# Monthly transfer: what counts and what to do when it's high

> How your server's monthly transfer allowance is counted, where to see it, how to get warned before you reach it, and what happens if you go over.

Source: https://rack4.io/help/monthly-transfer-usage · Updated: 2026-11-06

To see how much transfer your server has used this month, open it in the panel and look under **Usage**: the line below the graphs reads, for example, *Transfer this month: 312.4 GB of 2 TB*. To be warned before you reach the allowance, add a **Monthly transfer** alert rule; to raise the allowance, add a transfer pack.

## What counts

- **Traffic in both directions.** Everything your server receives and everything it sends counts towards the same total: visitors downloading pages, you uploading files, package updates, backups going out.
- **A calendar month in UTC.** The count starts again at 00:00 UTC on the first of each month, whatever day you ordered.
- **Decimal units.** 1 TB is 1,000 GB, and 1 GB is 1,000 MB, the same way the panel shows it.
- **Your allowance** is the plan's (2 TB on Budget, 4 TB on Standard, 8 TB on Extreme) plus 1 TB for each transfer pack on the server.
- **Not your private network.** Traffic between your servers on the [private network](https://rack4.io/help/private-network) doesn't count.

The total is counted from the network traffic the host sees for your server. It goes on counting across restarts of the server.

## Get warned before you reach it

1. Open the server in the panel and choose the **Alerts** tab.
2. Under **Add a rule**, set **Watch** to **Monthly transfer**.
3. Set **Above (%)**, for example 80, and press **add rule**. A transfer rule has no duration.

The rule is checked every 10 minutes and tells you once when this month's total passes that share of your allowance (plan plus packs). It clears by itself when the new month starts. [Alert rules](https://rack4.io/help/notifications-and-alerts#set-an-alert-rule) explains where alerts are delivered.

## If you go over

There are no overage fees, and going over doesn't change your bill. If a server goes over its allowance, we email you and ask you to add a transfer pack or move to a larger plan. We won't slow down or suspend a server for its transfer without contacting you first and giving you at least 7 days to respond ([Terms of Service](https://rack4.io/terms#transfer)).

To raise the allowance, add a [transfer pack](https://rack4.io/help/add-ons#transfer-packs) on the server's **Settings** tab, under **Add-ons**. Each one adds 1 TB a month, up to 4 packs on Budget, 8 on Standard and 16 on Extreme. Adding one is charged for the rest of the paid period; removing one takes effect from the next renewal. Prices are on the [plans page](https://rack4.io/plans#addons).

## Why usage can jump

The **Network in + out** graph under **Usage** shows the rate over the last 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. A spike there tells you when the traffic happened; match it against what was running at the time.

Common causes, roughly from harmless to worrying:

- **A backup or copy job** sending data off the server, or a big download onto it. Check the timing against your cron jobs and backup schedule.
- **Real visitors**: a post that got shared, a game server that got busy, or a large file people are downloading.
- **Bots and scrapers** hitting a website. Your web server's access log shows which addresses and pages.
- **A server that's been broken into**, sending spam or attacking other machines. If the traffic is outgoing, constant and nothing you run explains it, follow [what to do if your server is compromised](https://rack4.io/help/what-to-do-if-compromised).

To see which process is using the network right now, log in and install `nethogs` (`sudo apt install nethogs` on Debian and Ubuntu; on AlmaLinux and Rocky it's in EPEL, so `sudo dnf install epel-release` first, then `sudo dnf install nethogs`) and run `sudo nethogs`. Press `q` to quit.

## Transfer is not speed

The allowance is a monthly volume. It has nothing to do with how fast a single download is, and a server under its allowance can still be slow for other reasons. To measure speed and latency, see [test your network](https://rack4.io/help/test-your-network).