Plan, wallet and running out

Pricing gives prices and sizes. This page tells what your plan includes and what your wallet pays. For the card, invoices, cancel and refunds, read Card, invoices and plan changes.

Plans

Your money goes to two places:

	Plan	Wallet
What it is	A monthly price that your card pays	One balance in US dollars, per account or organization
It pays for	Your limits, and the VM time and saved snapshots that the plan includes	Overage: use past the plan
At the end of the billing period	Included amounts reset. Unused VM time expires.	Nothing changes. The money stays until you spend it.
You add to it	`boat billing plan 100`	`boat wallet pay 50`, or auto top-up

The wallet never pays the plan. Stripe always charges the plan to your card. For every amount, read Plans. Example: a $20 plan. You use $25 of VM time in one month. The plan pays the first $20 (555 h of default). The wallet pays $5.

Wallet

Each account and each organization has one wallet, in US dollars.

It pays only for what you use above your plan.
It can go below zero during the grace period. The dashboard then shows what you owe, for example -$3.20.
Money in your personal wallet stays personal. It does not move to an organization.
For an organization, only the owner can add money or change auto top-up.

Pay

Pay adds money to the wallet one time. You need a plan first.

boat wallet pay 50

On the dashboard, open the Billing tab, enter an amount and click Pay. Stripe Checkout opens.

Whole dollars, from $15 to $100,000.
The dashboard and the CLI show the bonus before you pay.

Bonus

A payment of $200 or more gets a bonus. Pay and auto top-up get the same bonus. The bonus grows evenly on a log scale, from 2% at $200 to 25% at $10,000.

You pay	Bonus	The wallet gets
$15 to $199	none	the same amount
$200	+2%	$204
$500	+7.4%	$537
$1,000	+11.5%	$1,115
$2,000	+15.5%	$2,310
$5,000	+20.9%	$6,045
$10,000	+25%	$12,500
$100,000	+25%	$125,000

Auto top-up

Auto top-up adds money when the wallet runs low, so your sandboxes do not stop.

boat wallet card               # add a card (Stripe)
boat wallet auto-top-up 500    # add $500 each time the wallet runs low
boat wallet auto-top-up off

On the dashboard, open the Billing tab, choose an amount and turn on Auto top-up.

Choose an amount from $15 to $100,000. Each top-up gets the bonus.
boat charges your card when the wallet drops below 10% of the amount, and never below $5. Example: with $500, the charge comes when the wallet drops below $50.
It needs a saved card and a paid plan. It does not work during the free trial.
With more than one card, boat tries them in order.
After 3 declined charges in a row, auto top-up turns itself off. The owner gets an email. Fix the card, then turn auto top-up on again.

From the CLI

boat billing                   # plan, renewal date, included time left
boat billing plan 100          # start or change the plan
boat billing portal            # card and invoices (Stripe)
boat wallet                    # wallet balance, auto top-up, cards
boat wallet pay 50             # add $50 to the wallet
boat wallet auto-top-up 500    # turn on auto top-up with $500
boat wallet auto-top-up off
boat wallet card               # add a card
boat billing extra-starts on     # pay per extra start on the next invoice, see Limits
boat billing extra-starts off
boat limits                    # included time left, starts left, sandboxes at once

Add --org <org> to run them on an organization: boat --org acme wallet pay 50.

From code

The wallet routes are part of the account API that the dashboard uses. Its base is https://boat.dev/api/boat, not $BOAT_API_BASE. These routes are not in the v1 API reference and can change. The API key needs account.admin.

curl

API=https://boat.dev/api/boat
curl -sS "$API/billing/wallet" -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY"
# -> { balanceDollars, autoTopUp: { enabled, amountDollars, triggerBelowDollars, quote }, graceUntil, cards }

curl -sS "$API/billing/wallet/quote?dollars=1000" -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY"
# -> { dollars: 1000, bonusPercent: 11.5, bonusDollars: 115, creditedDollars: 1115 }

curl -sS -X POST "$API/billing/wallet/pay" -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"dollars": 1000}'
# -> { url, quote }   open url to pay in Stripe Checkout

curl -sS -X POST "$API/billing/wallet/auto-top-up" -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"enabled": true, "amountDollars": 500}'

curl -sS -X POST "$API/billing/wallet/cards" -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY"
# -> { url }   open url to add a card

For an organization wallet, add teamId (the id or the name): in the query on GET, in the body on POST. Only the owner can call them.
pay answers 402 subscription_required without a plan.
auto-top-up answers 409 requires_active_plan during the trial. It answers 409 card_required with an addCardUrl when no card is saved. boat keeps the amount. Open addCardUrl, then turn auto top-up on again.
An amount out of range gives 400 invalid_amount.

Control your spend

A personal account has no dollar cap. Use these controls:

Control	Effect
Leave auto top-up off	Spend stops at your plan and your wallet. Then the running-out rules apply.
Auto-stop	Each sandbox stops after its time, 1 hour by default.
`boat usage <id>`, the Cost column	Shows what one sandbox cost. Read Per-sandbox usage.
Per-member caps on an organization	Cap the time and the sandboxes of each member.

A stopped sandbox costs nothing in VM time. Two charges continue while sandboxes are stopped:

Saved snapshots above your plan’s included count: $0.056 a day each, from the wallet.
The AI credentials proxy, while it is on: $1 a day, from the wallet.

A stopped sandbox keeps its disk for free for 14 days only. Read Keep a stopped sandbox longer than 14 days.

Check your balance

boat wallet
boat limits
boat limits --json

curl -sS "$BOAT_API_BASE/limits" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY"

const limits = await boat.limits();
console.log(limits.canStart, limits.starts?.day?.remaining, limits.wallet?.balanceDollars, limits.planIncluded?.vmHoursRemaining);

limits = boat.limits()
day = getattr(limits.starts, "day", None)
print(limits.can_start, getattr(day, "remaining", None), getattr(limits.wallet, "balance_dollars", None), getattr(limits.plan_included, "vm_hours_remaining", None))

BOAT_API_BASE is https://boat.dev/api/v1. boat is the SDK client from the Quickstart. For every field, read Get limits.

Per-sandbox usage

Every sandbox meters its own machine time. A platform can bill its own users from the same numbers that your plan and your wallet pay. In the dashboard:

The Sandboxes page has a Cost column: what each sandbox cost this calendar month (UTC). Sort by it to find the most expensive one.
The Billing page lists Cost by sandbox this month, most expensive first, with the total. For an organization, it lists every sandbox the organization pays for. One Deleted sandboxes line holds the machine time of sandboxes you deleted this month.

For all sandboxes in one call, add include=cost to the list:

curl

curl -sS "$BOAT_API_BASE/sandboxes?include=cost" -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY"
# -> sandboxes: [{ id, name, type, ..., cost: { since, seconds, dollars } }]
#    deletedCost: { since, seconds, dollars }   (sandboxes deleted this month)

Read one sandbox over any window, while it runs or after it stops:

boat usage bx_23456789
boat usage bx_23456789 --since 2026-09-01 --until 2026-10-01
boat usage bx_23456789 --json

curl -sS "$BOAT_API_BASE/sandboxes/bx_23456789/usage?since=2026-09-01T00:00:00Z&until=2026-10-01T00:00:00Z" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BOAT_API_KEY"

const usage = await boat.usage({ sandboxId: "bx_23456789", since: "2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", until: "2026-10-01T00:00:00Z" });
console.log(usage.seconds, usage.dollars, usage.running);

usage = boat.usage("bx_23456789", since="2026-09-01T00:00:00Z", until="2026-10-01T00:00:00Z")
print(usage.seconds, usage.dollars, usage.running)

Field	Means
`seconds`	Billable machine time, with the size already applied. A `large` sandbox that ran ten minutes reads 1200.
`dollars`	`seconds` at list price.
`running`	`true` while the sandbox runs and the number grows. `false` after it stops, and while a refused stop keeps the meter paused.

boat never counts stopped time.
boat does not count time after a refused stop.
Omit since and until to get the full life of the sandbox.
If a billing month ends while a sandbox runs, boat splits that stretch between the two months.

For every field, read Get sandbox usage.

AI credentials proxy

The AI credentials proxy is paid from the wallet:

Charge	Price	Paid by
Each UTC day the proxy is on	$1	The wallet of the account with the switch on
Proxied requests	$1 per 1,000	The wallet each sandbox bills

boat ai usage and GET /ai-usage show the requests per sandbox, and dollars is their charge.

Organizations

A team shares one plan and one wallet through an organization. Everything on this page applies to an organization in the same way. Read Organizations.

Running out

When the wallet is empty:

Extra starts fail with rate_limited, unless they are on your invoice.
Saved snapshots above the included count get 7 days. Then boat deletes them. Read When your wallet is empty.

When the wallet is empty and the plan’s included time is used:

You get a 24-hour grace period.
Your sandboxes keep running. boat sends you an email. Add money before anything stops.
If you do not pay in that window, boat stops your running sandboxes. Each stop takes a snapshot. boat stops them earlier if the grace period adds more new debt than 25% of the plan price, or $50 on smaller plans.
Nothing is lost. Resume the sandboxes after you add money.

During the grace period, the wallet goes below zero:

The wallet shows what you owe, for example -$3.20.
Your next payment pays that amount first.
You pay for exactly the seconds that you used.

If your plan ends and the wallet has money, running sandboxes keep running on the wallet. An organization drops to the limits of one seat.

Billing and limits

Account and API keys

Events and monitoring

Plan, wallet and running out

Plans

Wallet

Pay

Bonus

Auto top-up

From the CLI

From code

Control your spend

Check your balance

Per-sandbox usage

AI credentials proxy

Organizations

Running out

​Plans

​Wallet

​Pay

​Bonus

​Auto top-up

​From the CLI

​From code

​Control your spend

​Check your balance

​Per-sandbox usage

​AI credentials proxy

​Organizations

​Running out

​Related

Plans

Wallet

Pay

Bonus

Auto top-up

From the CLI

From code

Control your spend

Check your balance

Per-sandbox usage

AI credentials proxy

Organizations

Running out

Related