This article explains exactly what happens to a service that is not paid for, and at what point data is lost. Please read it before an invoice becomes overdue rather than after.
Suspension
Invoices are issued in advance of the service period. If an invoice passes its due date we send reminders. If it remains unpaid, the service is suspended. A suspended website stops loading and email stops being delivered, but nothing has been deleted at this stage and the service can be restored once payment is received.
Deletion after 2 months
The timeline is automatic: a service is suspended a few days after the invoice due date, and if it is still unpaid roughly two months later the account is deleted.
If an account remains unpaid for approximately 2 months, it is permanently deleted.
This means everything associated with the account is removed, including:
- All website files
- All databases
- All email accounts and the mail stored in them
- All settings and configuration
We do not keep backups of deleted accounts. Once an account has been deleted the data is gone and cannot be recovered by us, by you, or by anyone else. There is no grace period after deletion and no fee that will bring it back. Paying afterwards does not restore the data - it only lets you start again from empty.
What this means for you
The only protection against this is your own backup. Server backups exist for our own disaster recovery and are not a personal archive you can rely on, and they do not survive an account being deleted. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose, stored somewhere other than our servers. See our article on backing up your website.
Other services on the same account
If you hold more than one service with us, an unpaid invoice on one can affect the others. Related services may be suspended alongside it, so an unpaid invoice for one small item can take a more important site offline. If you are paying selectively, check which services the invoice actually covers.
If you are struggling to pay
Talk to us before the account reaches this point. Contact our Billing department at billing@zeta.co.za or open a ticket. We would far rather arrange something with you than delete a customer account. Once that period has passed and deletion has happened, there is nothing we can do.
Domains follow separate registry rules and can expire and be lost independently of hosting, so a domain may need attention even sooner.
