# Membership

Every organization holds a **membership level**: Public, Pro, Max, Ultra
or Steward, in that order. The level decides what the organization's
membership includes: Marshall usage and workspace size per member, Base
Load capacity, new managed clusters, the shared volume and CPU node
allowances at the site, request budgets and support. Public is free and
automatic. Pro, Max and Ultra
are reached by paid spend in a month, a paid credit balance held, or a
membership fee. Steward is by invitation only. An organization created
before membership launched keeps the access it had then at every level:
see [grandfathered organizations](#grandfathered-organizations).

The figures behind every level (what each path takes, how much each
benefit includes) are your organization's own and live in the console,
not on this page: [where the figures are](#where-the-figures-are).

## Levels

| Level | How an organization reaches it |
| :-- | :-- |
| Public | every organization, automatically and free |
| Pro | [paid spend](#paid-spend) in a month, a [paid balance](#paid-balance) held, or a [membership fee](#membership-fee), each at Pro's figure; or a grant |
| Max | the same paths at Max's figures, or a grant |
| Ultra | the same paths at Ultra's figures, or a grant |
| Steward | invitation only; no spend, balance or fee reaches it, and it cannot be bought |

An organization holds the highest level any path gives it. The paths do
not add up: spend short of a level's figure and a balance short of its
figure reach nothing together, however close each is.

A [Public Research](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/public-research.md) organization holds Pro
(currently) for as long as it is one. National Compute can also grant a
level, permanently or until a date; a granted level ends on that date
and never [soft-lands](#hold-and-soft-landing). When a Steward term
ends, the organization holds Ultra for one more calendar month; a
Steward level revoked for cause has no such month.

## Paid spend

Spend in a calendar month (UTC) is the larger of the organization's paid
deposits that month and its paid consumption that month. A level reached
by spend applies the moment the month's spend reaches the level's
figure, not at the month's end.

- **Paid deposits** are payments: card, wire, ACH and check, an invoice
  paid by wire included. A payment counts in full in the month it lands,
  also when part of it paid [debt](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/credits.md#payments) first.
- **Paid consumption** is usage paid from credits that came from a
  payment, locked credits included, plus usage drawn on an
  [advance](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/credits.md#advances).

[What counts as paid](#what-counts-as-paid) lists what does not.

## Paid balance

The paid balance is the organization's Standard and Restricted credits
that came from payments, locked credits included, less its
[debt](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/credits.md#debt-and-unpaid). Each UTC day counts the lower of its
opening and closing paid balance, never below zero. The balance path
reaches a level in three ways:

- **The month's average**: the days' values summed over the month and
  divided by its days, at or above the level's figure.
- **The running floor**: the same sum so far, divided by all the days of
  the month. It only rises, so the level applies the day it crosses the
  figure.
- **A streak**: 7 consecutive completed days (currently) above the
  figure apply the level at once. A streak may span a month boundary.

## Membership fee

A membership fee buys Pro, Max or Ultra directly, monthly or yearly. Any
member of your organization buys, changes or cancels it on the console's
Compare page: a card pays through a Stripe-hosted checkout, and Max and
Ultra can be invoiced instead, due in 30 days. There is no fee verb on
the token API or the MCP server; a person buys a level.

- The fee is a subscription, not credits: it adds no credits, is never
  paid from credits, writes no ledger row and never counts as spend
  ([billing](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/billing.md#membership-fee)).
- The fee includes a set number of members. Each member beyond them
  adds a per-member fee, prorated as members join and leave, so every
  member gets the level's per-member allowances.
- An upgrade applies once its prorated charge is paid. A downgrade, or
  a switch between monthly and yearly, applies at the end of the paid
  period. One change at a time: an upgrade that also switches between
  monthly and yearly is refused.
- A cancelled fee keeps the level to the end of the paid period.
- A renewal not yet paid keeps the level for 7 days (currently) past
  the period's end, plus the 30 days to pay when the fee is invoiced. A
  cancelled fee gets no such days. A full refund or a lost dispute ends
  the paid period at once; a partial refund does not.
- A bought level ends with its paid period. It never soft-lands.
- An organization holds one fee at a time: a second purchase is refused
  while one is live, so change the level instead. An organization on a
  reserved arrangement arranges its level with its account team.

## Hold and soft landing

A level earned by spend or balance holds through the end of the next
calendar month, then steps down at most one level per month. Each month
starts at the higher of the level the previous month's spend and balance
reached, and one level below where the previous month ended. Qualifying
again at any point in a month restores the level at once.

Ultra earned once, with no paid spend or balance after it:

| Month | Level |
| :-- | :-- |
| the month Ultra is earned | Ultra |
| the next month | Ultra, held |
| the month after | Max |
| the month after that | Pro |
| every month after | Public |

Only an earned level soft-lands. A bought level ends with its paid
period and a granted level on its end date; the organization then holds
whatever its other paths give it. The summary's
[`next_level`](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/billing.md#membership) and `next_level_at` name the
next scheduled change.

## Notices

The Billing page shows a notice, and every member with an email address
gets the same text by email:

| When | Notice | `kind` |
| :-- | :-- | :-- |
| an earned level steps down at the coming month boundary | from 7 days (currently) before the boundary, until it passes or the level is earned again | `soft_landing` |
| a granted level, Steward, or the Ultra month after Steward ends | from 30 days (currently) before it ends | `grant_expiring` |
| a grace period that lets an organization created after launch keep a capability below the level it needs ends; only once a requirement with grace periods is in force | from 30 days (currently) before it ends | `exemption_ending` |
| the level rises, except when a Public Research organization takes Pro | email only | none |
| a refund or reversal lowers a level already set | email only | none |

The summary's [`notices`](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/billing.md#membership) carries the same
notices for an agent.

## What counts as paid

| Money | Counts as paid |
| :-- | :-- |
| A payment: card, wire, ACH or check | yes |
| Usage paid from credits that came from a payment | yes |
| Usage drawn on an advance | yes |
| [Promo credits](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/credits.md#promo-credits) (sign-up credits, feedback rewards, data-sharing credits, promotions) and the usage they pay | no |
| A [credit back](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/credits.md#corrections) and the usage it pays | no |
| Standard credits National Compute grants, and the usage they pay | no |
| Unpaid usage | no |
| The membership fee | no |

A [deposit reversal](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/billing.md#deposit-reversals) or a
[Void](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/credits.md#corrections) of a payment counts against the month the
payment landed in, whenever it is booked; a dispute that ends with the
funds returned counts back in that month too. When that month already
set the level, the level is recomputed from that month forward and can
drop.

## What each level includes

Some level requirements and benefits apply only once we turn them on:
a new managed cluster needs Max, buying Base Load capacity needs Pro
and a managed cluster to run on, and Max and Ultra workspaces are
larger. The requirements bind organizations created after membership
launched, and the table shows them that way: a
[grandfathered organization](#grandfathered-organizations),
one created before launch, has Base Load capacity and new managed
clusters at every level. A requirement applies the moment it is turned
on, or at the end of a grace period where it has one
([notices](#notices)), and a change to an allowance the moment it is
made; advance notice of either is not guaranteed. Every cluster your
organization already has keeps full access at any level.

| | Public | Pro | Max | Ultra | Steward |
| :-- | :-- | :-- | :-- | :-- | :-- |
| [Burst capacity](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/market.md) | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| [Base Load capacity](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/market.md#base-load-capacity), under its [SLA](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/sla.md) | no | on your existing managed clusters | yes | yes | yes, with first access to new capacity |
| Managed compute | your existing clusters | your existing clusters | yes, new clusters too | yes | yes |
| Marshall usage per member, every week | included | included | more | unlimited (fair use) | unlimited (fair use) |
| Marshall workspace size | included | included | larger | larger | as Ultra |
| Resource monitoring and Grafana | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Shared volumes at the site | on request | on request | on request, an allowance included | on request, included, grows with your spend | as Ultra |
| CPU nodes at the site | on request, billed as used | on request, billed as used | on request, billed as used | on request, included, grows with your spend | as Ultra |
| Request budgets and the default max cluster size | default | default | higher | higher | higher |
| Support | email | email | priority email | enterprise, with a support SLA | custom, with solutions engineering |

- **Managed compute** is compute the platform operates for you: node
  health checks, automatic remediation, security patches, and the
  scheduling products on top. **Unmanaged compute** is GPU nodes handed
  to you whole; what runs on them is yours to operate. Every level
  includes unmanaged compute. A new managed cluster needs Max, once that
  requirement is on, unless your organization is grandfathered; a
  managed cluster your organization already has keeps everything it has
  at any level, including after a later change of level.
- **Base Load capacity** runs on a managed cluster your organization
  has, and a new managed cluster needs Max, so an organization without
  one gets Base Load with Max. On a managed cluster your organization
  already has, Pro is enough. Every level of a grandfathered
  organization includes it, and it carries the same
  [Base Load Capacity SLA](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/sla.md) wherever it is included. The
  summary's [`reserved_capacity`](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/billing.md#membership) says
  whether your organization can buy it now, and `reserved_required`
  names the level it needs when it cannot. The
  [Base Load book](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/k8s-cluster.md#the-base-load-book)'s
  `checkout_open` says whether self-serve buying is open where the
  cluster runs.
- **Marshall usage** is model usage per member per week, the week
  starting Monday 00:00 UTC. Usage beyond the level's allowance is
  [charged](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/billing.md#marshall-model-usage). Unlimited means up to a
  fair-use ceiling per member per week; usage beyond it is charged the
  same way.
- **Marshall workspaces**: one workspace per member at every level; the
  size grows at Max and Ultra, once that is on.
- **Shared volumes and CPU nodes at the site** are added on request at
  every level; the level sets the allowance that is not billed. Ultra's
  included amounts follow the previous month's paid spend.
- **Request budgets**: at Max and above, the token API and MCP request
  budgets are twice the [default](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/index.md#rate-limits) (currently;
  the summary's `rate_multiplier`), and a Kubernetes cluster's
  [max cluster size](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/kubernetes.md#the-max-cluster-size) defaults
  larger; a size the platform set for the cluster stays as set. A
  cluster keeps the larger default size it had after a later change of
  level, for as long as it stays in your organization; a new cluster
  gets its level's default.
- **Support**: the support SLA is separate from the Base Load Capacity
  SLA; its terms come from your account team.

A level never tears down what an organization already runs: clusters,
volumes and nodes in place stay in place.

## Grandfathered organizations

Organizations created before membership launched keep the access they
had then, at every level, for good: their clusters (new managed
clusters included), Base Load, shared volumes, CPU nodes and
workspaces. Benefits that grow with a level still follow the level:
the weekly Marshall allowance, the higher request budgets and default
max cluster size, and the included shared volume and CPU node
allowances. A change to a level's allowance, the Public Marshall
allowance included, applies to them too. First access to new capacity
stays Steward's.

An organization created after launch follows the level requirements.
National Compute can end one organization's grandfathering for abuse;
that organization then follows them too. A grandfathered
organization's Billing page says so, and the billing summary's
[`grandfathered`](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/billing.md#membership) reads `true`.

## Resource monitoring and Grafana

Every level includes resource monitoring and the organization's own
Grafana, readable by every member and embedded in each cluster's
Monitoring tab in the console. Managed compute's dashboards read GPU and
host telemetry from every node. Unmanaged compute has the **Your nodes**
dashboard: each node's allocation state (active, provisioning or
reclaiming), when it was granted and how long it has been held, and the
cluster's declared and pending nodes. The platform sees nothing inside
an unmanaged node, so telemetry from inside it is not on the board.

An agent reads the same series with
[`metrics_query`](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/metrics.md#free-form-queries-metrics_query) and
lists the dashboards with [`dashboard_read`](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/dashboards.md).

## Where the figures are

Each path's figure for each level and each benefit's amount are shown
to your organization in the console and on the wire, never here:

- The console's **Billing** page shows the level, the path that gives
  it, the month's progress on each path, the date the level holds
  through, and any scheduled step down. The level also shows beside
  your organization's name.
- The **Compare** page (`/org/<organization>/billing/membership`) lists
  all five levels with your organization's figures, the paths to each,
  and the membership fee's buy, change and cancel actions.
- The [billing summary](https://docs.nationalcompute.com/api/billing.md#membership)
  (`GET /api/billing/summary`) and the MCP server's `billing_read`
  summary view carry the same as `membership`.