Add an instance

An instance starts from a plan. This page describes the three steps: choose the plan, choose the settings, and pay.

Choose the plan

  1. Open Products.

  2. Read the cards under your instances. Each card gives the name, the price and the description.

  3. Press Choose this plan.

Choose the settings

The activation screen is titled Activate, and the name of the plan after it. It asks only the questions that the plan needs.

Region

The screen asks for a region if the plan is offered in more than one. Choose Europe or United States.

The machine stands in that region, and the data of the instance stays there. You cannot move an instance later, so choose the region that your people and your rules ask for.

Your URL

The screen shows the address in large text above the field, and it changes the address while you type. Type the first part of it.

  • Use letters, digits and hyphens. The screen refuses the rest.

  • The address must be free. Another customer may hold the one that you want.

Some plans always live at one address. The screen then says so, and it keeps what you type as a label for the row.

Your login

A plan that puts its customers on one shared machine asks for a login instead of a URL. Type three characters or more. This is the name that you sign in to the product with.

Pay

The button at the end of the form says what happens next:

  • Activate — the plan is free. The Portal starts to build the machine at once.

  • Continue to payment — the plan is paid. The Portal sends you to Stripe.

Stripe asks for the card and the billing address, and it takes the payment. The Portal does not see the card number, and it does not store one.

What happens after the payment

Stripe sends you back to the Portal. The return screen says one of these:

  • Payment confirmed — Stripe took the money. The Portal is building the machine.

  • Waiting for your bank — some payment methods need minutes to clear. The screen refreshes itself. There is nothing for you to do.

  • Checkout cancelled — you left Stripe without paying. Nothing was charged, and nothing was built. The plan is still there.

The screen then sends you to Products, where the new row shows Setting up.

A purchase that you left

The Portal makes the row when you press Continue to payment, and not when you pay. A purchase that you started and left keeps its row, in the state Waiting for payment. The row holds your address, so nobody else can take it.

Two ways out:

  • Finish payment on the row opens the same Stripe page again.

  • Give up on this purchase in the actions menu removes the row, and releases the address. See Give up on a purchase.

The Portal charges nothing for a row in this state, and it builds nothing.