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Payment Options

There are two ways to pay for Thunder Compute:

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Option 1: Save a Payment Method

Save a credit card through our Stripe portal to get automatically billed for usage. You can manage your payment method anytime by going to console.thundercompute.com/settings/billing and clicking “manage billing”.

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Option 2: Preload Credit

Add credit directly to your account as an alternative to saving a payment method. This credit never expires and will be used before any saved payment method. Order of payment
  1. Any preloaded credit you’ve added
  2. Charges to your saved payment method
You can switch between options or use both by saving a payment method later even if you started with preloaded credit.

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Billing Alerts

  • Instance reminders: We’ll email you about any running instances so you’re never caught off guard.
  • Threshold charges: As your usage grows, we’ll bill your card at preset checkpoints (which rise over time) to prevent runaway bills.

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Our rates

All compute resources are billed per minute only while your instances run. Instances can be created and deleted—there is no stopped state—and storage is fully ephemeral. Back up anything important before deleting an instance, as all data is removed. Rates and promotions are subject to change without notice. For current rates, see our pricing page.

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Credit terms

  • Preloaded credit: Credit you add to your account does not expire and will be used before charging your saved card.
  • Revocation: Promotional credit can be revoked at our discretion.
  • **Refunds: **Credit is strictly non-refundable

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Money-Saving Tips

While Thunder Compute is already the cheapest GPU cloud platform, there are a few strategies we recommend to reduce your bill:
  • Delete instances as soon as you’re done with them (after backing up anything you need to keep).
  • Right‑size new workloads with tnr create --gpu, --vcpus, and related flags so you only pay for what you use.
  • Follow our Using Ephemeral Storage guide for backup best practices.
We think this balances a smooth experience with strong verification—but if you have feedback or questions, please hop into our Discord. We’re always happy to improve!