Billing Help
Overview
Billing lets you top up credit, review your transaction and usage history, and manage the referral programme.
UnlockOS is billed purely on usage: ¥25 (tax included) per check-in. There is no setup fee and no fixed monthly charge. Each month's usage is deducted automatically from the credit you have topped up in advance.
Your smart lock subscription (KEYVOX) is billed separately and is not deducted from this balance.
Tabs
| Tab | Description |
|---|---|
| Top Up | Add credit to your account |
| Auto Top-up | Set up automatic top-ups and manage the cards they charge |
| Transactions | Review top-ups, usage, expiries and adjustments |
| Usage | Review monthly usage and charges per facility |
| Referral | Issue a referral code and track earned credit |
| General | Review the unit price and your remaining credit |
Top Up tab
Amounts
Choose one of five published amounts. Arbitrary amounts are not accepted.
| Amount (tax incl.) | Credit granted | Bonus | Effective unit price |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¥2,000 | ¥2,000 | — | ¥25 / check-in |
| ¥5,000 | ¥5,000 | — | ¥25 / check-in |
| ¥10,000 | ¥10,500 | +¥500 (5%) | approx. ¥23.8 |
| ¥100,000 | ¥110,000 | +¥10,000 (10%) | approx. ¥22.7 |
| ¥500,000 | ¥600,000 | +¥100,000 (20%) | approx. ¥20.8 |
Payment
Select an amount and choose "Proceed to payment". Card details are entered directly in the payment provider's (Stripe) form and are never stored on UnlockOS servers.
When credit appears
Credit may take a moment to appear after payment completes: it is issued only once the payment provider confirms the funds have been captured. If the balance has not updated, use "Refresh balance".
Expiry and consumption order
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Validity | 6 months from the top-up date |
| Consumption order | FIFO — credit closest to expiry is spent first |
| Expiry | Expired credit is forfeited. It cannot be refunded or restored |
| Advance notice | A warning appears at the top of the Billing page as expiry approaches |
Welcome credit
Every organization receives free credit once, when it starts using UnlockOS. It is spent on monthly usage exactly like credit you top up yourself.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Amount | ¥5,000 for organizations registered up to June 2026, ¥2,000 from July 2026 onwards |
| Granted | Once per organization — one grant in total, however many facilities you operate (the balance is shared across the organization anyway) |
| Validity | 180 days from the grant date |
| Expiry | Anything left after that is forfeited. It cannot be refunded or restored |
| Where to see it | Under the credit breakdown on the Billing page's General tab |
Mind the expiry. Welcome credit is yours to use for free, but it disappears once the 180 days are up and cannot be brought back. You can check the balance on the Billing page at any time.
When your balance runs out
Running out of credit does not normally stop anything on the spot. Check-ins keep being accepted through a grace window, and topping up during it means nothing happens at all.
When the balance reaches zero, a pink bar appears at the very top of the admin screen. Dismissing it with × hides it for now; it comes back on the next page load, and disappears for good once the balance is positive again.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Grace deadline | 15:00 Japan time on the first Wednesday after the balance reaches zero. The grace window is always at least three days, so if that Wednesday is less than three days away the deadline moves to the following week |
| Grace length | 3 to 10 days, decided by the day and time the balance ran out. The exact deadline is in the daily email |
| While in grace | A daily email to the organization owner with the deadline and the days remaining |
| After the deadline | New check-ins, key issuance, and confirming a reservation that involves a payment stop being accepted |
| Keys already issued | Keep working. Re-displaying an existing key is never blocked, so guests already on site are unaffected |
| Resuming | Topping up resumes everything immediately |
A grace window may not be granted — for instance if the balance keeps hitting zero over a short period. It exists to cover a forgotten top-up, not as a way to run day to day.
What is shown on screen after the deadline passes
| Who is using the screen | What they see |
|---|---|
| Your staff (front desk and admin) | "The platform prepaid balance has run out, so new keys cannot be issued. Top up on the Billing screen in the admin console." — the remedy is stated, not just the failure |
| Guests (check-in and booking screens) | "This facility is not accepting check-ins right now. Please contact the facility for assistance." |
Guests are never shown your billing status. Anything about the balance or payment appears only on your staff's screens.
The pause applies per organization. If your organization has several facilities they share one balance, so they pause together.
Once you top up, the very next check-in works normally again — no page reload and no support request needed.
Why 15:00 on a Wednesday
The deadline is fixed to a weekday and a time so that a stop always begins during business hours. A threshold based on an amount cannot do that: you do not get to choose the moment your balance runs out, so it could just as easily fall at 23:00 or on a Sunday. This design exists to keep an unattended site from going quiet while nobody is watching.
A Wednesday afternoon leaves time to act the same day, and if that is not enough, the two days after it are still working days.
Setting up automatic top-up means you never enter the grace window at all — the card is charged as soon as the balance drops below the amount you choose. See the next section.
Auto Top-up tab
Charges a registered card automatically when your balance falls below an amount you choose, so usage is never recorded as a shortfall simply because nobody remembered to top up.
What you can set
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| On / off | Whether automatic top-ups run at all |
| Amount to add | ¥2,000 / ¥5,000 / ¥10,000 / ¥100,000 / ¥500,000 |
| Balance that triggers a top-up | Any amount from ¥1,000 up. A top-up runs once the balance falls below this |
The trigger is free-form. It has to be smaller than the top-up amount — otherwise the balance would still be under the trigger right after a top-up, and it would charge again and again.
Rule of thumb: usage costs ¥25 per check-in, so ¥100,000 is about 4,000 check-ins. The balance is only checked every four hours, so pick an amount you will not burn through in that time. The settings screen shows the equivalent in check-ins as you type.
The top-up amount is chosen from the five listed above — arbitrary amounts are not available. Bonus credit is granted on the same terms as a manual top-up.
At most one top-up per day. The balance is checked every four hours.
Registering a card
Use "Add a card". Card details are entered directly in the payment provider's (Stripe's) form and are never stored on UnlockOS servers.
The first card you register becomes the auto top-up card automatically. With more than one registered, switch between them using "Use for auto top-up".
A card used through Apple Pay or Google Pay cannot be used for automatic top-ups. Wallets issue single-use payment details, so they cannot be charged again later. Register a card through "Add a card" instead.
⚠️ Cards that require 3D Secure
3D Secure asks the cardholder to confirm their identity on the card issuer's screen for every payment. Automatic top-ups run unattended, so that confirmation can never happen.
A card that requires 3D Secure will therefore fail on the very first automatic top-up. When that happens:
- Automatic top-up stops after that single attempt — it is not retried, because it would fail identically every time
- An email goes to the organization owner
- Check-ins and key issuance keep working. Automatic top-up stopping does not stop your service (for what happens once the balance itself reaches zero, see "When your balance runs out")
Register a card that does not require 3D Secure to resume automatic top-ups.
When automatic top-up stops
The reason appears at the top of the Auto Top-up tab, and an email goes to the organization owner.
| Reason | What to do |
|---|---|
| The card requires 3D Secure | Register a card that does not require it |
| The card could not be found | Register a card again |
| The card was declined repeatedly | Check the card and register it again, or use a different one |
| The top-up amount setting is invalid | Choose the amount again (no payment was taken) |
In every case, only automatic top-up stopped — your service carries on. Once the balance itself reaches zero the grace window starts, so register another card or top up manually before then.
Low balance notifications
If automatic top-up is off — or has stopped — an email goes to the organization owner once the balance falls below the trigger. (Repeats are spaced out so the same message is not sent daily.) No email is sent while automatic top-up is working, since the balance refills itself.
Without automatic top-up configured, the trigger is ¥1,000 (about 40 check-ins). With it configured, the "top up below" figure you chose there is the trigger instead.
Transactions tab
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Top-up | Credit added by payment |
| Bonus credit | The bonus portion of a large top-up |
| Referral reward | Credit granted by the referral programme |
| Check-in usage | Monthly usage deduction |
| SMS/Voice usage | SMS phone verification and SMS/voice notification workflow sends (only when you use the platform sending source — nothing is recorded here for your own Twilio/BYO) |
| Credit expiry | Credit forfeited at its expiry date |
| Adjustment / Refund | Operational adjustments |
Each row shows the amount and the resulting balance immediately after that entry.
SMS/Voice usage is recorded as a separate line from check-in usage. See SMS Phone Verification for per-message pricing and setup.
Usage tab
Usage is shown per month and per facility.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Check-ins | Billable check-in count. Click the number to open the check-in history filtered to exactly the check-ins billed for that facility and month |
| Doors | Number of locks registered to the facility |
| Unit price | Price per check-in (tax included) |
| Amount | Charge for that facility and month |
About the volume threshold (800 check-ins per door per month)
Usage above 800 check-ins per door per month (¥20,000) qualifies for a negotiated volume rate. In a month that crosses the threshold, the count up to the threshold and the excess are shown separately.
The excess is still billed — the threshold is where pricing becomes negotiable, not where billing stops. Until a volume rate is agreed, the standard ¥25 rate applies to the excess, so please get in touch if this applies to you.
Facilities with no doors registered (unattended sites, external integrations only) are not subject to this door-based threshold.
Checking what a charge is made of
Clicking the check-in count opens the check-in history filtered to that month's billable check-ins. Unlike filtering by date, everything billing excluded — test-mode check-ins, and check-ins where a door was assigned but no key was ever issued — is left out from the start, so the count on the invoice and the count in the list agree.
External (PMS) check-ins are the one exception: they leave no record in the check-in history, so they cannot appear in the list. When there are any, the screen says how many.
"Shortfall"
Any amount your balance could not cover is shown as a shortfall, and is invoiced separately.
Seeing this does not mean anything has stopped — keys continue to be issued as normal. But a balance left at zero enters the grace window, and once its deadline passes new check-ins stop being accepted. See "When your balance runs out".
When usage is finalised
Monthly usage is finalised on the 3rd of the following month. The previous month is not shown before then.
Referral tab
Refer another facility operator to UnlockOS and receive 10% of what they top up, as credit.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Rate | 10% of the referred organization's top-ups |
| Eligibility window | 12 months from their registration |
| Starts | Once the referred organization completes one real check-in |
| Caps | ¥50,000 per referral; ¥200,000 per referrer over a rolling year |
| Validity | Referral credit expires after 6 months, like any other credit |
| Who can use a code | New organizations only — created within 30 days and not yet topped up |
A referral code is entered during an organization's initial setup. It cannot be applied to an organization that is already established. If it could not be entered during setup, it can still be applied from the Referral tab while the conditions above are met.
The referred organization also receives a welcome bonus on their first top-up. It does not stack with the large top-up bonus — whichever is more favourable applies.
Referral status
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | The referred organization has not checked anyone in yet; no credit is being earned |
| Active | Within the eligibility window and earning |
| Expired | The 12-month window has ended |
Using a referral code
Share your code with the person you are referring. They enter it during initial setup when creating their organization. An organization can be attributed only once, and it cannot be changed afterwards.
General tab
Shows the check-in unit price, the currency, and a breakdown of your remaining credit by type and expiry date.
FAQ
Q: Does topped-up credit expire?
A: Yes, 6 months from the top-up date. Expired credit is forfeited and cannot be refunded. A warning appears on the Billing page as expiry approaches.
Q: Can I top up an arbitrary amount?
A: Not currently. Choose from ¥2,000 / ¥5,000 / ¥10,000 / ¥100,000 / ¥500,000.
Q: If my balance runs out, do keys stop working?
A: Not straight away. Check-in and key issuance continue through a grace window of 3 to 10 days that always ends at 15:00 Japan time on a Wednesday, and a daily email tells you the exact deadline, so you can top up before it. After the deadline new check-ins stop being accepted, but keys already issued keep working. Topping up resumes everything immediately. See "When your balance runs out" for the details.
Q: Is a guest re-displaying their key charged twice?
A: No. One check-in is one charge. Re-displays and recovery-link access are not charged. Unlimited members are capped at one charge per member per day.
Q: Are test check-ins billed?
A: No. Check-ins made with a test API key are excluded from both billing and usage figures.
Q: Can several facilities share one balance?
A: Yes. The balance is held per organization, and usage from every facility under it is deducted from the same balance.
Q: What happens to my balance if I cancel?
A: Unused credit is forfeited and cannot be refunded. Please review your expected consumption before cancelling.
Q: What happens if my auto top-up card requires 3D Secure?
A: The first attempt fails and automatic top-up stops after that one attempt. The organization owner receives an email; register a card that does not require 3D Secure. Nothing stops at that point.
Q: Can I use a card I registered through Apple Pay for automatic top-ups?
A: No. Wallets issue single-use payment details that cannot be charged again later. Register the card through "Add a card" on the Auto Top-up tab.
Q: How often can automatic top-up run?
A: At most once a day. The balance is checked every four hours.
Q: Can referral rewards be paid out in cash?
A: No. Referral rewards are granted only as UnlockOS account credit.
Related Pages
- Basic Settings
- Check-in History
- SMS Phone Verification