Postpaid

In postpaid mode, customers consume services first and pay invoices later. Saved payment methods can be auto-charged when invoices are due.

Payment gateway requirement

Postpaid is available only when both are true:

1. The payment gateway natively supports saving a payment method via hosted checkout, charging it without user interaction (merchant-initiated), and variable amounts for recurring payments (for example, Stripe)
2. Has Autocharge is enabled for that provider in CMP (Settings → Billing Setup → Payment Provider)

Postpaid is applicable only if those capabilities are available on the gateway. Tokenisation without a hosted save flow is a common limitation — see New Payment Gateway Requirements. Enabling Has Autocharge in CMP alone is not enough.

Postpaid — hourly and monthly only

Use postpaid only with hourly and monthly billing cycles — not quarterly or longer.

Risk	Why it matters
Revenue delay	Waiting months or years to collect on a long committed period
Fraud exposure	Customer can use services for the full cycle and leave before paying

For quarterly and longer cycles, use prepaid or manual. See Billing Cycles — payment modes by cycle.

Set payment mode: Clients → Register Client (Step 2 — new onboarding) or Clients → [Customer] → Billing Setup (existing account)

Admin onboarding

Admin selects POSTPAID when onboarding a customer via Clients → Register Client.

Step	Action
1	Basic Details — enter customer information
2	Payment Mode & Pricing Settings — select POSTPAID, Payment Method (Credit Card), assign Price Rate Card
3	Quota Management — assign quotas
4	Success — customer must attach credit card to activate

See Admin registration flow and Step 2 — Postpaid (admin).

Self-registration

Customers can select POSTPAID on the public signup form when postpaid is enabled for Customer in Payment Mode Settings. Modes marked Recommended show a badge on the form.

Step	Action
1	Verify Email Address
2	Complete Payment — select POSTPAID, add and validate credit card

Account activates once the customer attaches a saved card (requires gateway with Has Save Card and auto-charge support).

See Self-registration flow.

Billing cycles and postpaid

Billing cycle	Use with postpaid?
Hourly	✅ Recommended — usage consolidated monthly; threshold limits exposure
Monthly	✅ Recommended — one billing period of outstanding exposure
Quarterly	❌ Not recommended
Semi-annually	❌ Not recommended
Annually	❌ Not recommended
Bi-annually	❌ Not recommended
Tri-annually	❌ Not recommended

Why quarterly and longer cycles do not fit postpaid:

• Revenue risk — you may wait many months or over a year before collecting payment for a committed period
• Fraud risk — a customer can provision long-cycle services, consume resources, and leave before an invoice is settled

Enable only hourly and monthly billing cycles for postpaid customers. Use prepaid or manual for quarterly and longer commitments. See Billing Cycles — payment modes by cycle.

Quick start

Rule	Behaviour
Service creation	Allowed until threshold is reached
Threshold breach	Invoice generated immediately + card auto-charge attempted (resets counter to 0)
Monthly renewal	Invoices at month end; auto-charged to saved card
Failed charge	Retries daily per invoice_no_of_attempts → then Frozen

Threshold (spending cap)

Threshold limits outstanding usage exposure before the normal billing period ends. It protects cloud providers from unbilled usage accumulation and fraud.

• Global currency caps — configured separately for Organization Threshold and Personal Threshold (Settings → Billing Setup → Currencies → Configure)
• Client-level override — individual accounts can have custom thresholds (Clients → [Customer] → Billing Setup → Threshold; 0 inherits global)
• System behaviour on breach (generate_threshold_invoice):
  • When true (default) — CMP immediately generates an out-of-cycle invoice, auto-charges the saved payment method, and resets the threshold counter to 0
  • When false — CMP sends alert notifications without generating an invoice, and blocks further service creation until limits are raised or cleared

For full workflow diagrams, hierarchy configuration, screenshots, and comparison tables, see Threshold — spending cap, global currencies, and client overrides.

Service creation

CMP allows customers to create services as long as the defined threshold is not exceeded.

Service renewal

At the end of each month:

1. Invoices generated based on actual usage
2. Invoices automatically charged to the customer's saved card

Auto-charge failure workflow

Retry attempts

• System retries charging the card once per day
• Number of attempts controlled by global setting invoice_no_of_attempts

Invoice frozen

If all retry attempts fail:

1. Invoice marked Frozen
2. Notifications sent to admin and customer
3. Email templates: FrozenInvoiceCustomerNotification, FrozenInvoiceAdminNotification

Handling frozen invoices

Actor	Action
Admin	Verify with client → manually unfreeze invoice → system can process again
Customer	Open Invoice Details → attempt manual pay → on success, services continue

Consolidated invoicing (one account, one invoice)

Postpaid (and manual) deployments can use One Account One Invoice (OAOI) so customers receive one consolidated invoice per month instead of separate invoices per service event.

Full documentation — requirements, unsupported rules (prepaid, DATE_TO_DATE), service contracts, timing, and FAQ:

One Account One Invoice (OAOI)

DATE_TO_DATE billing rule exception

The DATE_TO_DATE billing rule does not support monthly consolidation. See OAOI — unsupported rules and DATE_TO_DATE.

VM upgrade billing (postpaid)

Hourly services

Period	Charging
Before upgrade	Original hourly rate — immediate invoice
After upgrade	New hourly rate to month end — included in month-end invoice

Monthly and fixed cycles

Same proration logic as prepaid upgrades.

Postpaid upgrade invoicing:

• One invoice at end of billing period (e.g. 1st of next month)
• Multiple line items on that invoice — for example:
  • Line 1: 1st–12th old plan = $39.36
  • Line 2: 12th–30th upgrade adjustment = $29.52

Early deletion before cycle ends

Billing cycle	Charge
Hourly	Actual usage from creation to deletion only
Fixed cycles	Full period charged — no refund. Admin may grant free credits for disputes

Admin-generated custom invoices

Distinction: Custom Invoices vs. Manual Payment Mode

• Manual Payment Mode is an account settlement method where invoices are settled offline (bank wire, UPI, etc.).
• Admin-Generated Custom Invoices are ad-hoc billing documents created directly by an administrator for non-catalogue items (e.g. consulting or custom setup), independent of the account's payment mode.

Question	Answer
Will a custom unpaid invoice auto-charge the customer's credit card immediately?	No. If an admin creates a custom unpaid invoice in a postpaid account, it will not auto-charge the customer’s saved credit card.
Who settles custom invoices?	Admin-generated custom invoices are not processed automatically by recurring auto-charge jobs. It is the admin’s responsibility to mark such invoices as paid, or the customer can log in to the portal and pay them manually.
What services can custom invoices be generated for?	Custom invoices can be generated for ad-hoc, one-off, or non-catalogue services (such as migration assistance, hardware setup, or custom consulting). Services provided and metered natively by CMP (such as VMs, Load Balancers, Kubernetes, etc.) are billed through normal cycles and cannot be directly linked to custom invoice creation.

Admin-generated custom invoices are not processed automatically by CMP. Full step-by-step creation guide: Create Custom Invoice.

Disciplinary actions and renewals

Disciplinary state	Renewal invoices
Freeze	System continues creating renewal invoices
Suspend	System continues creating renewal invoices
Terminated	System does not create renewal invoices

Full workflow: Disciplinary Actions.

Invoice settings (postpaid)

Postpaid invoice timing is controlled by flags in Admin → Invoices → Invoice Settings.

Global setting	Purpose
invoice_no_of_attempts	Days/attempts to retry failed card charges
delay_due_date_in_days	Delay invoice due date (0 = immediate)

Postpaid invoice generation modes

CMP supports two postpaid invoice generation approaches. Both are controlled by invoice settings flags — default is false for both.

Flag	Default	When true	When false (default)
POSTPAID_ADVANCE_PRO_RATA_INVOICE	false	A pro-rata payable invoice is generated immediately at service creation	Usage records are maintained during the cycle; charges are converted to a payable invoice on the next renewal. This cycle repeats
POSTPAID_ADVANCE_INVOICE	false	The renewal payable invoice is generated on the 1st of the month (start of month)	Usage records are maintained during the cycle; charges are converted to a payable invoice on the next renewal. This cycle repeats

Decide at system setup — StackConsole only

Both flags default to false. If your deployment needs advance postpaid invoicing, decide this during initial system setup and inform StackConsole so the flags can be configured correctly.

Changing this behaviour after go-live is not supported. Mid-stream changes can break billing workflows and cause invoice inconsistencies for existing services.

Default mode (false — standard postpaid)

When both flags are false:

1. CMP maintains usage records during the billing cycle
2. On the next renewal, accumulated usage is converted to a payable invoice
3. Auto-charge runs against the payable invoice
4. The cycle repeats for each subsequent period

This is the behaviour most postpaid deployments use out of the box.

Advance mode (flags enabled)

When advance flags are enabled, CMP generates payable invoices immediately on the advance schedule instead of deferring conversion of usage records to payable invoices.

Invoice type	When generated (advance mode)
Pro-rata invoice	Immediately at service creation
Renewal invoice	On the 1st of the month (start of month) — not at end of month

Example — monthly billing cycle, service created 10 Jan 2026:

Invoice	Generated	Covers period
Pro-rata	10 Jan 2026 (immediately at creation)	10 Jan – 31 Jan 2026
Next renewal	1 Feb 2026 (start of month)	1 Feb – 28 Feb 2026

Same advance timing as manual mode

Advance postpaid invoicing uses the same timing as Manual advance invoice settings — pro-rata at creation, renewal on the 1st of the month. Only the flag names differ (POSTPAID_ADVANCE_* vs MANUAL_ADVANCE_*).

Payment mode conversion

Only Manual → Postpaid is supported — it happens automatically when the customer saves a card. Prepaid and postpaid accounts cannot be converted to another payment mode. See Changing payment mode.

Related

• One Account One Invoice (OAOI)
• Payment Modes
• Manual
• Billing Cycles
• Billing Rules
• Billing FAQs