💳 Understand Your Search Atlas Bill

🧾 Why Your Total Charge May Be Higher Than Expected

If your bill looks significantly higher than your base plan price, it is almost always the result of add-ons purchased separately from your core subscription. Your Search Atlas account can include several independent billing items:

• Base plan – your monthly or annual subscription (e.g. the $99 Starter plan)
• Additional AI credits – purchased on top of the credits included in your plan
• Extra OTTO SEO slots – each activated OTTO slot is billed separately beyond your plan's included slots
• Other add-ons – such as additional projects, users, or data exports

All of these line items are billed together on the same invoice, which is why a $99 plan can result in a total charge that is significantly higher. To review every item on your bill, go to account menu (person icon, top-right) → Billing → Invoices and expand your most recent invoice.

🤖 Why Am I Being Charged for AI Credits I Already Paid For?

Seeing a separate AI credits charge does not mean you were billed twice for the same credits. There are two distinct ways AI credits appear on your account:

• Included credits – a set number of AI credits that come bundled with your plan and reset each billing cycle
• Purchased credits – additional credits you or someone on your team bought manually, or that were triggered by an automatic top-up setting

If an account admin has turned on Automatic top-up, the platform automatically purchases more credits when your balance drops below the threshold you set. This generates a new charge even if you recently paid for credits. To check or turn it off, an account admin can open the Automatic top-up card in account menu (person icon, top-right) → Billing.

If you believe a credit charge was applied in error and you did not receive the corresponding credits, please contact our support team using the instructions at the bottom of this article.

📍 What Are OTTO SEO Slots and Why Do They Cost Extra?

OTTO SEO is Search Atlas's AI-powered on-page automation tool, accessible from the left sidebar under OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation). Each website you activate OTTO on consumes one OTTO slot. Your plan includes a fixed number of slots, and any slots you add beyond that limit are billed as add-ons.

Common reasons customers see unexpected OTTO charges include:

• Activating OTTO on multiple domains without realising each one uses a slot
• Previously adding extra slots and forgetting they remain active on the next billing cycle
• A team member activating OTTO on additional sites

To see how many OTTO slots are active on your account, navigate to OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation) in the left sidebar and review the list of activated sites.

❌ How to Cancel Extra OTTO Slots

Releasing an OTTO slot and cancelling the recurring OTTO top-up charge are two separate actions. You need to do both to stop being billed.

1. In the left sidebar, go to OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation), locate the site, click the three-dot menu (⋯), and remove/deactivate the project to release the slot.
2. Click your Profile avatar → Billing → Services.
3. Find the OTTO top-up (add-on) subscription, click its ⋮ menu, and select Cancel.

Important: Simply deleting or deactivating an OTTO project does not cancel the recurring top-up charge — the top-up is a customer-level billing subscription that keeps billing until it is cancelled separately. Deep Freeze also does not cancel the top-up. The top-up will, however, be cancelled automatically if your main plan's cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period. Charges already processed for the current billing cycle are non-refundable under standard policy, but if you believe a charge was made in error, our team can review it.

✅ How to Audit Your Full Bill in Under Two Minutes

1. Go to account menu (person icon, top-right) → Billing → Invoices.
2. Click the most recent invoice to expand the line items.
3. Identify each charge: base plan, AI credit packs, and OTTO slot add-ons.
4. Cross-reference the AI credits total against account menu (person icon, top-right) → Billing → Plans & Top-ups to verify your purchase history.
5. Cross-reference OTTO slots against the active sites listed under OTTO SEO → All Sites (SEO Automation) in the left sidebar.

This audit will account for every dollar on your invoice. If any line item still appears unexplained after completing these steps, reach out to our support team.

💬 Still Have Questions About Your Charges?

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.