This post is the last post of a series of blog posts on the Best and Cheapest Oracle APEX hosting: Free Oracle Cloud.
Today I got an email that my Oracle Cloud account was Expired. While I have an Always FREE Oracle Cloud, when I signed up I also got some extra credits that lasted for a month. Those credits are no longer valid.
When you log in to your Oracle Cloud Dashboard you will get a notification on top too, but nothing to worry about.
It has some consequences tho, on the menu, some options are grayed out. The one I actually use is the Email Delivery, which seems to be grayed out too although normally you should be able to send 1,000 emails per month. So maybe grayed out also means, not full service.
When I checked it out, it said it's part of the paid plan. I remember some discussions at Oracle Open World where they recommend upgrading to a Paid account, but as you only use the Always FREE services, you are not charged.
So I decided to upgrade to a Paid account: Pay As You Go:
You have to provide a Credit Card, but that was a bit of an issue for me. Apparently, Safari is not really working well with this screen, so I switched to Chrome. The next hick-up I had was when I added my AMEX card... it said it was an invalid card.
Then I used my VISA card and that seemed to work well:
Finally, it will say your payment method will be reviewed and after that you are live.
It wasn't immediately clear for me I had to wait for the confirmation email, but when I went to Payment Method again, I saw the review was still in progress:
And a few minutes later I got the email that my account was upgraded:
When you look at your Oracle Cloud Dashboard, there's a cost calculator, so you see how much you have to pay. As long as I use the Always FREE components, I expect the amount to stay 0 :)
But the nice thing now is that you have access to all of Oracle Cloud again (e.g. Email Delivery).
13 comments:
Can I use a VISA debit card? Or do I need a credit card?
Not sure, give it a try :)
"...I expect the amount to stay 0 :)"
Well it comes with a risk, don't it?
Could this be the first step on an inclined plane?
As long as I don't know that, I'm very suspicious. What's the plan behind such "advices “?
I will stay very critical of people promises from someone I know from is keen to make money, sorry.
And as you know they have my CD data.
I think I will wait for experiences of folks who are more brave (or own more money) than me :-)
Regards
Andre
Hi Andre,
So far for me, it didn't increase my cost yet... still 0 :)
You don't have to provide a credit card either...
Dimitri
Well, it all sounds not good. If Oracle will decide in the future, that some "free" option must cost, then nothing will stop it ))
From my modest viewpoint Oracle XE looks more honest...
We are a month further now, and I'm not charged, so as expected your Always Free services are FREE :)
I would recommend upgrading to a paid account so you have all services. The 1000 free emails are there too, and whenever you need more you will have it without issues.
XE is a good option too, but you would need to host your own instance. With ATP Always Free, everything is there.
And you can always keep the backups somewhere else too, so whenever you don't want to be in the ATP Free Cloud, you move somewhere else.
Dimitri
Dimitri, we all should thank You for Your excellent promotion of ATP )) I guess (and do hope) You are right.
Moreover "Powered by Oracle Cloud" sounds much better, than "Oracle XE on my Notebook" ))
Might be worth adding that you can set a monthly budget, and then also receive email alerts if your spending rises above a %age or $ amount below that. This should catch the case where you misconfigure something and start using paid services, and prevent any billing surprises. Go to Account Management -> Budgets
Hello Dimitri,
I followed your post and I can see the text
"Account Type
You have a Pay-As-You-Go Account. If your situations have changed and you would like to explore custom contract options, schedule a sales call." in Payment Method.
But my "Email Delivery" is grayed out and my (last month working) send email application is not working/not sending emails.
When I select the "Email Delivery" menu I see the purple text on top of the page "To use this service or resource, you must upgrade to a paid account."
I thought with my "Pay-As-You-Go Account" I have the right account.
Any idea?
Carsten
Hi Dimitri,
I am considering to updgrade my Always Free account to an Pay as You Go account, because I also want to use the e-mail function.
When I use the cost estimator, I get a minimum 322 Euro p/month.
Is your Cloud database still free?
best regards,
Servé
Oracle suspended my account for no reason, I used already pay-as-you-go and always paid every month correctly,
when I contacted they only informed that could not be recovered or reactivated, without informing the reason for such action, then is my warning to be careful with this company
I think there are still lots of bugs. This is not as robust as AWS.
At one time, my databases went down by itself within less than 1 hour I started. This happened for days. All of sudden, this is no longer a problem.
I used Oracle Analytical when I have $300 free credit. I clicked upgrade, and within hours I saw that my cost went up for Oracle Analytical. But the database was down after I clicked upgrade. The next day, my cost increased again, and the database was still down.
Now I have to work on these false bills.
Sounds for all of us like: Run you fools ))
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