from US$16.00 per month and the entry Standard x86 tier from US$20.00 per month, both shown here in your own currency.
Prices Are Shown Excluding GST
All catalogue prices, on the website and throughout KPanel, are displayed excluding GST. GST is a New Zealand tax, and showing it excluded keeps the headline figure meaningful for customers everywhere.
The GST-inclusive figure appears in exactly one place: the total on the checkout page, next to the pay button.
- If your account currency is NZD, 15% GST is added at checkout and shown as its own line. Your receipts and invoices are tax invoices and carry our GST number.
- If your account currency is anything else, no GST is added. You pay the price as shown, and your receipts are standard invoices with no GST line.
GST is decided by your account currency, never by your billing address. A New Zealand business billing in United States dollars still pays GST. An overseas customer billing in New Zealand dollars does not. Your tax treatment follows your account currency, which is locked to your account and shown under Settings.
The Monthly Fee
Cloud servers are billed monthly at the price shown for the tier you chose, whether you picked an unmanaged Cloud VPS or a Managed Cloud Server. Managed tiers cost more than the equivalent unmanaged tier because the price includes the ongoing work of running the server for you.
Your billing date is set from the day the server is actually provisioned and live. If you reserved a tier that was out of stock, nothing is charged while you wait, and the first payment is taken only once the server exists. See Regions, Availability and the Reserve Queue.
One-Time Setup Fees
Some products carry a one-time setup fee at checkout in addition to the recurring monthly price, because they are physical hardware provisioned for you rather than a virtual machine created on demand.
| Product | Setup fee |
|---|---|
| ARM cloud servers (Photon, Quark, Lepton, Muon) | None |
| Standard x86 cloud servers (Meteor to Pulsar) | None |
| Dedicated vCPU cloud servers (Quasar to Andromeda) | None |
| Dedicated Servers (Bedrock, Slate, Granite, Basalt, Titan) | One-time |
| Storage Servers (Shelf, Trench, Abyss) | One-time |
| GPU Servers (Spark, Forge, Foundry, Reactor) | One-time |
How a setup fee behaves:
- It is charged once, at initial provisioning. It never appears on a renewal.
- It is shown as a separate line at checkout, never folded into the monthly figure, and it gets its own receipt.
- If your account currency is NZD, GST applies to the setup fee as well, shown on its tax invoice.
The order form shows the setup fee separately, labelled Setup (one-time), before you pay. If a tier has no setup fee, no such line appears. You will never discover a setup fee after the fact.
What Happens to Your Bill When You Resize
Resizing a cloud server changes what you pay, and upgrades and downgrades are handled differently on purpose.
Upgrading is applied immediately. You are charged for the upgrade at the point you confirm it, prorated for the remainder of your current billing period, and your renewal amount moves to the new tier's price from then on. The charge is taken before the server is touched, so a declined card stops the operation cleanly with nothing changed.
Downgrading is scheduled rather than immediate. Nothing is charged when you request it. You keep the larger server, at the price you already paid, until the end of the period you paid for. At renewal the plan swaps to the smaller tier, the renewal price drops, and the server is resized at the same time.
That asymmetry is in your favour in both directions. Upgrade the day you need more capacity and pay only for the part of the month you use it. Downgrade whenever you like and keep the bigger machine until the money you have already spent runs out.
Add-Ons
Some extras are billed alongside the server rather than as part of the tier price. An additional routable IPv4 address, for example, is added from the Additional IPv4 card on the server's page and billed monthly at US$4.00. Removing it releases the address and stops its billing.
Where to See What You Have Been Charged
Open Billing in the KPanel sidebar. Every charge is listed with a downloadable invoice, or a tax invoice where GST applied. Each setup fee has its own receipt, separate from the monthly one, so a first month on a bare-metal product shows two documents rather than one combined figure.
If you want to check a price before you commit, the full ladder with per-tier prices in your currency is at /plans/compute in KPanel, reachable from Store.
Troubleshooting
The price changed when I signed in. Signed out, you see a default currency. Signed in, you see your account's billing currency, which is the one you will be charged in.
I expected GST and there is none. Check your account currency under Settings. GST is added only when it is New Zealand.
I was charged GST and I am not in New Zealand. Then your account currency is NZD. Contact us and we will correct it.
Two charges appeared for one server. On a bare-metal, storage or GPU order, the one-time setup fee and the first monthly fee are charged and receipted separately. That is the expected behaviour, not a duplicate.
A resize charged me straight away. That is an upgrade, prorated for the rest of the current period. Downgrades never charge on the spot.
If a charge does not match what you expected, reply to the billing email or email support@kapsulehost.com with the invoice number, and our New Zealand team will explain it line by line.