Billing Dashboard

Centralized billing management with usage tracking, invoices, and payment history.

Overview

The Billing Dashboard provides complete visibility into your PenguinMails subscription, usage, costs, and payment history - all in one place.

Access: Settings → Billing

Dashboard Overview

At-a-Glance Summary

Top of Dashboard Shows:

Section Information
Current Plan Plan name, monthly cost, billing cycle
Usage Summary Emails sent, team members, workspaces
Next Billing Date and amount of next charge
Payment Method Last 4 digits of card, expiration

Quick Actions:

  • [Change Plan] - Upgrade/downgrade

  • [Update Payment] - Modify payment method

  • [View Invoices] - Download past invoices

  • [Cancel Subscription] - End billing

Level 1: Usage Tracking

Real-Time Usage Metrics

Monitor usage against plan limits:

Email Sends 

📧 Email Sends
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 46.9%
23,450 / 50,000 emails sent this month

Remaining: 26,550 emails
Resets: December 24, 2025

Features:

  • Progress bar visualization

  • Percentage used

  • Exact counts

  • Reset date

Team Members 

👥 Team Members
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 60%
3 / 5 seats occupied

Available: 2 seats
[Invite Team Member]

Workspaces 

🗂️ Workspaces
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 70%
7 / 10 workspaces created

Available: 3 workspaces
[Create Workspace]

Custom Domains 

🌐 Custom Domains
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 33.3%
5 / 15 domains configured

Available: 10 domains
[Add Domain]

Usage Alerts

Proactive notifications when approaching limits.

Alert Thresholds:

  • 🟡 80% Used - Warning email

  • 🟠 90% Used - Upgrade suggestion

  • 🔴 95% Used - Urgent action needed

  • ⛔ 100% Used - Limit reached

Alert Actions:

  • Email notification to billing admin

  • In-app notification

  • Dashboard banner

  • Recommended actions (upgrade, reduce usage)

Usage History

Track usage trends over time.

Monthly Usage Chart:

Email Sends (Last 6 Months)

50k |                     ┍━●
40k |                  ┍━━┯
30k |            ●━━━━━━┯
20k |      ┍━━━━━━┯
10k | ●━━━━━┯
 0k └──────────────────────────────
    Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov

Export Options:

  • CSV download

  • PDF report

  • API access

Level 2: Invoice Management

Invoice List

All invoices in one place:

Date Invoice # Description Amount Status Actions
Nov 24, 2025 INV-001234 Professional Plan $149.00 Paid [Download PDF]
Oct 24, 2025 INV-001198 Professional Plan $149.00 Paid [Download PDF]
Sep 24, 2025 INV-001167 Starter Plan $49.00 Paid [Download PDF]

Invoice Details:

  • Date issued

  • Unique invoice number

  • Line items (subscription, add-ons, taxes)

  • Total amount

  • Payment status

  • PDF download

Invoice Contents

Standard invoice includes:

INVOICE #INV-001234

Bill To:
Acme Corporation
123 Main Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States

Date: November 24, 2025
Due: November 24, 2025 (paid)

Line Items:

- Professional Plan (Nov 24 - Dec 24)    $149.00

- Additional Emails (10,000)              $10.00

- Sales Tax (CA)                           $12.72
                                         ────────
                                  TOTAL: $171.72

Payment Method: •••• 4242 (Visa)
Status: PAID

Features:

  • Company billing information

  • Itemized charges

  • Tax breakdown

  • Payment method

  • Payment status

Upcoming Invoice Preview

See next charge before it happens.

🧾 Next Invoice Preview

Billing Date: December 24, 2025
Estimated Amount: $149.00

Line Items:

- Professional Plan (Monthly)             $149.00

- Tax (estimated)                          $11.92
                                         ────────
                                  TOTAL: $160.92

[Update Plan] [Update Payment Method]

Benefits:

  • No billing surprises

  • Adjust plan before charge

  • Update payment method if needed

  • Verify pricing

Level 3: Payment History

Transaction Log

Complete payment history:

GET /api/v1/billing/payments
Authorization: Bearer {api_key}

Response:
{
  "payments": [
    {
      "id": "pi_abc123",
      "date": "2025-11-24",
      "amount": 149.00,
      "currency": "USD",
      "status": "succeeded",
      "description": "Professional Plan - Monthly",
      "payment_method": "card_4242",
      "receipt_url": "https://stripe.com/receipts/..."
    }
  ],
  "total_count": 12,
  "page": 1
}

Transaction Details:

  • Payment date and time

  • Amount charged

  • Payment method used

  • Payment status (succeeded, failed, refunded)

  • Receipt link

  • Associated invoice

Failed Payment Handling

What happens when payment fails:

  1. Immediate Notification

    • Email to billing admin

    • In-app alert

    • Dashboard warning banner

  2. Grace Period (7 days)

    • Service continues

    • Automatic retry attempts

    • Update payment method anytime

  3. Account Suspension (Day 7)

    • Email sending disabled

    • Read-only access to data

    • Final retry attempt

  4. Cancellation (Day 14)

    • Subscription canceled

    • Free tier activated (90-day data retention)

Resolution:

  • [Update Payment Method] button prominently displayed

  • [Retry Payment] manual retry option

  • Contact support for assistance

Refunds

Refund policy and processing:

Eligible for Refund:

  • ✅ Double-charged (full refund)

  • ✅ Billing error (full refund)

  • ✅ Service issue (prorated refund)

  • ✅ Within 7 days of charge (goodwill refund)

Not Eligible:

  • ❌ Simply changed mind after 7 days

  • ❌ Service not used (non-usage doesn’t qualify)

  • ❌ Annual plans mid-term (no partial refunds)

Request Refund:

  1. Contact support: billing@penguinmails.com

  2. Provide invoice number and reason

  3. Review by billing team (1-2 business days)

  4. Refund processed (5-10 business days to card)

Budget Management

Spending Limits

Set maximum monthly spend:

💰 Budget Controls

Monthly Budget: $200.00
Current Month Spend: $159.00
Remaining Budget: $41.00

[●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●○○○○○○] 79.5%

Alert When:
☑ 80% of budget ($160.00)
☑ 100% of budget ($200.00)

Action at 100%:
● Alert only
○ Block overage charges
○ Auto-upgrade to next tier

Budget Options:

  • Set monthly maximum

  • Alert thresholds

  • Overage handling (alert, block, auto-upgrade)

  • Email notifications

Cost Optimization Tips

Dashboard provides recommendations:

  • 💡 Switch to Annual - Save 20% ($358/year savings)

  • 💡 Downgrade Unused Seats - Remove 2 inactive users ($30/mo savings)

  • 💡 Archive Old Workspaces - Reduce workspace count (back to plan limit)

  • 💡 Optimize Send Frequency - Reduce emails by segmentation

Billing Administration

Billing Contact

Manage who receives billing notifications:

Primary Billing Contact:

  • Receives all invoices

  • Payment failure notifications

  • Usage alerts

  • Subscription changes

Additional Contacts:

  • CC on invoices (optional)

  • Separate finance team email

  • Multiple recipients supported

Configuration:

Billing Contacts

Primary: billing@acme.com [Edit]

Additional Recipients:
finance@acme.com [Remove]
cfo@acme.com [Remove]

[+ Add Recipient]

Company Billing Information

Tax and invoice details:

Company Information

Legal Name: Acme Corporation
Tax ID: 12-3456789
Billing Address:
  123 Main Street
  San Francisco, CA 94105
  United States

[Edit Information]

Used For:

  • Invoice generation

  • Tax calculation

  • Payment processing

  • Legal compliance

API Access

Billing API Endpoints 

// Get Current Usage
GET /api/v1/billing/usage
Authorization: Bearer {api_key}

// Get Invoices
GET /api/v1/billing/invoices?limit=10

// Download Invoice PDF
GET /api/v1/billing/invoices/{invoice_id}/pdf

// Get Payment History
GET /api/v1/billing/payments?page=1&per_page=20

// Update Billing Info
PUT /api/v1/billing/company-info
{
  "legal_name": "Acme Corp",
  "tax_id": "12-3456789",
  "address": {...}
}

Payments

Support

Last Updated: November 24, 2025 Access Level: Billing Admin, Tenant Owner Data Retention: Invoices retained for 7 years

The Billing Dashboard provides complete transparency into your PenguinMails costs and usage.