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Wallet & top-ups

Metalhost is prepay. You fund a wallet on your billing account; usage debits the wallet as VMs run. Top up with a card (Stripe) or crypto (Coinbase, settled in USDC). Set auto-recharge and balance alerts so you never get caught with a $0 wallet at 3 a.m.

The model

  • Billing account — one per organization, holds payment methods and invoices.
  • Wallet — the prepay balance. Debited per-second by usage events; topped up by you.
  • Payment method — a saved Stripe card. Required for card top-ups and auto-recharge.
  • Top-up — a one-shot funding event. Card via Stripe, or crypto via Coinbase (settled in USDC).

Check the balance

billing → overview. The balance hero shows current balance, per-day burn, runway (days remaining), and month-to-date total.

Top up by card (Stripe)

billing → overview → top up. Pick an amount, pick a saved card (or add a new one inline — Stripe Elements collects card details in the browser, the platform never sees them), confirm. Balance updates within a few seconds.

First-time top-ups walk you through saving a card before the charge — after that, the card is reusable for future top-ups and auto-recharge.

Top up with crypto (Coinbase)

For crypto-native users: billing → top up → switch to crypto. Pick an amount (minimum $5), and you're handed off to a Coinbase-hosted checkout — pay in USDC or any asset Coinbase Commerce accepts. Once the payment confirms, the wallet is credited 1:1 in USD; you don't hold a crypto balance on Metalhost, the top-up just settles to dollars.

Auto-recharge

billing → settings → auto-recharge. Toggle on, set a threshold (charge when the wallet drops below this) and an amount (charge this much when it triggers). Off by default. Re-enabling preserves the previous threshold/amount, so toggling on/off doesn't lose your settings.

Wallet alerts

billing → settings → balance alerts. Two thresholds, either can be unset:

  • Balance alert — fires when prepay balance drops below an absolute amount.
  • Days-remaining alert — fires when (balance ÷ recent daily burn) drops below N days. Catches "running out fast" even on large balances.

Alerts edge-fire: they trigger once when the condition first becomes true, then re-arm only when the balance recovers above the threshold. Email goes to the account owner.

Invoices

billing → invoices. Even on prepay, Metalhost issues a monthly invoice per billing account summarising usage and top-ups for the period. Each row has a download pdf button — useful for accounting and tax. See Billing & usage for line-item detail and usage charts.

What's next