FAQ
How is Superheat CN related to Superheat Cloud?
Superheat CN is the mainland-China edition of Superheat Cloud and runs entirely in mainland China: the console, the API, sign-in and the database are in Alibaba Cloud's Shanghai region. It is independent of the global edition — accounts, organizations, balances and API keys are not shared, and an account created on the global edition does not sign in to Superheat CN.
What are Superheat CN's addresses?
The console is at console.superheat.cloud, the status page at status.superheat.cloud, this site at docs.superheat.cloud and the API at console-api.superheat.cloud (see API overview), all over HTTPS. superheat.cloud has completed its ICP filing (网站备案); the filing number is in the footer of every page.
How do I pay?
支付宝 (Alipay) top-ups open soon, and 微信支付 (WeChat Pay) follows once the domain moves to HTTPS. Until then you cannot top up online; write to finance@superheat.cloud with any questions.
You top up in yuan by scanning a QR code with 支付宝 or 微信支付; card payments are not supported. Each code is valid for 15 minutes; the balance updates on its own after you pay — never pay the same code twice. The steps are in Add credits.
Can I get a 发票 (fapiao)?
Yes. Before you pay, switch on Request an invoice (fapiao) (开具发票) in the top-up dialog and fill in the invoice title (抬头), the tax ID (纳税人识别号, required for a company) and the e-mail it goes to. The details are saved to the organization for next time. The Superheat CN finance team issues it: finance@superheat.cloud. See Adding credits.
I paid by mistake or want a refund. What do I do?
Refunds are made by hand by the finance team: write to finance@superheat.cloud with the payment method, the amount and when you paid. A refund appears in your transactions as an adjustment. See Status and support.
Can I sign in with a Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan or overseas phone number?
Not yet. Phone sign-in currently accepts mainland China numbers (+86) only; Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan numbers come later. Until then, sign in with an e-mail code. See Sign-in methods.
Where is my data stored?
The console, the API, the sign-in service and the database run in Alibaba Cloud's Shanghai region. An instance's disk lives on the machine you rent, whose region is shown on the offer, and is deleted when you destroy the instance. See Regions.
How am I charged for a GPU?
Per second, at the offer's hourly price, for as long as the instance is running. Provisioning, stopping and teardown are unmetered, so the pull time before your workload comes up costs nothing. Charges settle to your organization's balance about once a minute — see How billing works.
Does a stopped instance still cost money?
Yes. Stopping ends the GPU charge but keeps your disk and your slot on that machine, and the disk bills per GB per hour until the instance is destroyed. A large disk parked for a week can cost more than the GPU hours that filled it. Read Stop vs destroy before you leave anything overnight.
What happens when my balance runs out?
At zero, your running instances are stopped automatically and your disks survive. If the balance then stays at or below zero for 24 hours and reaches −¥35 or lower, stopped instances are destroyed and the disks go with them. Top up before then — the details are in Auto-stop and auto-destroy.
Can I pay later, or by invoice?
No. Superheat CN is prepaid only: you top up in yuan, and instances spend the balance. Packs are ¥50, ¥100 and ¥500, or you can name any amount between ¥20 and ¥10,000. Every top-up can come with a 发票 (Chinese tax invoice) — see "Can I get a 发票 (fapiao)?" above. See Adding credits.
Why can't I add credits?
Billing is admin-only. If you joined an organization as a member you can deploy, connect and destroy instances, but the Add credits button is not yours — the balance is shared, and only an admin tops it up. Ask an admin, or check your role under Roles and permissions.
Is the price on a card per GPU or for the whole slice?
For the whole slice. As an example, a 4x offer at ¥60 per hour costs ¥60 per hour in total, not four times that. The offer shows the actual price. See Offers and slices.
The offer sold out before I could deploy. What happened?
Someone took the last unit first. A card shows how many of that shape are free, but the number is a snapshot — if two deploys race for the last one, the second is refused with OFFER_UNAVAILABLE and you are sent back to the marketplace. Pick another offer — Marketplace explains how to filter down to equivalent hardware quickly.
Note that a card showing 1 of 2 has not sold out: someone else holds one GPU on that machine and the other is still yours to take.
What happens to my data when I destroy an instance?
The disk is deleted permanently. There is no snapshot, no trash and no undo, and the GPUs return to the machine's pool once teardown finishes — so every shape that needs them goes back on sale. Copy anything you want to keep off the instance first — Disk and storage shows how.
Why isn't my SSH port 22?
Because your container's port 22 is published on a port from the host machine's own range, so every instance on a machine gets a distinct one. Use the connect string on the instance's Connect tab exactly as written; it already carries the right port, user and host. See Connect over SSH.
I added an SSH key after deploying and still cannot connect.
The key you select on the deploy page is the one written into the instance. Adding a key to your account afterward does not reach an instance that already exists — attach the key at deploy time, or destroy and redeploy with it selected. Add keys before you deploy, as described in Add a key.
Why does my browser distrust JupyterLab, and where is the token?
When the instance is reached directly, JupyterLab is served over HTTPS with a self-signed certificate, so the browser shows a warning the first time. When the machine sits behind NAT and the console reaches it through the relay, the address is https://<workload>-<port>.relay.superheat.cloud with a valid certificate and no warning. Open the notebook with the Open JupyterLab button on the instance page — that link already contains the token. The token itself is on the instance's Connect tab under Access token, and in the API as the instance's access_token. See JupyterLab.
Can I run my own Docker image?
Yes, as long as it can be pulled from mainland China: Docker Hub is unreachable from mainland machines and GHCR is very slow. Put the image in Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR) or another mainland registry and create a private template pointing at it, with credentials for a private registry. Run your own image in args mode and declare the ports it serves: the ssh and jupyter modes take over only the curated images in ACR's superheat/ namespace, so your own image — even one built from the Superheat base image — runs its own entrypoint and gets no SSH port. Start at Create a template and Private registries.
My onstart script did not run. Why?
Check the launch mode first: onstart applies to the ssh, jupyter and vm modes, and an args template runs its image's own entrypoint instead. The script also runs only once, on the instance's first start, so a stop and start will not repeat it. A failing script leaves the instance up so you can log in and fix it — see onstart.
Can I resize the disk after deploying?
No. Disk size is fixed when you deploy, anywhere from 10 GB up to the machine's capacity, and the only way to change it is to destroy the instance and deploy a new one. Size it once, with the storage charge in mind, using Cost estimate.
Can I automate deploys with an API key?
Yes. An shk_ key can browse offers, read templates, and create, stop, start and destroy instances in the organization it was created in. It always acts as a member, so it cannot buy credits or touch account-level settings such as your SSH keys — add those from the console first. Give shared automation such as CI a team key: removing a member revokes their personal keys, not team keys. See Authentication and API keys.