> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ascii.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# FAQ

> Short answers on regions, billing, snapshots, lifecycle, and running a platform on Box.

## Regions and trust

**Where do boxes run?**
In the EU: Germany, Finland, and France. Your data and snapshots stay there.

**Is EU latency a problem from the US or Latin America?**
Round trips are around 100 to 200 ms. Agentic work runs for minutes, so this is not noticeable in practice. For end-user production traffic, publish builds to a CDN or regional host and keep Box for the agent and dev preview. See [Build a Platform on Box](/box/platform-guide).

**Do you have compliance certifications?**
Not yet. SOC 2 is in progress. Boxes are full VMs with sudo, so you can add any controls you need inside them (firewall rules, proxies, encryption).

## Billing

**Am I billed when a box is stopped?**
No. Stopped boxes are free, and their snapshot is kept for the life of the box.

**What do snapshots, IPv4, and egress cost?**
Nothing extra. The latest snapshot per box is kept (up to 50 GB), every box has a dedicated IPv4, and egress is included up to 2 TB per box per month. See [Billing & Limits](/box/billing).

**Do unused credits expire?**
Plan time resets monthly. Purchased credit packs never expire.

## Lifecycle

**Stop or delete?**
`box stop` snapshots and is free and reversible; resume any time, months later included. `box delete` is permanent. Default to stop.

**Why does delete or stop sometimes return an error about snapshots?**
A box without a successful snapshot in the last 30 minutes refuses to stop or be deleted, to protect your data. On a freshly created box, wait a minute for the first snapshot. If it persists, snapshots are failing on that box: contact us. We are alerted automatically, fix these the same day, and refund the extra runtime.

**How fast are resume and fork?**
A few seconds, whatever the box holds. Files stream in the background for the first moments after access is given; reading a file that has not arrived yet simply waits until it has, it never returns wrong data. Wait for state `ready` or `idle` before running commands; commands sent earlier run before your environment variables are applied.

**Do processes survive stop and resume?**
Files, installed packages, and enabled systemd services do. Hand-run processes do not; restart them or [make them a systemd service](/box/long-running-tasks#run-an-always-on-service). See [Snapshots](/box/snapshots).

## Running a platform

**One box per user, per project, or per session?**
Compare the three patterns and their costs in [Build a Platform on Box](/box/platform-guide).

**What idle timeout should I use before stopping a user's box?**
Short. Stop a few seconds to a couple of minutes after the agent finishes. Resume takes seconds, so an aggressive timeout cuts cost with little UX impact.

**How do I handle launch spikes?**
Prepare a template box and `box fork` it per user instead of installing from scratch, and pick a plan whose creations-per-minute limit covers your peak. See [Template Boxes](/box/templates).

**Do prepared templates actually reduce billed time?**
Yes. A fork inherits the whole filesystem in seconds, so you never pay for repeated installs.

**How many concurrent boxes will my user base need?**
Roughly: 10,000 signups is about 100 daily active users, so 10 to 100 concurrent boxes, and up to 10x on a launch day.

**Is Box good for sustained heavy compute?**
Boxes have shared vCPUs and shine at agentic, IO-heavy, spiky work. For sustained multi-hour 100% CPU or GPU loads, dedicated compute primitives are a better fit.