Billing & plans

Settings → Billing (/settings/billing) is where you see your current plan, manage your subscription, and keep your payment method up to date.

What's on the billing page

• All three plan cards, in every subscription state — your current plan is badged, with an interval toggle (monthly ↔ annual), prominent upgrade CTAs, and subdued downgrade actions.
• Current plan with a status badge: Trial, Active, Past due, or Canceled.
• Trial countdown while you're on the 14-day trial.
• Seats used vs. limit for your plan.
• Next charge — amount and date.
• Default payment method on file.
• Recent billing events — your subscription history.
• A past-due banner when a payment has failed.

Plans

Prices are USD before tax and discounts. Annual billing is less than paying monthly for a year. Agency can grow in purchased 25-seat blocks. For a deeper look at what each plan unlocks, see Plans and limits.

The 14-day trial

New workspaces start on Free. An eligible Owner or Admin explicitly starts a 14-day trial with no credit card required in Billing. Choosing a plan during signup brings you here to review the selected plan and monthly/annual price; visiting the page or verifying email never starts a trial. During the trial the page shows a countdown and an Add payment method action so you can add a card before the trial ends and keep your paid features running.

There is one trial per workspace, shared across plans and monthly/annual intervals. Plan switches, cancellation, and restarting a subscription do not reset the trial clock.

Manage Agency seats

Agency quantities keep expansion on the same subscription and payment method:

These are recurring list prices in USD before tax and discounts, not the immediate proration charge.

1. As Owner/Admin, open Settings → Billing (or Manage seats from Team where available).
2. On an active paid Agency subscription, review active members, valid pending invitations, and purchased seats, then choose a whole-number quantity.
3. Review Stripe's hosted confirmation for the exact immediate prorated charge or billing credit.
4. Confirm, return to Billing, and wait for the confirmed quantity and capacity to appear.

Pending selections and abandoned confirmations do not grant seats. The renewal date stays unchanged. Reductions create Stripe billing-balance credit, not an automatic card refund. Inviting or removing people never adjusts purchased quantity automatically.

You cannot reduce below active members plus valid pending invitations. If membership changes while confirmation is open and the confirmed capacity is too small, nobody is removed: an over-cap warning blocks further additions until you increase capacity or remove members/revoke invitations.

New subscriptions and trials start at quantity 1. Quantity changes are unavailable during trials, payment recovery, scheduled cancellation, or on lifetime plans. Agency monthly/annual switches preserve quantity; switching to Studio requires fitting its 10-seat cap and resets quantity to 1. Free, Studio, and lifetime limits are unchanged.

If the seat selector is missing, check role and subscription state; self-service expansion also needs to be enabled for the deployment. A Stripe setup error requires support, not repeated payment attempts. If confirmation is delayed, use Refresh status and check the refreshed quantity before retrying; contact support if it remains unresolved.

Change your plan

Pick a plan card right on the billing page — Hoursmith chooses the safest path automatically:

To update your card or download past invoices, click Manage billing to open the Stripe Customer Portal. If you're on the trial, click Add payment method to add a card before it ends.

Upgrade, downgrade, and cancel

Your effective plan is determined by your subscription state:

A few rules to know:

• Downgrades show an impact dialog listing the features that will lock, so there are no surprises.
• A downgrade that would break a limit is prevented in the app. For example, you can't drop to a plan with fewer seats than you currently use (members + pending invites) until you're back under the cap. Downgrading to Free warns but doesn't hard-block.
• Cancelling defaults to end-of-period — you keep your paid plan until the current period ends, then move to Free. Changed your mind? Resume subscription undoes a scheduled cancellation right in the app.
• Past due keeps you on your paid plan for a 7-day grace period. Update your card via Manage billing to clear it before the grace ends.
• Losing Studio/Agency access system-pauses recurring series and blocks queued sends that have not reached the email provider. Restoring access does not resume or backfill them; a Manager+ reviews and resumes each series manually.
• Losing Agency locks new payout activity, Team profitability, and bill email delivery, while Owners/Admins retain finalized bills, payment records, PDFs, and sent delivery history in the app.

Troubleshooting

• Payment failed / past-due banner. Open Manage billing and update your card in the Stripe Customer Portal. You have a 7-day grace period before dropping to Free.
• I can't downgrade. You're likely over the target plan's limit (usually seats). Remove members until you're under the cap, then try again. See Members and roles.
• A paid feature disappeared. Check your effective plan above — if you're past due or canceled, features lock until you're active again. Nothing is deleted.