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Fair billing: credit for idle printers and unused slots

Live since May 21st, 2026. Fair billing is now active for every paid SimplyPrint account, both existing and new - no opt-in needed.

You shouldn't pay for what you're not using. SimplyPrint's fair billing policy automatically credits your account for paid printer slots that have gone idle and for extra user or printer slots you've bought but aren't filling. In this guide, you'll see how the credit is calculated, where to track it during the billing period, and how to fine-tune things yourself.

What fair billing covers

Fair billing only applies to paid extra slots beyond what your plan already includes. Slots that come bundled with your plan don't accrue credit on their own.

Fair billing watches three things across your billing period and accrues a credit when any of them apply:

Idle printers. If a printer has had no print activity for 28 days, it gets counted as inactive and stops consuming a paid printer slot.
Unused extra printer slots. If you've paid for 10 printer slots but only 8 of your printers are active (or you only have 8 printers), the difference accrues credit.
Empty extra user slots. If you've paid for 5 user slots but only 3 seats are filled, the unused 2 accrue credit.

The credit is applied as a line item on your next subscription renewal invoice, so your renewal cost is reduced automatically. Nothing to claim, no support ticket needed.

Fair billing credit is only ever applied to the subscription renewal invoice. Mid-period invoices (extra slot purchases, plan upgrades, one-off add-ons) are not reduced by accrued credit.

The 28-day idle timer

A printer is considered active for billing as long as it has seen some print activity in the last 28 days. Any of these resets the clock:

A print job is queued on the printer.
A print starts.
A print finishes (including cancellations - the end-time counts as activity).
You manually mark the printer active again from the inactivity manager.

If 28 days go by with none of the above, the printer is automatically flipped to "inactive" for billing purposes and starts accruing credit from that day forward. The moment any of those events happen again, it counts as active and the credit stops accruing.

You don't need to do anything to opt in. The check runs in the background.

For printers that were already idle when fair billing went live on May 21st, 2026, the inactive clock starts at launch - not at their historical last print. We don't credit retroactively for idle time before launch, but those printers will start accruing as soon as they pass their first 28-day mark under fair billing (or sooner, if you mark them inactive manually).

How the credit is calculated

The credit is pro-rated to the second across your billing period. You're not credited the full slot price for the whole month if a printer only sat idle for the last week.

In plain terms:

We measure how many seconds each paid slot was unused during your billing period.
That time is converted into a fraction of the period (for example, a slot that was unused for 10 days out of a 30-day month gets one-third of a slot's worth of credit).
The credit is calculated against what that slot actually costs on your plan and currency, including your yearly discount if you pay annually.

The credit is capped at what you actually paid for those slots during the period. We'll never credit more than was billed, even if list prices have changed since.

It's also capped at the renewal invoice itself. Credit can bring your next renewal down to $0, but never below. We don't pay out cash, and any unused credit doesn't roll over to the renewal after that - so if you accrued a large credit and then shrunk your subscription to something much cheaper for renewal, the excess simply isn't carried forward.

If your slot count changed mid-period (you added or removed printer or user slots), the math handles each segment separately so the credit reflects exactly what you paid for, when.

Where to see your projected credit

The projected credit doesn't reduce what you owe this period, and it doesn't apply to mid-period invoices like add-on purchases or upgrades. It's applied once, on your next subscription renewal.

Open Settings > Subscription in the panel. At the bottom of your subscription cost breakdown you'll see one or two extra rows:

Projected inactive printer credit
Projected empty user-slot credit

Each row shows the projected credit at renewal in green, with the amount accrued so far noted underneath (with a reminder that it may change before renewal). The headline price at the top of the page also gets an "excl. projected credit" note so you know the credit isn't already baked into the figure shown.

Subscription cost breakdown with the projected inactive printer credit row at the bottom

If you have no credit accruing yet, you'll still see a row labelled Projected inactive printer credit showing $0 with a hint to click it - that's your shortcut to the printer inactivity manager. If no rows appear at all, your account either isn't eligible or simply has no projected credit right now.

On the renewal invoice itself, these lines come through as Fair billing credit for inactive extra printer slots and Fair billing credit for empty extra user slots - same credit, just the finalized wording.

Manually marking a printer inactive

Once you mark a printer active again, you can't mark it inactive a second time for 28 days. This stops accounts from toggling printers off and on repeatedly to squeeze out extra credit. The window shows the date when it'll be available again.

Don't want to wait 28 days? You can manually flag a printer as inactive yourself.

Go to Settings > Subscription.
In the subscription cost breakdown, click the Projected inactive printer credit row. The "Printer billing inactivity" window opens.
Find the printer in the list and click Mark inactive.

Printer billing inactivity window with the list of printers and Mark inactive buttons

The window lists every printer on your account, grouped the same way as on your printers page. You can search by name or model, and use the All / Counted inactive / Active tabs at the top to filter the list. Already-inactive printers float to the top of each group so they're easy to spot.

Each row shows the printer's current state and the reason behind it (for example, "Active (initial state)", "No print started in 28 days", or "Manually marked inactive"). Click Mark inactive to flag it, or Mark active to bring it back into the count.

A printer marked inactive immediately stops counting as a paid active printer, and credit starts accruing from that moment.

Printers already auto-marked inactive by the 28-day idle rule don't need to be manually toggled. They're already credited.

Mid-period upgrades still pro-rate as before

Fair billing doesn't change how mid-period upgrades work. If you add an extra printer slot or upgrade your plan halfway through a billing period, you only pay for the portion of the period you'll actually use it - so an extra slot bought exactly halfway through your subscription period costs roughly 50% of its full price.

The two systems work together: a slot you bought mid-period is pro-rated on purchase, and if it ends up sitting unused later in the period, fair billing will also credit you for the idle time.

When fair billing doesn't apply

Fair billing is on by default for every paid SimplyPrint account. The only exceptions are:

Free plan accounts - there are no paid slots to credit in the first place.
Partner-managed accounts - your subscription is billed through a partner rather than directly by SimplyPrint, so the credit can't be applied to your invoice.
Custom-priced contracts that have opted out - a small number of negotiated contracts exclude fair billing as part of the agreement.

If your account falls under one of these, the projected credit rows won't show up in your subscription breakdown.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as activity for the 28-day timer?

Any print job queued, started, or finished on the printer through SimplyPrint. Manually marking the printer active also counts. The most recent of those events is what the 28 days are measured against.

Does cancelling a print reset the timer?

Yes. The cancellation gives the print job an end time, which counts as activity. The point of the 28-day check is "is anyone using this printer", not "is anyone printing successfully".

What if I delete a printer mid-period?

Deleted printers no longer count as occupying a paid slot from the date of deletion onward. That time is credited automatically.

One of my printers has been idle for months - do I get credit for all that idle time?

No. Fair billing went live on May 21st, 2026, and the inactive clock starts at launch for printers that were already idle then. We don't credit retroactively for idle time before launch. From May 21st forward, the normal rules apply: hit 28 days idle (or mark the printer inactive yourself) and credit starts accruing from that moment.

My printer has been offline for repair - will I get credit for that time?

Yes. Once it's been 28 days since the last print, it's marked inactive and credit starts. You can also mark it inactive immediately yourself if you don't want to wait.

When does the credit actually appear on my invoice?

On your next subscription renewal invoice, as a negative line item. The figure shown in the panel before then is a projection. Mid-period invoices (add-on purchases, plan upgrades) aren't reduced by fair billing credit - it's only ever applied to the renewal.

What if my accrued credit is larger than my renewal cost?

The credit can take your renewal down to $0, but never below. We don't pay out the difference, and any leftover credit doesn't carry over to the renewal after that. It's a one-time reduction on a single renewal invoice.

Can I see exactly how the credit was calculated?

The figures in Settings > Subscription show what's accrued so far and what's projected. After renewal, the credit appears as a line on your invoice with the exact amount applied.

Updated on: 21/05/2026

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