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Comment by 0cf8612b2e1e | Hacker News Reader

Sorry to corner you here on unrelated topic, but I will take a chance on asking…

Why can I not pre pay my FastMail account? I have a three year subscription which ends in another 14 months. The UI indicates I will be auto renewed two days before my subscription ends. That is not a comforting margin for error in the event there is a billing issue for something as vital as email.

I can understand you do not want to let people pre-purchase infinite time, but you already offer the three year plan. Let me top it off well in advance of the expiration date, so I have ample time to resolve issues if they occur. Let me subscribe to an annual renewal, always maintaining a two year balance.

Coincidentally, checking my account now, I see my credit card on file is expired.

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The short answer is our new billing platform (Paddle), which all new users are on and we're moving everyone to, doesn't support it. (We're moving from a home-grown billing solution to simplify our global tax compliance and give us support for more important things like billing in local currency.)

You can hack around it by converting to monthly billing (which will give you a credit), then immediately convert back to 3-year subscription (your credit will be used, so you'll only pay the difference). The end result is essentially identical to an early renewal.

I'd also like to reassure you that we don't immediately delete your account if renewal fails! We have a slow degradation process that gradually disables sending, then receiving, then finally access to anything other than billing if the account continues to go unpaid over several weeks. But our support team can (and do) delay this process if for whatever reason you are having difficulty making a payment and reach out to us.

I will definitely explore the monthly-conversion to re-subscribe. Thanks for the tip.

While not everyone would agree, it would be nice to see if the renewal attempt was made say a month in advance of the expiration date. My paranoid self thinks I am one long vacation + expired credit card away from losing my email.

As a rule, I try not to lean on the good graces of for profit companies. Having expectations for how long my account would be functional were I to miss a payment is a game I care not to play for vital services.

> doesn't support it.

This is ridiculous.

One of the benefits of Fastmail for me was the ability to prepay and be not bothered if the payment would be processed in time, works at all or whatever.

FM had a couple of stumbles for me in the last years (including shadow banning the account without any feedback at all), guess this would be the last nail for it.

Sad.

Fastmail user here: you get a reminder a week or so ahead of time, and even if the payment doesn't go through, they don't shut down your account instantly. You get a few reminders. I even emailed support to ask for some time to settle my credit card and were okay with extending it.

IIRC, when my payment lapsed due to an expired card, I got plenty of time to fix the issue. In my case, the payment is taken from the card a whole month and a half before the invoice is generated (typically a different fiscal year, smh).

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