Plan Changes
What happens when your customer upgrades, downgrades, or switches plans
Your customers can switch plans through the Customer Portal. What happens depends on whether the new plan costs more or less.
Upgrades
When your customer moves to a more expensive plan, the change is immediate. They get credit for the unused days on their current plan and are charged the prorated price of the new plan.
Example
Your customer is on Starter at $29/mo, paid on January 1.
They upgrade to Pro at $99/mo on January 15 (15 days left).
Credit for unused Starter days: $29 × (15/30) = $14.50
Charge for remaining Pro days: $99 × (15/30) = $49.50
They pay today: $35.00
Next full invoice: $99 on February 15Downgrades
When your customer moves to a cheaper plan, the change happens at renewal. They keep their current plan and features until the end of the period they already paid for, then switch.
Your customer already paid for this period. They keep full access until it expires — no partial refunds, no disruption.
Free to Paid
When your customer moves from a free plan to a paid plan, the change is always immediate. There's no credit to issue since the free plan costs $0, so they pay the full price of the new plan.
Example
Your customer is on a Free plan with $100 included balance.
They upgrade to Pro at $99/mo.
Credit from free plan: $0 (it's free)
They pay today: $99 (full month)Changing Billing Frequency
| Change | What happens |
|---|---|
| Monthly → Yearly | Immediate — this is essentially an upgrade (better price commitment) |
| Yearly → Monthly | At renewal — this is essentially a downgrade |
Deprecating a Plan
When you deprecate a plan, it disappears from your pricing page, dashboard, and portal — but your existing customers keep it. Their billing continues normally. If they cancel, they won't be able to come back to that plan.
Deleting a Plan
When you delete a plan, you choose what happens to existing customers:
Option A — Cancel them: Their subscriptions end at the end of their current period. They keep access until then, but won't be billed again.
Option B — Migrate them: They keep their current plan until renewal, then automatically switch to the plan you choose. They'll be charged the new plan's price starting at renewal.
Both options take effect at renewal, not immediately.
Reactivation
There's no "reactivate" button. Once a subscription is canceled, it's done. If your customer wants to come back, they start a new subscription at the current price — like any new customer. If you deprecated the plan, they'll need to pick a different one.
Feature Changes
When you change the features on a plan, the benefit/harm rule applies:
| What you do | Existing customers |
|---|---|
| Add more limits or a new feature | Get it right away |
| Reduce limits or remove a feature | Keep current setup until renewal |
Example
You lower Plan Pro from 10,000 API calls to 5,000.
New customers get 5,000.
Existing customers keep 10,000 until renewal, then switch to 5,000.You raise Plan Pro from 5,000 API calls to 10,000.
All customers — new and existing — get 10,000 right away.Related
- Proration — Exactly how mid-cycle charges are calculated
- Pricing Changes — What happens when you change prices without changing plans
- Billing Intervals — How quarterly and yearly billing works
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