---
title: Billing FAQ
---

I am Drew DeVault, and I maintain sr.ht. You can reach me at any time, for any
reason, via [sir@cmpwn.com](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com). If you have any questions
about billing on sr.ht, please reach out.

# Who has to pay for an account?

In short, everyone who can afford to.

SourceHut is currently under development, and during this phase, payment is
optional. It helps to support the project, but we understand that you may have
reservations about paying for an incomplete service. However, once the beta
begins, payment will become mandatory for all maintainers.

*Note: due to its high risk for abuse, submitting CI jobs will be limited to
paid accounts in the near future. See [builds.sr.ht billing change
planning](/ops/builds.sr.ht-migraiton.md) for details.*

Note the difference between *maintainers* and *contributors*. Only the former
is required to pay. In other words, if you host your project with us, you will
be expected to have a paid account.

**You will have to pay to**:

- Set up bug trackers
- Set up mailing lists
- Host git or hg repositories
- List your project on the hub
- Submit CI builds

And so on. However, we will **not** ask *contributors* to pay. You will always
be able to register for a sr.ht account and participate in projects hosted with
us without having to pay for your account. In fact, many of our features work
without registering for an account at all.

**You will NOT have to pay to**:

- Submit bug reports
- Send patches or questions
- Browse or download software

You do not have to register for an account at all to do these things; you can
submit tickets and patches and so on with an unregistered email address.

# I'm not sure I can afford it.

It is not our intention to price anyone out of using the service. If the minimum
fees are too high for your financial needs, then you can simply [send us an
email](mailto:sir@cmpwn.com) explaining your situation, and you will be issued
free service, no questions asked. sr.ht users from many walks of life have been
granted free service: students, users with issues using their currency of
choice, people between jobs, and so on.

Users can also earn free service credits by contributing to sr.ht itself.
SourceHut is a free and open source project itself, and each non-trivial patch
you land in sr.ht earns you one month of free service.

[Read more about contributing to sr.ht here](/installation.md).

# What are the differences between each plan?

There is no difference between any of the plans: they all have access to the
same level of service, and the same service limits. You should choose whichever
plan best represents your financial ability and your level of investment in
sr.ht. It's a kind of honor system: pay what you think the service is worth to
you.

# Why should I pay when GitHub, GitLab, etc, are free?

Hosting these services is not free, or even cheap. The money has to come from
somewhere.

Each of these companies is financially supported by venture capital, in the form
of large investments from a small number of people. If you use their services
for free, or even if you pay the modest fees for their paid plans, they are not
incentivized to serve you. They are bidden to their investors, and at their
behest, they may implement changes you don't like: invasive tracking, selling
your data, and so on.

SourceHut has not accepted, and will never accept, any outside investments. Our
sole source of revenue is from sr.ht users making their account payments. This
incentivizes us to only consider your needs, and not to use you as a resource to
be exploited. The financial relationship is much more responsible for both
parties.

Unlike GitHub and GitLab, your sr.ht subscription fee stays in open-source.
sr.ht is 100% free software, mostly licensed under the GNU Affero General Public
license (aka AGPL 3.0). We incorporate changes from the community and work
together to build the best service possible. Your payment provides for the cost
of operations, keeping someone online to maintain teh site, developing new
features, and providing reliable service. We promise to only invest our profits
in free software or free culture efforts, and we already sponsor many such
projects.

# Can I cancel or change my plan?

Yes, you can cancel or modify your plan at any time. Visit the [billing
page](https://meta.sr.ht/billing) to make changes. You will not be charged until
the service period you've already paid for expires.

# What will happen when I stop paying?

During the alpha, there are no consequences for non-payment.

After the alpha:

Your data will not disappear overnight.

The delinquency process is as follows:

- An email reminder will be sent to inform you that your account is past due
- After two weeks, your resources may become read only (e.g. you can `git clone`
  but not `git push`).
- After eight weeks, your case will be manually reviewed. We may choose to
  provide you with a complete export of your data and close your account. Note
  that this data export can be re-imported into sr.ht again should you choose to
  register for another account, or can be taken to a third-party instance, with
  little to no information loss.

# Will pricing change after the alpha?

Yes. The exact numbers have not been decided upon. There will be a generous
period of consultation with the community and advance warning before any pricing
changes take effect.

# Can I get an invoice?

You can download invoices from the [billing page](https://meta.sr.ht/billing).

# Can I deploy sr.ht on my own infrastructure instead of paying for an account?

Yep! [Here are instructions](https://man.sr.ht/installation.md).

# Do you offer paid support plans?

No, not at the moment.