🔍 Overview

Your Growth plan includes a set number of OTTO sites as part of your base subscription. However, some customers have reported unexpected charges for additional OTTO site top-ups that they did not knowingly approve. This article explains the most common causes of these charges and the steps you can take to resolve them.

📋 What Is an OTTO Site Top-Up?

An OTTO site top-up is an add-on that becomes available when you reach your plan's OTTO site limit. At the limit, adding a new OTTO site is blocked and you are prompted to purchase additional OTTO site slots. The top-up must be explicitly purchased by the customer at checkout (or provisioned by an admin); once purchased, it is a recurring monthly add-on that renews automatically each billing cycle until you cancel it or cancel the main plan.

⚠️ Common Reasons for Unexpected Charges

• Duplicate billing events: A known issue caused some accounts to be charged twice for the same OTTO top-up in a single billing cycle.
• Legacy billing migration errors: Customers moved from older pricing tiers occasionally had incorrect per-site rates applied or extra top-up units added to their account.
• Top-up not cancelled after site removal: Deleting an OTTO site project releases its slot but does not cancel the recurring OTTO top-up charge. The top-up is a customer-level billing subscription that keeps billing until it is cancelled separately (Profile avatar → Billing → Services → ⋮ menu on the top-up → Cancel), or until the main plan's cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period, which cancels its top-ups automatically. Deep Freeze also does not cancel the top-up.
• Incorrect quota count: The system may have counted additional OTTO site slots beyond what was actually in use, resulting in top-up charges that did not reflect real usage.
• Recurring erroneous charges: A small number of accounts experienced a repeating top-up charge each month even after a refund was issued for the previous cycle.

🛠️ How to Check Your OTTO Sites Usage

1. Log in to your Search Atlas account.
2. In the left sidebar, click OTTO SEO → SEO Automation to open the OTTO dashboard (/seo-automation-v3).
3. Review the list of active OTTO sites and confirm whether each site listed is one you intentionally activated.
4. If you see sites listed as active that you have already removed or never set up, note their names and the dates they appear to have been activated — you will need this information when contacting support.

💡 What to Do If You Were Charged Incorrectly

1. Check your billing history: Go to your account's billing section and identify the charge dates, amounts, and descriptions for the top-up fees in question.
2. Compare against your plan: Confirm how many OTTO sites are included in your current plan (Growth plan customers typically receive 2 OTTO sites at no extra cost).
3. Document the discrepancy: Note the number of extra sites you were charged for, the per-site rate applied, and whether the same charge repeated across multiple billing cycles.
4. Contact support via live chat: Open the chat widget and share your findings with our team. The more detail you provide upfront, the faster we can investigate and process a refund if one is owed.

💰 Refund Eligibility

If our team confirms that you were charged for OTTO site top-ups that were not approved, triggered by a system error, or caused by a deactivated site still being counted as active, you are eligible for a full refund of those charges. Refunds for verified billing errors are processed promptly. If the same erroneous charge recurred over multiple months, each affected billing cycle will be reviewed individually.

🔒 Preventing Future Unexpected Charges

• Regularly review your active OTTO sites in the OTTO SEO → SEO Automation dashboard to ensure only intended sites are listed as active.
• When removing an OTTO site, remember that deletion releases the slot but does not cancel the recurring top-up — cancel the top-up separately via Profile avatar → Billing → Services → ⋮ menu on the top-up → Cancel.
• After any plan change or billing cycle, check your invoice to verify that the OTTO site count and per-site rate match your expectations.
• If you notice a charge you do not recognise, contact support immediately rather than waiting for the next billing cycle, as this reduces the chance of the charge repeating.

🆘 Need Help?

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.