Payments

Payment details, settings, and options are available on the Settings → Billing & Plan screen.

How to renew your subscription

When your subscription expires, we automatically renew using the payment details you have saved. Any credit in your account balance will be applied to the balance.

You can save a credit card on your account by clicking the Add payment method button. Once billing details have been added to your account, you can change them at any time by clicking Change payment method.

You can change the duration of your subscription by clicking Change subscription length and choosing the new length.

As we are an Australian company, you may be charged an international payment fee depending on your financial institution. Unfortunately, we have no control over any fees charged by your bank.

All payments are made in US dollars, as this is most recognized currency for global usage.

Payment options

We currently accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diner's Club, and PayPal. Payments will appear on your bank statement as "FastMail Pty Ltd." (Note: If you signed up on or after April 8, 2024, we support these additional payment methods: Apple Pay, Google Pay, UnionPay, Maestro, and Mada. Payments will appear on your bank statement as "Paddle.net* Fastmail.")

We are unable to accept cash, checks, bank transfers, money orders, or cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Prepaid-only cards usually do not work. You are welcome to try, but unfortunately, despite advertising themselves as Visa or Mastercard, they often behave differently.

If you wish to pay using PayPal, you can do so by clicking Add payment method (or Change payment method) and selecting Use a different payment method. From there, you can select PayPal and follow the onscreen instructions. 

View invoices and payment history

To download a copy of your invoice, or see a list of all payment activity on your account, go to the Settings → Billing & Plan screen and click View invoices and billing history.

Taxes

Tax rates change depending on your location, local tax rates, and Fastmail’s tax responsibilities in your area. We use your billing address to calculate which region you are in, and how much tax we need to collect.

We will include the tax rate you will be charged in your renewal reminder email, and you will see the amount in your invoice. Invoices can be downloaded at the end of the month from Settings → Billing & Plan by clicking View invoices and billing history.

For more details about taxes at Fastmail, please see our Taxes at Fastmail help page.

What should I do if my automatic renewal failed?

After three failed attempts to auto-renew with the payment method on file, we will stop attempting to charge your card and send an email to notify you that we were unable to renew your subscription.

If your card has expired, you will need to update your billing details on the Settings → Billing & Plan screen. Here, click Change payment method and follow the onscreen directions to update your saved payment information.

What happens to my account if it’s overdue?

If we are unable to process payment for your account’s renewal, we will send an email to the account admins and display an overdue banner when they log in to their account. After ten days without payment, an overdue notice is sent to all of the users in the account and the overdue banner is displayed for all users.

If the account’s subscription is still not renewed, there is a slow degradation of service in place, which includes being unable to send email after 14 days or receive email after 21 days. The account and its addresses will be deleted after 180 days.

Why did I receive a $1 charge?

When a user updates their credit card details, we place a temporary charge of $1 to verify the details. Without this temporary charge, the bank won't tell us if the card exists.

The $1 temporary change is in US dollars. Due to conversion rates, some customers see a different amount on their card.

These temporary charges are never finalized, and will eventually disappear from your online banking ledger (and should never appear on an official monthly statement). How long this takes will depend on the bank.

Why did my payment fail?

Card payments can fail for a number of reasons:

  • Insufficient funds. Please ensure that your card has the sufficient funds, then try again.
  • Too many payment attempts within a short space of time. Payment providers view this as an attempt at fraud and will block further payment attempts. We suggest contacting your bank first to address the underlying issue that's causing payment failure. Once this has been done, please wait 24 hours from your most recent attempt and try again.
  • Some card providers (especially for prepaid or debit cards) don't support delayed capture. We do try to detect cards that are likely to reject delayed capture and just charge those up front, but this is not always possible. In these cases, a different payment method will be needed.

Because our company is based in Australia, we have seen payment fail even when the card is valid and it has sufficient funds. This most often occurs when a bank rejects the attempted international charge. If this happens, please contact your bank and have them expect and accept a payment to Australia. This authorization will allow the transaction to be completed.

If you continue to have issues submitting your payment, please contact our support team.

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