🔍 Overview
Each Search Atlas plan includes a set number of OTTO sites. If you need more sites than your plan allows, you can purchase additional quota at a fixed rate per site. However, a known billing issue has caused some customers — particularly on Agency and legacy plans — to be charged incorrectly when upgrading their OTTO site quota. This article explains how pricing should work, how to identify an overcharge, and what steps to take to get a refund.
📊 How OTTO Site Quota Pricing Works
Your plan includes a base number of OTTO sites at no extra cost. Additional sites beyond that base are available as paid add-ons, billed at a flat rate per site per month.
- Agency Plan ($999/month): Includes 10 OTTO sites.
- Extra OTTO sites: Each additional site should be charged at approximately $60/month per site.
- Example: If you are on the Agency plan and activate 19 OTTO sites, you should pay $999 (plan) + $540 (9 extra sites × $60) = ~$1,539/month total — not $2,200 or more.
If your invoice shows a significantly higher amount than this calculation, you may have been affected by a billing error.
⚠️ Known Billing Issues
Search Atlas has identified and resolved several billing bugs that affected OTTO site quota charges. These include:
- Incorrect OTTO site pricing: Some accounts were charged a higher per-site rate than the correct $60/site add-on price.
- Duplicate billing events: A bug caused some quota upgrades to trigger more than one charge for the same sites.
- Quota lost on plan changes: Customers who changed plans sometimes had their previously purchased top-up quota removed, then were charged again to restore it.
- Deactivated sites still billing: In some cases, OTTO sites that were removed continued to generate charges.
These issues have been resolved in recent platform updates, but if your billing occurred before the fixes were deployed, you may be owed a refund.
🛠️ How to Check Your OTTO Site Charges
- Log in to Search Atlas and go to your Billing section from the top-right corner (avatar).
- Review your most recent invoice and look for line items related to OTTO sites or OTTO SEO quota.
- Count the number of OTTO sites currently active on your account. You can view these by navigating to OTTO SEO (OTTO SEO Projects) in the left sidebar.
- Use the formula: (Active sites − Plan base) × $60 = Expected extra charge. Add this to your base plan cost to get the expected total.
- If the amount on your invoice is higher than your calculation, you have likely been overcharged.
💡 Why You May Not Be Able to Upgrade Your Site Quota
Some customers have reported that the self-service quota upgrade flow in the platform does not complete correctly — the system appears to accept the upgrade but does not apply it, or it fails silently. This is a known issue tied to the same quota and billing bugs listed above. Do not attempt the upgrade multiple times, as repeated attempts may trigger duplicate charges. Instead, contact support directly so the team can apply the quota change manually and verify your billing is correct.
💰 How to Request a Refund
If you believe you have been overcharged for OTTO site quota, our support team can investigate your billing history and issue a refund for any confirmed errors. To get this resolved as quickly as possible:
- Open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform.
- Type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.
- Share the following information: your account email, the billing period(s) affected, the number of OTTO sites you had active, and the charges you believe are incorrect.
- Our team will review your invoices, confirm any overcharge, and process a refund to your original payment method.
Refund timelines vary depending on your payment provider, but our team will keep you updated throughout the process.
✅ Summary
- Agency plan includes 10 OTTO sites; extra sites cost ~$60/month each.
- Known billing bugs caused overcharges, duplicate billing, and quota loss on plan changes — these have been patched.
- If your charges look higher than expected, do not retry the upgrade flow — contact support instead.
- Our team can manually apply quota changes and issue refunds for confirmed billing errors.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.