Deployment, Management, and Pricing
Management surfaces
Everything in the platform is reachable through Cloud Manager, the web console. The same operations are exposed by the API, which uses token authentication and underpins the command-line interface and infrastructure-as-code tools such as the Terraform provider and configuration-management integrations. StackScripts and Marketplace images handle reproducible first-boot setup, Images capture configured disks for reuse, and LKE or App Platform handle containerized and source-based deployments. Tagging resources makes fleet-wide automation and cost attribution practical.
How billing works
Most resources are metered hourly, with a monthly cap so the headline monthly price is a ceiling rather than a fixed charge. A partial month costs the hourly rate times the hours used. Compute, NodeBalancers, block volumes, backups, and object storage are billed separately, and outbound transfer beyond the pooled allowance is charged per gigabyte. The LKE control plane is managed without an additional charge, so LKE cost is essentially worker nodes plus their volumes and transfer. App Platform bills by plan tier per application.
Traps to watch
- A stopped instance still bills because it is still provisioned; delete it or accept the charge.
- Deleting a resource ends its billing, so "power off to save money" is almost always the wrong answer.
- The monthly cap is not a discount; it is the maximum you pay if the resource runs the whole month.
- Snapshots, backups, and unattached volumes are easy to forget and keep costing money.
- Transfer overage is billed separately from plan price, so bandwidth-heavy designs can exceed the quoted figure.
Rule of thumb
Estimate cost as hourly rate times hours used (capped at the monthly price) plus volumes, backups, and transfer overage; then check for idle instances, orphaned volumes, and old snapshots before assuming a design is cheap.