Overview: App Stopped != Zero Cost

I was using Redhat’s web hosting service to run a website, and upgraded to their bronze pricing plan to make use of extra pay-as-you-use resources. After I no longer needed their service, I hit ‘Stop App’, thinking I’d shut it down.

In my mind, a stopped status suggests that the service is no longer in use (so I won’t be billed). I was using an older version of their service, but it looked something like this when ‘Stopped’:

Therefore, I forgot all about it and got billed around £400 for the entire time the app was stopped. Maybe I didn’t read everything carefully, but I felt a bit tricked.

After contacting Customer Support, I was told the information on pricing was clear:

…I just never saw it, because it was provided right at the bottom of the sign up page — no where near the focus of the user. See below — the call to action for upgrading an account is shown far above the billing information, so many users are bound to miss it. There’s also 5 call-to-action buttons before the information (highlighted by the blue numbers):