Billing & the Shop

Everything paid runs through the shop on the dashboard. Checkout happens on a secure hosted payment page where you choose card or PayPal, so the bot never sees your card details and never stores them.

Premium

HepBoat itself is free to invite. Premium is the paid tier on top: it unlocks the full feature set - anything your server doesn't have shows a lock banner in the dashboard saying exactly what it needs - and is sold in 30-day blocks per server. Sign in to the shop with Discord, pick your server, and buy. The features unlock the moment payment completes, no waiting on anyone.

Nothing in the shop ever sets up a recurring charge, whichever payment method you pick. You buy a block, the time counts down, and that's it. Whenever you like - long before the time runs out, or right at the end - press Add 30 days, pay for another block, and it stacks on top of whatever time you have left. Nothing is stored to charge you later, so every payment is one you chose to make at the moment you made it.

Some instances of the bot are invite-only rather than free to add: there, the same purchase is also your server's access, and your server may need to be approved before you can buy. Approval alone doesn't activate the bot - the purchase does. An approved server can invite the bot before paying: it joins, stays paused, and the owner gets a DM with the terms - you have 7 days to complete the purchase, and it activates the moment payment clears. If the week passes without a purchase the bot leaves; nothing is deleted, and you can re-invite it after buying at any time. The same 7-day window applies when paid time runs out later: the bot pauses in place, DMs the owner, and leaves only if the week passes without a renewal.

A few promises worth writing down:

• Running out downgrades, never deletes. When the paid time runs out, Premium features pause but the bot keeps working with the free feature set. Your config, mod-log history, infractions, and levels are all kept, and everything picks up where it left off the moment you add time again. On an invite-only instance, where the purchase is also the server's access, the bot instead goes quiet in your server and DMs the owner: you have 7 days to renew before it leaves. Either way nothing is deleted, and re-inviting after a purchase picks up right where you left off.
• Time stacks. Topping up never wastes a day: a new 30-day block is added to the end of the time you already have. You can see exactly how much time is left on the shop page and on your server's overview page.
• You are only charged when you say so. A purchase is one block, one charge. No payment details are kept on file, nothing is ever charged automatically, and there is nothing to cancel - time you bought simply runs out unless you add more.
• Purchases can move. Use "Move to another server" in the shop to re-point a server purchase at a different server. Nothing is copied - the old server keeps its config and history but goes inactive, the new server gains the access or Premium, and your billing and remaining time carry over unchanged. A few rules apply: one move per purchase every 7 days, you need to be a dashboard admin on the server you are moving to, that server cannot already have its own active paid period, and a Premium purchase can only move to a server the bot is already in.

White-label instances

The shop can also set up a fully separate instance of the bot for your community: your bot's name and avatar in the member list, your own dashboard subdomain, and your own server allowlist. You provide a bot token from the Discord Developer Portal; it is verified with Discord, stored encrypted, and never shown again. Provisioning takes about a minute and the shop shows you every step as it happens.

Instance purchases work the same way as server access: 30-day blocks, paid by card or PayPal, topped up any time with the time stacking. When the paid time runs out the instance is paused, its servers and data are kept, and it comes back the moment you add time. "My Instance" shows how long your instance is paid through.

Once your instance exists, "My Instance" in the dashboard is its home: live bot status, your invite link, the Discord application setup guide (your bot needs the Server Members and Message Content intents enabled in the Developer Portal), your branding and control settings, bot token rotation, and the server whitelist. You manage all of it yourself - no need to ask the operator for day-to-day changes.

The status there is about the Discord connection, not just the process, so it only reads online once your bot has actually connected and can be used. If Discord is refusing the connection, the page shows you the reason it gave and what to do about it. Missing privileged intents is by far the most common one on a new application: Discord rejects the connection outright, your bot appears offline in Discord no matter how many times it is started, and the fix is the two intent switches above. Enable them, then use Restart bot on that page, because a refusal like that does not clear on its own.

Existing servers

Servers that were activated before the shop existed stay exactly as they are - their access is permanent and nothing about billing applies to it retroactively. New premium features are the one exception: those sit behind Premium for everyone, and a grandfathered server that wants them buys time like any other - the purchase only ever adds Premium on top, it can never touch the server's permanent access.