Predictable pricing: why we hard-cap instead of letting the bill surprise you
Notavia pauses sends at your plan limit with an HTTP 402 rather than letting usage run unchecked. Here is why, and how overage blocks work if you need them.
Notification pricing across the industry has a dirty secret: the pricing page looks affordable, and then the month-end invoice does not. You built a feature that went viral, your send volume spiked, and you received a five-figure bill for a service you pay for in fractions of a cent per message.
We designed Notavia's pricing to prevent that outcome, and the mechanism is simple enough to explain in one sentence: when you hit your plan's send cap, Notavia stops accepting new send requests with an HTTP 402 until the 1st of the next month — or until you add an overage block.
Why a hard cap
The alternative is what most services do: a soft cap with automatic overage billing. The logic sounds reasonable — you wanted to send those messages, we sent them, we charged you. The problem is that in practice, soft caps create a category of incident that has nothing to do with business growth.
A misconfigured retry loop, a template bug that duplicates sends, a feature launch that got more traffic than expected: all of these can produce send spikes that were not intentional and are not reflected in the revenue the spike was supposed to generate. By the time the bill arrives, the damage is done.
A hard cap means that unexpected spikes stop and further sends return an HTTP 402. You investigate and fix the problem before costs compound. For most teams, that is the right default. Note that the cap is enforced on the API response — it does not currently raise a separate alert, so watch for the 402 in your own error handling.
Overage blocks for planned growth
The hard cap is the default, but it is not mandatory. If you know a campaign is going to push you over your monthly limit, or if you are in a growth period and want headroom, you can pre-purchase overage blocks.
An overage block is a fixed unit of additional sends, purchased in advance and consumed in order before the hard cap kicks in. It shows up on your invoice as a discrete line item, billed through Paddle as part of your existing subscription. You can add multiple blocks.
When your plan sends are exhausted, Notavia draws down your overage blocks. When those are exhausted, the hard cap applies again. No surprises.
The free tier
The free plan covers 1,000 sends per month with no time limit and no card required. It is not a trial — it is a permanent tier intended for side projects, local development, and early product testing.
All four channels (email, in-app, SMS, chat) are available on the free tier. The same API, the same template system, the same delivery log. The only limits are the send cap and single-workspace access.
Paddle as Merchant of Record
Notavia billing runs through Paddle. Paddle acts as the Merchant of Record for all transactions, which means they handle VAT and sales tax collection and remittance in every jurisdiction where that applies. You receive a clean, tax-compliant invoice from Paddle — not a raw usage export to hand to your accountant.
For EU customers in particular, this means you do not need to worry about whether the correct VAT rate was applied or whether the invoice qualifies for input tax recovery. Paddle handles that. You pay the number on the pricing page.
What this means in practice
The predictable outcome of this design is that your Notavia invoice matches what you expected when you signed up for the plan. The cap protects you from surprises on the high side. The overage blocks give you a planned, visible path to higher volume when the business needs it. And the free tier means you can build, test, and demo on real infrastructure without a billing conversation.
We think notification pricing should work like a utility bill: you know the rate, you know the cap, you know what you will pay.