I was unaware (until today) that Cloudflare no longer applies account credit to paid services like domain transfers and renewals.
While going back and forth with support about why my Paypal account was consistently being charged whenever I transferred and renewed domains when there was existing credit in my Cloudflare account, I was informed that as a result of a change in their billing system/practice, account credit is no longer applied to charges related to domain transfers and renewals.
I’d have to say I was surprised and disappointed, as this change seemingly occurred around the time my account still had roughly $100 credit (they had been deducting for transfers for some period of time). Granted, I don’t always check the fine print when terms change, but I would’ve expected a notice of some kind that this was going to be happening. If a notice was sent or was announced, I certainly didn’t see it.
I’m posting this in the hopes that anyone else who was unaware of the change will know. Too bad there isn’t a “grandfather” clause whereby if there was credit in an account before the billing change, the credit could still be applied toward domain transfers and renewals until there was no longer any credit in the account. As it stands now, that credit has been laying dormant for a long time, while I continue to be charged for domains that I transfer in and renew.
Has anyone else had a similar experience, or is scratching their head as to why the credit can’t be used for domain transfers and renewals, both of which are paid services?
This info may be out of date, but as far as I understand it (was told by support a while ago), this is when credits apply:
Credits apply to monthly recurring payments.
All subscriptions are not recurring until the second monthly payment.
If you cancel a subscription and then opt-in for a subscription for the same product, then this considered a new subscription and not a continuance of the previous one.
Not sure if this is still the case, and you would probably need to contact them to confirm.
I think that’s where it stands now. I am just surprised that the decision was made to stop for the ones already in progress, after it had been in practice for a while. My original credit was $200 in 2018. It took some time for it to get down to where it is now. It’s like Cloudflare is saying, “Hey, we don’t want to give you your money back, nor do we want you to apply any extra you have in your account towards these particular billable Cloudflare services!”
It’s now a limbo situation, because the only services I pay for at Cloudflare are domain transfers and renewals–which are or can be yearly (as opposed to monthly) recurring payments. I get the what, but not the why. Of course, “because we can, and that’s our policy, and that’sthat” is a response, it is just odd to me, as the funds are already there, lol.
Is there a way to know exactly when the change occurred? I have many Cloudflare invoices, and it would take some time to revisit.
This is definitely not official, but I suspect this may be their reasoning for not allowing credit to be used on domain registration.
Domain registration costs Cloudflare money directly. While other services may have costs to them incurred, e.g. storage, server resources etc. they are internal costs. With domain registration, they have to pay out a set amount to the registry. It is also no-markup so they don’t make any money directly from it.
If you are given credit for something, it may be due to an account issue or complimentary etc. There are a host of reasons why credit may be given, if it is given for something related to an internal product, it will cost them more money if you spend the credits on domain registration, rather than on their ‘in-house’ products.
No idea if this is right or not, but it would be my best guess!
As for when this changed, unless support will tell you, I don’t know how you could without going back through invoices. I am not sure if it was always the case, or a fairly recent change.
I would guess that is probably as official as it gets (appreciate the disclaimer). I understand, but I just wish it had been the case from the beginning, and didn’t switch-up in the middle of my membership.
When I get a chance to go through my invoices, I’ll let you know when they stopped applying my credit to transfers and renewals (unless someone else beats me to it.)
I don’t work for Cloudflare, so nothing I say is official but no, I doubt you will get an official response on the why, but you could try asking support!
Yes, please do let us know, and sorry I couldn’t be of more help!
All good. Your responses were helpful, actually. I’ve had my fill of official Cloudflare support (via email) for the day (chuckle). I’ll bug 'em again in the near future.
