# Automatic top-up

Buying labels from a saved card when the shipping balance runs short, and what happens when the card is refused

Section: app. Audience: public. Updated: 2026-10-02.

---
Labels bought on Horizon's rates are paid from your shipping balance. With automatic top-up on, a label that finds the balance too low does not stop you: the balance is topped up from your saved card first, and the label is bought in the same click.

## Your balance in the top bar

The top bar shows your shipping balance on every page: what is available in the wallet in your account currency, with **"Top up"** beside it. It reads the balance again after a label is bought, a label run finishes or a top-up goes through, and when you come back to the tab. Pressing it opens **"Billing"** at its top up card. The account menu has the same shortcut, **"Top up shipping balance"**, which stays there on a phone too narrow for the balance itself.

The balance is shown to the account owner only, and only once a wallet exists. Inside the Shopify admin it works the same way, and the top up itself opens in a new tab, as it does from **"Billing"**.

## What a label holds from your balance

Before a label is bought on Horizon's rates, the carrier's price is set aside from your balance, plus a small safety margin.When the label is bought, you pay its real price and the rest is released. A pickup on Horizon's account is set aside at the price the carrier charges that account, with no margin, and you never pay more than that. It is booked on the same Horizon account that bought the label. A carrier can price a pickup in another currency than its account's, so a pickup priced in a currency other than your balance's is refused before anything is booked.

If the carrier charges more than your whole balance, the label is still yours and is not cancelled. Your balance goes below zero by the difference, and no further label or pickup can be bought on Horizon's rates until a top-up brings it back above zero. Labels on your own carrier account are not affected.

## Turning it on

There are two ways to give it a card.

- On a top-up in **"Billing"**, tick the box to save the card and top up automatically before paying. Once the payment goes through, automatic top-up is on with that card.
- If you already pay for your plan by card, the **"Automatic top-up"** card in **"Billing"** offers that same card. Choose an amount, tick the box that says what will be charged and when, and turn it on.

The first-label step of guided setup offers the second way too, so a short balance there can be solved without leaving setup.

Either way, nothing is charged when you turn it on. You agree to the charge in a sentence that names the card and the amount, and that agreement is recorded.

## What gets charged

Each automatic top-up adds the amount you chose, or the amount the label is missing if that is more. The page shows the most a single top-up can be. A label that needs more than that is not topped up automatically, and the step says so.

Labels bought on your own carrier account never touch the shipping balance, so they never trigger a top-up.

## When the card is refused

If your bank asks to confirm the payment, or the card is declined, the label is not bought and the page says which of the two happened. A manual top-up always still works.

After a refusal, automatic top-up waits before trying that card again, so a declined card is not charged at every click. A top-up by hand, which lets your bank confirm the card, or a new card clears it.

## Turning it off

**"Turn off"** stops automatic top-ups and keeps the card for later. **"Remove card"** stops them and forgets the card. The card stays on your plan's billing if it is also the card your plan uses.