Billing, invoices and caps

Everything about money lives in Settings → Billing: the plan, the credits, credit packs, invoices and payments, billing details, rollover and the spending cap. Every member can read it; only owners can change the plan, buy credits or edit billing details. Card payments run on Stripe, and PayPal where it is offered — ChannelForge never sees your card.

Plans#

Paying yearly gives 2 months free, and the monthly credits still arrive each month. One credit is $0.10 of list value; a job is charged what it really cost at your plan's rate, so the "typically" is measured over recent episodes — a longer or harder episode uses more. What each plan includes, and every job's typical price, is on Pricing; how credits meter work is in Credits and plans.

Subscribing#

When checkout is open:

1. Open Settings → Billing and scroll to Change plan.
2. Choose Monthly or Yearly at the top of the section.
3. On the plan's card, press Upgrade — pay by card (Stripe's own checkout page), or PayPal where it is offered.
4. Pay on the provider's page. Back in ChannelForge, a notice says Payment received (or that it is being confirmed). The plan's credits arrive as soon as the payment is confirmed.

Only an owner can subscribe; anyone else sees "Only owners can change the plan, buy credits or edit billing details" with their own role.

Changing plan#

With a card subscription, a change opens Stripe's billing portal to confirm it. A PayPal subscription cannot be changed in place: cancel it in PayPal first, then pick the new plan.

Credit packs#

Under Buy credits, one-time packs add credits on top of any plan, the Trial included: 500 credits for $55, 1,500 credits for $150, 5,000 credits for $450, 15,000 credits for $1,200. Each pack's card shows its price per 100 credits; Pay by card or Pay with PayPal buys it. Pack credits last 12 months from the purchase.

Which credits are used first#

Jobs use the credits that expire soonest first. In practice: rolled-over credits, then this period's plan credits, then pack credits. Settings → Usage shows under Expiring within 30 days what is about to expire, and under Credit grants where every available credit came from.

A job reserves credits when it starts and is charged what it really used when it ends; the rest comes back at once. The final charge can be a little above the reservation; if that takes the balance below zero, the next credits you receive repay it first. On a paid plan, the Credits card says "Running low" below 15 % of a month's credits: scheduled generation pauses when credits run out.

Rollover#

While your paid plan is active — a renewal being retried counts — the plan credits you did not use in a period roll over once, for one more month, up to one month's allowance of your plan. Rolled-over credits on the billing page shows them and the last day each can be spent. They are used before other credits and never roll over again. Trial, pack and referral credits do not roll over.

Invoices, payments and billing details#

• Invoices: a card subscription gets an invoice every period, listed with its number, period, amount and status, with View (Stripe's page) and PDF.
• Payments: every plan checkout and credit pack, with its method (Card, PayPal) and status.
• Manage billing opens Stripe's billing portal: the card, past invoices, cancelling.
• Billing details (owners):

Press Save billing details; new invoices show them.

A failed payment#

When a renewal fails, the billing page and every page of the workspace say "Your last payment failed". The plan keeps working while Stripe (or PayPal) retries. Press Fix payment to update the card in Stripe's portal — or Fix in PayPal — to keep your plan and your schedules running.

Spending caps#

A cap is the most a workspace, or one channel, may spend or reserve in a calendar month (UTC, from the 1st).

1. Type the Cap, in credits a month — leave it empty for no cap.
2. Press Save the cap. The answer says what is spent or reserved this month.

What a cap does:

• Paid work that would pass it does not start: "This would pass the workspace's monthly cap of … credits (… spent or reserved this November, and this needs about …). Raise it in Settings → Billing."
• Work already running always finishes, and a job's final charge can pass its reservation, so a month can end a little above a cap.
• Schedules and setups wait instead of failing, and carry on by themselves next month or as soon as you raise the cap. The Publishing page records "capped" once a day.
• Owners and admins are told — in the app and by email — at 80 % and at 100 %, once a month per cap.

The meter on each cap's card shows where the month stands. In an agency, the agency's cap covers its own work and every client's; see Agency mode.

Cancel in two clicks#

1. In Settings → Billing, press Cancel plan on the Current plan card.
2. Read the one confirmation — your plan ends on the last day of the period you paid for, you keep it and its credits until then, nothing more is charged and nothing is taken back — and press Cancel the plan.

No survey, no offer in the way. The card then says "Your plan ends on …", and you get an email. Until that date, Keep my plan undoes it in one click for a card subscription; a PayPal subscription cannot be resumed once cancelled, so choose the plan again after it ends. Cancelling works even while billing is paused.

When the plan ends, the workspace moves to the Trial and is never charged again. Its plan credits end with the period (after a three-day grace); pack credits stay valid for 12 months from their purchase.

Refunds#

The full rules are in the Refund Policy. In short:

• A started billing period is not refunded, except where the law requires it; cancelling stops the next one.
• A generation that fails because of us costs nothing, and its reserved credits come back.
• An episode the quality checks hold is not charged; releasing it to post or download costs what it cost to make, once.
• A job cancelled before it starts costs nothing; one you stop while it runs pays for the work it did.
• Charged twice, after cancelling, or the wrong amount? Email support@storeswiki.com with your workspace's name and, where you have one, the invoice number, before you open a dispute: we correct it, refunding the payment where that is right.
• Plan credits, rolled over or not, have no cash value and are not refundable.

Your credit history and usage#

• Settings → Credit history lists every credit in and out, in plain words — what each job cost against what it reserved, what came back, and what was never charged — with Charged in the month, Returned to you and Jobs not charged, filters by Channel and Kind, and Download CSV.
• Settings → Usage shows the balance, what is held by running jobs, the last 30 days in and out, model and GPU use per day, the credit grants and the full ledger.

Good to know#

• A suspended workspace — the notice says why — pauses new work until an owner resolves it in Settings → Billing.
• A workspace — or an account that is a workspace's only member — cannot be deleted while a subscription is live. Cancel it first: the deletion is possible once the plan has ended. See Your account and sign-in.
• Referral credits are added 14 days after someone you invited pays for their first period, if their plan is still active then; see Referrals.

Related#

• Credits and plans — what credits are and the fair-credits promise
• Pricing — plans, the comparison and what things cost
• Agency mode — rebilling clients
• Refund Policy and Terms of Service