Subscription and credits

Subscription is the screen where you see which plan your organization is on, what state it is in, how much capacity is left on each limit and what has been spent in credits. Anybody in the organization can reach it, but only the owner sees the amounts and can change anything; collaborators see the plan and the capacity, and a note saying so.

18 minute read

On this page

The essentials

  1. In Subscription, in the Change plan card, choose the Billing period and the plan.
  2. Tick the two boxes: accepting the terms and asking for the service to start immediately.
  3. Press Subscribe and pay, check the summary in the window and pay by card or PayPal on the payment provider's page.
  4. To cancel, press Cancel the subscription at the foot of the Your subscription panel.
  1. Change plan: the billing period and the plans, with yours marked.
  2. The Change plan button applies the one you choose, after telling you what changes.
  3. Capacity: channels, archived, people and the month's publications.
  4. Your subscription: the plan and its status, the credits, the publications and the capacity.
  5. Invoices and billing details.
  6. Cancel the subscription.

The plans

There are four: the free plan, Solo, Creator and Agency. What changes from one to the next is how many channels and people fit, how many credits and publications each month brings, whether the queue and automatic publishing send on their own and how often, whether the composed image goes out, how many channels one send reaches, how many affiliate rules it admits and how many support tickets you can have open.

The figures for each plan are on the pricing page, with the monthly and annual prices and a calculator for the channels and people you add. Inside the application, the Change plan card shows the main points of each one, and your subscription panel, what you have left of yours.

Each plan also caps how many channels you can create each month: Plan caps explains it.

The channels are how many you can have at once: all of them publish, and all can have a queue and automatic publishing, except on the free plan, which publishes by hand. People counts the owner, the active collaborators and the pending invitations. An own affiliate tag for each channel belongs to Creator and Agency: A different code per channel explains it.

The free plan belongs to your primary organization: an extra organization is always paid and never has it.

The free plan does not expire and asks for no card. It does ask for two things: a confirmed email to publish, and that the channels of one same Telegram person are in a single organization.

The month's publications

The free plan and the Solo plan have a cap on publications a month, which the pricing page states; Creator and Agency have no cap. It counts one publication for each channel a message reaches, wherever it comes from: Create offer, the queue, the bot or automatic publishing. The month is the calendar month: it restarts on the 1st, not on your renewal day.

How many you have used is shown by the Plan and usage card on Home, your subscription panel and the header of the queue. When a fifth or less is left, Create offer warns you ahead with a blue notice.

When they run out, nothing goes out until the 1st, and Create offer and the queue tell you so, with the plan that gives more. The Queue button keeps working: from Solo, whatever you prepare goes out on its own when the month begins; on the free plan, which publishes by hand, you publish it yourself from the queue from that day.

Your subscription panel

At the top, the plan's name with a status chip, such as Active or Trialling. Below, the next charge with its date and amount (the owner only), how long a discount lasts, the credits, the month's publications and the capacity.

All the states it can show

The status chip can say Active, Trialling, Payment pending, Payment not completed, Cancelled, Trial ended or No subscription. With a plan subscribed to, also Monthly or Annual, and, if a change is under way, “Ends on …”, “Moves down on …”, “Changes on …” or “Switches to monthly on …”.

If we can't read your subscription

If something goes wrong while reading your subscription details, you'll see a red notice at the top of the screen. This is on our end: we've already received the alert and are looking into it, so you don't have to do anything.

Notice When it appears While we look into it
“We cannot read your subscription's details” In your primary organization. It runs on the free plan limits.
“We couldn't load your subscription details” In an extra organization. It's frozen: it doesn't publish anything.

If you have a paid plan, don't subscribe again: write to us through Support and we'll fix it. You'll see the same notice on Home.

Subscribing

You need a confirmed email to subscribe and to start the trial: if you do not have one, the screen says so above the form, with Add an email or Resend the confirmation email, and Subscribe and pay and Start the trial stay disabled until you confirm it. If you chose the plan on the Codingram website, when you come back with the email confirmed you find it already marked.

From the free plan, subscribe in the Change plan card: choose the Billing period (Monthly or Annual) and the plan, type your discount code if you have one and press Subscribe and pay.

There are two boxes, neither arrives ticked and both are required:

  • Accepting the terms of contract and the privacy policy.
  • Asking for the service to start immediately, knowing that this loses the withdrawal right once it has been fully performed. It is required because the service starts the moment the charge goes through.

Before charging, a window repeats what you are taking out, for how much and how often. Payment is made on the payment provider's page, by card or PayPal. When you come back, the screen already says the plan is active; if the bank is slow, “We are confirming your payment”.

The subscription renews by itself at the end of each period, there is no minimum term and it is cancelled from this same screen.

  1. The 14-day trial: with the card verified and nothing charged.
  2. Three days before it ends, we email you. When it ends nothing is charged: you move to the free plan.
  3. The first charge, when you subscribe; with the trial still running, the day it would have ended.
  4. 14 days to withdraw, if you subscribed as an individual.
  5. The renewal, automatic, at the end of each period.
  6. If a charge does not go through, three days of grace before moving to the free plan.
Fine print: taxes, withdrawal and your copy of the contract

Underneath the button it says whether the amounts include taxes or are worked out on the payment screen, and, if you are a business in another EU country with a VAT number, that you pay the price without VAT. On the provider's page the billing address is asked for and, if you are a business, the VAT number.

You have 14 days to withdraw, from this very screen —Withdrawing, below, explains it—, and the refund policy says what is returned in each case.

When the contract is complete a confirmation email arrives with what you paid, taxes included, how often it renews, until what day and how you can withdraw, and the text of the terms you accepted: keep it, it is your copy.

If you open the payment page in two tabs, you can only pay on the last one you opened: the other expires so you don't pay twice.

If the bank does not finish authorizing the payment

If your bank does not finish authorizing the payment — say you close the authentication window — the screen says Payment not completed, with a link to complete it on the provider's page. Meanwhile you stay on the free plan and are not offered to subscribe again; if you do not complete it, the signup expires by itself within a day.

The 14-day trial

The Try without paying card appears to the owner who has never subscribed to anything and has not already used the trial, and only in their primary organization: an extra one has no trial. It does not appear either if you have paid for any other organization of yours, even one you have already deleted, for 24 months. For 14 days it opens the capacity of the Creator plan — three channels, four people, sending to three channels at once, queue and automatic publishing — with 10,000 credits for the trial.

We verify a card without charging anything, with your bank's authentication. When the 14 days are up nothing is charged: the organization moves to the free plan keeping all its content, and the channels and people beyond what that plan allows are archived or suspended. We warn you by email three days before.

If you subscribe to a plan while the trial is still running, the first charge falls on the day the trial would have ended, and the screen says which day and how much.

Until that first charge you keep the trial's credits instead of the plan's. You will see it when you subscribe, with the notice “Until your first charge, on [day], you have the trial's credits”. If your plan includes more credits than the trial, the subscription screen also reminds you. At the first charge the plan's full credits arrive.

If the plan you subscribe to is smaller than the trial's, the organization fits into it right away, without waiting for the first charge: the channels that do not fit are archived, the people who do not fit are suspended and the surplus affiliate rules are switched off, just as when downgrading. The confirmation window says so before charging, for example “2 channels will be archived.”. With an equal or bigger plan nothing is taken away.

Fine print: the card, the first charge and one trial per person

We also ask for the billing address, so that when you subscribe later we can offer you that same card instead of asking for it again.

If you subscribe in the last two days of the trial, the first charge is delayed by a day or two more.

One per person and one per card. Of the card we keep only the identifier the payment provider gives us — never the number — for 24 months, which is exactly how long the block lasts. If you share the card with your family or with somebody at your company and the trial is refused, write to us: it is reviewed by hand, and the screen will tell you when to try again.

If you deleted an account that had already had the trial or had paid something and you come back with the same Google or Telegram account, there is no other trial, and the manual review of the card does not lift it. You can subscribe to a plan from the same screen. What we remember of the deleted account is explained in When you delete the account.

Discount codes

When subscribing, type the code in Discount code, below the plans, before pressing Subscribe and pay: the reduced amount appears on the payment screen. If the code is not valid, the screen tells you before the payment opens, and the plan, the billing period and the code stay filled in so you can correct it.

With a subscription already running, they are redeemed in the Discount card: type the code and press Redeem. The screen says what you pay now, how long the discount lasts and what you go back to afterwards, and you can withdraw it whenever you like with Withdraw the discount.

Discounts are for the fee and its add-ons: credit balance is always paid at the regular rate.

Fine print: kinds of discount and why a code is not valid

A discount can be for a single charge, for a few months or permanent.

There can only be one active discount: if you redeem another the screen tells you which one you lose and asks you to confirm.

If a code has expired, run out, does not apply to your plan or does not exist, the screen says so in those words, both when subscribing and when redeeming it. The same goes for one that is only valid for a first subscription and one that requires a minimum amount, which can also only be used when subscribing and not during the free trial.

In an extra organization, codes valid only for the first subscription and those requiring a minimum amount do not work; the screen tells you when subscribing.

Changing plan

With a plan subscribed to, the same Change plan card shows the rows with yours marked Your plan and the billing period selector on the one you have. Pick another row or another period and press Change plan. Before applying anything, the application asks you, saying what is going to happen:

  • Upgrading takes effect at once, with the charge prorated for what is left of the period. Of the included credits you keep the ones the period gave and the part of the difference with the new plan proportional to what is left of the credit month is added (also on the annual plan, whose credits reset every month), without moving the date they reset. Upgrading on the first day gives almost the whole difference; upgrading on the last, almost nothing. When they reset, the new plan gives them all.
  • Downgrading waits for the end of the period you have already paid for. The window gives the exact date and what will happen then: how many channels get archived, how many people lose access, how many affiliate rules get deactivated, how many channels move to publishing more slowly and which add-ons you give back. Until that date arrives, the Scheduled change card carries the Cancel the change button.

When the change is charged today, the window says how much you are charged, taxes included, and the button that confirms it becomes Change and pay. The change is made only if the charge goes through.

Nothing is deleted on a downgrade: a channel that does not fit is archived, intact, and a person who does not fit is suspended by the plan, keeping their role and channels.

Fine print: the amount, a declined charge and what stays archived

If the amount cannot be worked out, the window says so with the Try again button and does not let you confirm until it has it. If the amount has changed when you confirm, the screen shows you the new one and asks you to confirm again.

If your bank declines the charge or asks you to authorize it, nothing changes — not the plan, not the add-ons, not a change you had scheduled — and the screen tells you which of the two happened and to check your payment method under Invoices and billing details. With a pending payment you cannot upgrade your plan or switch to annual until you catch up; downgrading is fine, because it charges nothing today.

A downgrade can leave you with more archived channels than your plan allows to archive; that is correct and nothing is deleted because of it. The archived ones wait for you to restore them from Channels, and the screen reminds you of it when you upgrade. A suspended person you reactivate yourself when there is room again, as Collaborators suspended by the plan explains.

Changing the billing period

You can change the Billing period without touching the plan, or both at once.

  • Switching to annual takes effect today. The full year is charged, minus whatever is left of the period you had already paid for, and the renewal date starts counting from that day.
  • Going back to monthly waits for the end of the year you have already paid for, just like a downgrade: nothing more is charged until then, the screen says when it takes effect and there is a button to cancel it.
Fine print: add-ons and the tariff when changing

Extra channels and extra people follow the plan's billing period, so they change price with it. And changing plan or billing period moves you to the current tariff: if you had an earlier one, the confirmation window says so before you accept.

Extra capacity

From Solo

On the plans that admit add-ons, the Extra capacity card lets you buy channels and people by quantity — Solo only channels, up to two; Creator and Agency, channels and people up to their plan's maximum —, charged recurrently alongside the fee and at the same billing period as the plan. The button is Update and pay.

Fine print: price, proration and giving units back

Each extra channel also brings two more archive places. The price of each unit is on the pricing page and beside the box before you confirm.

Buying or giving back a quantity is invoiced at once, prorated. Before you confirm, the window says how much you are charged today, just as when changing plan; if you give units back, nothing is charged and what is due to you is deducted from your next invoice. When you give channels back, the surplus ones are archived.

As with changing plan, the purchase is made only if the charge goes through, and with a pending payment you cannot buy more until you catch up; giving units back is fine.

Credits and balance

There are two classes of credit, and the Credits card shows them apart:

  • The ones included in your plan reset every month — in the annual plan too, on the day of the month you renew; on the free one, on the 1st — and what you do not spend does not accumulate.
  • Purchased balance never expires and survives a cancellation: it is held until you have a paid plan again.

The included ones are always spent first. Balance is bought in one-off packs of 10,000, 40,000 or 100,000 credits, with an active paid plan, from Buy credits. Which read spends credits and which does not is explained in Stores and affiliation.

At 80 % of the period's included credits we send you an email, and another when they run out. Each warning is sent once per period.

Fine print: invoices, boxes and pack payments

Below the selector it says whether the prices are taxes included or taxes are added on the invoice. Every purchase — the automatic recharge included — carries its own invoice, with whatever VAT your country charges, and a confirmation email with what you paid and how to withdraw.

When buying a pack, you have to tick the same two boxes as when subscribing, because the balance is delivered as soon as you are charged and your acceptance is recorded with that purchase. If your bank asks for authentication, you'll go to your bank's screen and then return to Subscription once finished, where you'll see if the balance has been added. If you start another purchase without finishing the previous one, you can only pay for the last one.

Cap and automatic recharge

From Solo

In Balance controls, which appears with a paid plan:

  • The Balance cap per period limits how much purchased balance can be spent. Blank means no cap, and it does not reach the credits included in the plan.
  • Automatic recharge arrives switched off. If you switch it on, choose the Recharge threshold and the Recharge pack, and tick the immediate start checkbox, the same one as when buying a pack by hand. When the balance falls below that threshold a pack is bought, only once per fall.
Fine print: the threshold, failed charges and when it switches off

Without the immediate start checkbox the recharge is not saved, because each pack it buys is delivered as soon as it is charged.

The threshold cannot be higher than the pack's credits.

If a charge does not go through, you get an email and the screen says so with the Retry the recharge button; after three failures in a row it stops until you retry or buy a pack by hand.

It switches itself off when the subscription stops being in force: the day a cancellation takes effect or when the grace period of a failed charge ends.

An extra organization

The organizations you create besides the primary one —Your organizations covers it— are paid for each one separately: its own plan, its payment method, its billing details, its invoices and its automatic top-up. And they work differently in three ways:

  • They have no free plan or trial. When you create one, you will see the Choose a plan card in Subscription (on an active one it is called Change plan). You have to choose a plan and pay for it, since it offers neither Try without paying nor downgrading to free. Until the first payment, it stays in the Pending payment status, and if it is not paid within 7 days, it is deleted automatically.
  • If they stop paying, they freeze. Cancelling the subscription, a charge that is not settled or withdrawing leaves them frozen on the same day a primary one would move to the free plan. While frozen, it publishes nothing and spends no credits, not even the purchased balance, which is kept. Nothing is archived or deleted. Subscribing to a plan reactivates it, but the queue and automatic publishing have to be switched on again.
  • Paying for an extra counts as having paid. While it exists, and for 24 months after deleting it, your primary organization cannot start the free trial.

Invoices and billing details

They are issued and kept by the payment provider, for the fee and for the balance packs alike. Invoices and billing details, in the panel, opens its portal in your language: that is where the invoices are and where you correct your legal name, your address, your VAT number and your payment method. Whatever you correct there applies here to the charges that follow.

To switch from card to PayPal, change the payment method in that same portal: the following charges will be made with PayPal.

Each invoice carries the Organization field, with the name of the organization it belongs to. It helps tell them apart if you have several with the same email; if you rename the organization, later invoices carry the new name.

Fine print: VAT depending on your country

Subscribing asks for your country and, if you are a business, your VAT number, which we check against the European register. That pair decides the tax treatment.

The amounts you see include Spanish VAT, which is what a private individual in Spain pays. A business in another country of the Union with a valid number pays the price without VAT and receives the invoice without Spanish VAT, under the reverse charge; outside the Union Spanish VAT is not charged either. The payment provider's payment screen shows the price without VAT and adds the tax that applies to you once you type your address.

If the European register does not confirm your number, we remove it from your billing details and notify you by email: from the next charge you pay Spanish VAT, and if it was a mistake you correct it under Invoices and billing details and go back to paying without VAT.

If a charge fails

If a fee charge does not go through, we email you the same day and the panel changes to Payment pending: you have three days of grace to review the payment method before the organization moves to the free plan —an extra one is frozen—, without deleting anything. The purchased balance goes on being spent for the three grace days the plan lasts.

While a renewal is unpaid, no new included credits arrive: you spend what you had left from the previous period, which was already paid for, without going over what your plan gives. When the charge goes through, the new period has the full credits of your plan, and what you spent in the unpaid days counts within them: two months are not added together.

Fine print: retries and grace period

The payment provider retries the charge on its own, and every attempt is recorded in your billing data.

If what is happening is that your bank asks you to authorize the charge, the provider does not retry it: the email and the panel say so and take you to the provider's page where you authorize it, with Authorize the payment on the payment provider's page.

In both cases, once the period has passed, the organization moves to the free plan without deleting anything — the panel says from which day — and paying afterwards returns it to its plan. An extra organization does not move to the free plan: it is frozen from that day. While a payment is pending you cannot upgrade your plan, switch to annual or buy add-ons.

If the provider runs out of attempts, it cancels the subscription: you get an email explaining it, the panel says Cancelled for non-payment and, to come back, you subscribe again. If the provider refunds a charge, the panel says so beside the status.

Cancelling the subscription

At the foot of the panel — at the end of the page on a phone — is Cancel the subscription. Before anything else, the application asks you, and the question carries what you need to decide:

  • Until when you keep the plan: the end of the period you have already paid for. Nothing more is charged that day.
  • What will happen that day, one by one: what the free plan stops doing and what gets archived, suspended or deactivated. You keep all your content.

Cancelling is signed on the payment provider's screen, which is what records it, and once you confirm it brings you back here, with a notice at the top with the date and the plan marked “Ends on …”.

It can be undone

As long as the date has not arrived, the screen offers Resume the subscription. Everything stays the same: the same plan, the same charge date and the add-ons you had.

A 14-day trial is not cancelled: there is nothing subscribed to cancel, it ends by itself and the card you verified is not charged.

What changes on the day of cancellation, one by one

On an extra organization there is no free plan: the window says "That day the organization will be frozen" and shows what changes, and from then on it publishes nothing.

On the primary one, first, what the free plan stops doing: the queue stops publishing on its own, automatic publishing stops, offers go out with the product's photo instead of your composed image, and the included credits and the publications a month go down.

Then, how many channels get archived, how many people lose access and how many affiliate rules get deactivated, the same detail that is given when moving down a plan. The purchased balance is held until you have a paid plan again.

Withdrawing

If you subscribed as an individual, you have 14 calendar days to back out without giving reasons, both from a plan and from each credit pack.

While the period lasts, the Right of withdrawal card appears at the end of this screen with one row per contract: what it is, when you took it out, the last day you can withdraw and the Withdraw from the contract here button. The summary on the right says until which day you can withdraw and takes you to the card. The organization's owner, who is the one who subscribed, sees it.

The button does not send anything yet. It opens a page with what you are about to send —the contract, your name and the email the receipt will go to— and how much we refund you, taxes included. If you withdraw from a plan, the page also says how much is kept and why: the days of service or the plan credits you have used, whichever is greater. To send it, press Confirm withdrawal; Go back without withdrawing leaves you as you were.

Once you confirm:

  • A plan is cancelled at that moment and the organization moves to the free plan (an extra one is frozen). You keep all your content. If you had not yet been charged, it is cancelled with no charge.
  • A pack: its unspent credits leave your balance; the ones you already spent are not refunded.
  • The application requests the refund by itself, to the payment method you paid with, and we email you when it is done.

You can also withdraw by email or by letter, with or without the withdrawal form: we record it with the date you sent it and it follows the same path as the button.

Fine print: the receipt, how much is refunded and if the refund fails

The moment you confirm, a receipt email reaches you with what you declared, the date and time of sending and a reference like DS-000123.

How much is refunded. For a plan, what you paid minus the part for the days already enjoyed, counting the day of the charge and the day of sending, or the part for the plan credits you have already spent if that is greater. For a pack, the part of the credits you have not spent. The refund policy summarises it.

The refund comes with its corrective invoice. If you paid for it, in whole or in part, with account credit —the credit that reducing channels or people leaves you—, that part goes back to your balance and is deducted from your next invoice. If the payment provider cannot do it at that moment, it is retried every night.

Afterwards, the row says when you withdrew and how much we refund you, with the status Refund in progress, Refund made or No charge, and the button no longer appears.

If your payment method rejects the refund after it was processed (with an expired or cancelled card, for example), the row goes back to Refund in progress and you get a notice email. We will write to you to pay it another way, and you do not have to do anything.

The emails you receive

Every subscription, change, purchase, annual renewal and failed charge leaves you an email, and the ones that confirm a contract carry the text of the terms: keep them.

The list of emails
  • Confirmation of your subscription, when you subscribe, with what you paid, the renewal, how to withdraw and the text of the terms accepted.
  • Confirmation of the change to your subscription, when you upgrade, move to annual or buy extra channels or people: how the contract now stands, when it changed, what was charged for the change and the terms.
  • Confirmation of your purchase of N credits, when you buy a pack — also when the automatic recharge buys it —, with what you paid, how to withdraw and the terms.
  • Your subscription of … renews on …, fifteen days before each annual renewal: when it will be charged, for how much, until when you can cancel and what happens if you do nothing. If you want it to continue, you do not have to reply. Monthly subscriptions do not receive this email: the date of the next charge is in your subscription panel.
  • Your … trial ends in N days, three days before the end of the trial.
  • We could not charge the fee, the day a charge fails.
  • We could not charge your subscription and it has ended, if the payment provider runs out of attempts and cancels it.
  • We could not charge the automatic recharge, every time a recharge fails.
  • You have used 80 % of your plan's credits and The credits of your plan have run out, once per period.
  • We could not refund your withdrawal (…) to your payment method: if your payment method does not accept the refund, we will pay it another way.
  • Your plan has changed, when a change was not made from this screen: from the provider's portal or by a scheduled downgrade that reaches its date. Nothing is charged or refunded for it.

When you delete the account: your balance and your billing data

What happens to your subscription and your balance when you delete the account, and what you choose beforehand, is explained in Delete account, in My account. Here, how the balance is refunded and what is kept.

If you ask for the refund it happens automatically: it goes back through the same payment method you bought each pack with, with a corrective invoice for each one, and you get an email with what was refunded. What you paid with account credit cannot go back to a balance that ceases to exist: we refund it another way and we write to you about it. If you paid for a pack with PayPal more than 180 days ago, PayPal no longer allows refunding it directly: we send it to that same PayPal account and you do not have to do anything. If the payment method does not accept it at that moment, it is recorded, retried every night and we tell you by email. If it rejects it later, we pay it another way.

The accounting trail of what was charged — amounts, countries and dates, together with the name, address and tax number the invoices were issued to — is kept by law for 6 years after you close the account, detached from your user and from the organization, and then deleted.

If you were never charged anything, your name, address and tax number are not kept, and your customer at the payment provider is deleted too (unless an invoice was issued in your name): only, if you requested the trial, the card identifier and what goes with it, until it reaches its 24 months. The payment provider likewise keeps your invoices for the legal term.

In addition, for 24 months we remember your Google or Telegram account, without storing its identifier: only a fingerprint to recognize it, with the closing date, whether you had the trial or ended up paying, that month's publications and, if you were on the free plan, the credits you had left. It serves two purposes: that there is no other free trial if the account had one or paid, and that deleting the account and coming back the same month does not start the month from zero: the publications already made keep counting and you only have the free plan credits you had left (none if you were on a paid plan or on the trial). A month later you start from zero. If you would rather we did not remember it, write to admin@codingram.app and we delete the record: those two effects disappear as well.

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