04Channels & organization
Plans, trial and billing
What each plan limits, how the free trial works, who pays, how to change plan and what happens if a charge fails or you cancel.
There are four plans: Free, Starter, Professional and Business. A new account starts with 7 days of Professional and then moves to Free. The plan belongs to the organization's owner: they pay for it and it also covers their other organizations. “Payments”, in your user menu, is the billing; “Plans & Pricing”, which you reach with “Change plan” or with “Upgrade to…” in the same menu, is for comparing and changing. Prices show without taxes and in your country's currency when available; otherwise, in dollars.
Your usage against each plan
“Plans & Pricing” puts your real usage next to each plan's caps: people, how often a Source is read, channels, products, organizations, direct syncs to a channel, scheduled uploads waiting, history, images and variants per product, price rules and exports. A direct sync is a change Koalab writes to a single channel without going through your catalog, like a quick action on “One particular channel”; editing products, sales and catalog uploads don't use any. Your plan is in blue and, in amber, whatever has hit the cap.
Mock-up: the “Your usage against each plan” table, with your plan in blue and one row at the cap What changes from one plan to another
Sources that run on their own start on Starter, with up to three once a day; Professional lets them all run daily, and Business every 6 hours or every hour. Scheduled uploads and exporting to CSV and PDF also start on Starter. Paid plans allow up to 100 variants per product and Free 5, though each channel may allow fewer. Price rules grow with the plan: Starter adds “Markup”; Professional, rounding and price from cost; Business, minimum and maximum price and stock limits. Free has no rules and allows two channels, 50 products, one person, one organization and 5 direct syncs a month; when they run out, the owner and admins get an email with the day they come back.
The free trial
Every new account starts with 7 days of the full Professional plan, no card, once per account. A notice at the top counts the days left and three days before the end you get an email. If it ends without you choosing a plan, you move to Free and we tell you; if you have more than it allows, you lose nothing (first detail below). If you're on Free and never used the trial, the owner sees “Start trial” in “Payments” and in “Plans & Pricing”.
Only the owner pays
“Payments” shows the active organization's plan and its period. Changing plan and opening the billing portal are its owner's business: anyone else sees the plan, but instead of the button reads “Only the organization owner can change the plan.”.
Mock-up: “Payments” as seen by someone who isn't the organization's owner Changing plan
In “Plans & Pricing” you choose monthly or yearly. “Move to…” with “Change” is the plan after yours. If you already pay for a plan, below it “Move to a cheaper plan” appears, with each lower paid plan and what wouldn't fit in it; the confirmation repeats it before changing, and nothing is deleted. If you don't pay yet, Polar's payment page opens, the company that charges for Koalab. After paying you come back to “Payments”, which tells you while your plan is being activated: it takes a few seconds. If you already pay, Koalab asks you to confirm and changes it in the same subscription: Polar charges or credits the difference for the days left.
The billing portal
Koalab doesn't see your card. “Open the portal”, in “Payments”, takes you to Polar's to change the payment method or cancel. Each charge is kept in “Charge history” with its Polar receipt. Koalab doesn't issue invoices with your tax ID or electronic invoices: the receipt is the only proof of the charge, so check with your accountant. If you came from the Shopify app store, the plan is chosen, paid and cancelled in Shopify: “Payments” says “Your plan is billed through Shopify” and, instead of the portal, offers “Change the plan in Shopify”.
If a charge fails
The owner gets the email “We couldn't charge your plan” with the date it would be suspended, and “Payment overdue” appears at the top with the days overdue; meanwhile you keep your plan. Seven days after the payment date, access is suspended until you pay: screens show “Access suspended” and “Pay overdue balance” takes you to “Payments”. Your channels stay connected and Koalab keeps passing them the stock sales move, with Free's caps. When you pay, everything goes back as it was.
If you cancel
The plan runs to the end of the paid period —“Payments” says the date— and isn't charged again; the owner gets an email with that date. That day you move to Free, and another email confirms it. Scheduled uploads, Sources that run on their own and the direct sync quota keep the previous plan's caps for 15 more days; everything else drops that same day.
Details worth knowing
- Moving to a lower plan deletes nothing. If you have more than your new plan allows, what you already have keeps updating: channels stay connected and products get price and stock. What you can't do is add —connect another channel, create or import new products, invite someone— until you fit again or move up. Rules your plan doesn't include stay saved and stop applying.
- The exact figures are the ones in the “Plans & Pricing” table, which reads the current plan: if a cap changes, the table shows it before this tutorial does.
- If you cancelled and choose a plan before the period ends, the cancellation is undone: choosing a plan is staying.
- With access suspended, “Payments”, “Plans & Pricing”, Organization, each channel's settings, Support and the tutorials stay open: from there you pay, remove people, pause a channel or transfer the organization.