# How Billing works in Tenki (https://tenki.cloud/docs/account/billing)

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://tenki.cloud/llms.txt)

Understand how billing works in Tenki for GitHub Actions runners. Learn about usage-based pricing, free credits, and how Tenki delivers cost improvements over runners alternatives.



We only start charging when a job actually begins running; time spent in the queue is not billed. Usage is charged per minute, with each started second rounded up to the next second. For example, if a job runs for 2 minutes, 56 seconds, and a fraction of a second, it will be billed as 2 minutes and 57 seconds.

Scale to zero [#scale-to-zero]

Tenki bills for **consumed minutes only**. You don't pay for:

* Weekends or overnight when nothing runs
* A standby or warm pool (there isn't one, every job boots a fresh VM)
* Time after a job completes (VMs are destroyed immediately)

The only recurring charge outside per-minute usage is your plan fee and any active add-ons. See [Limits, Concurrency & Cold Start](/docs/runners/limits-and-concurrency) for the full operational picture.

How billing cycle works [#how-billing-cycle-works]

**Step 1:**
Billed events review [#billed-events-review]

For each of your workspaces, we track the number of billable events generated during the month (refer to the section above for details on how an event is considered billable).

**Step 2:**
Free Credits review We check your remaining free credits and deduct them from your total usage. [#free-credits-review-we-check-your-remaining-free-credits-and-deduct-them-from-your-total-usage]

**Step 3:**
An invoice is generated and the payment is processed. [#an-invoice-is-generated-and-the-payment-is-processed]

For every workspace, we monitor the total number of billable events created during the month (see the section above for an explanation of what qualifies as a billable event).

> **Important:** If an invoice is not paid on time, service will be interrupted and any running jobs will be automatically canceled. To avoid this, make sure a payment method is added to your workspace.