Plans and billing

PlansCopy Anchor Link

Every account starts on Free. Free is the trial: paid plans have no trial period, so there's nothing to remember to cancel. Paid plans are billed once a year, in US or Canadian dollars, and cover everyone in the account. Prices don't include tax; the payment page adds it for your billing address.

Supporter is pay-what-you-want: you choose a yearly amount from $20 up, in whole dollars. It includes everything in Plus, and everything above the Plus price funds the free plan.

Where billing livesCopy Anchor Link

Open Billing in the console's navigation. Owners and Billing Administrators can change billing; Read-only members can see it; other roles don't have the page. If the account has a payment problem, everyone in it sees a notice at the top of the console (see When a payment fails).

Billing has two tabs:

• Plan and payments: the current plan and its price, when it renews, what the plan includes, choosing or changing a plan, storage and extra mailboxes, cancelling and refunds, and the payment portal.
• Usage: what the account uses against what its plan allows: mailboxes, storage given to mailboxes, people, and the number of addresses (mailboxes and aliases together). A bar turns amber when something is at 90% or more.

Billing is also in the menu under your name, for the roles that can see it.

Payments are handled by our payment processor on its own secure pages: you're sent there to pay and to manage your card, and the console never sees or stores card details. Manage payment and invoices opens its portal, where you change the card, billing address and tax number, and download every invoice and receipt.

Choosing a paid planCopy Anchor Link

1. On Billing, choose Plus or Supporter (and the Supporter amount).
2. Choose the currency. Once an account has paid in one currency it keeps it.
3. Optionally add storage blocks or extra mailboxes. The page shows the first year's total before tax.
4. Continue to payment takes you to the payment page. When the payment goes through you come back to Billing and the plan starts within a minute.

A checkout you leave unfinished stays open for an hour; you can start a new one after that.

Storage and extra mailboxesCopy Anchor Link

Paid plans include 10 GB shared by the whole account and 10 mailboxes. You can add:

• Storage blocks of +10 GB for $10 a year each (up to 10 );
• Extra mailboxes for $1 a year each (up to 40).

Nothing is ever charged without you seeing the amount first. When you add something, Review the change shows what it costs now, for the rest of the current year, and you confirm that exact amount. Lowering costs nothing now: the lower number applies at renewal, and what you already paid for stays until then. You can't lower below what the account uses (delete a mailbox, or lower mailbox storage, first).

Very large accounts also have a ceiling on the number of addresses (mailboxes and aliases together). If you reach it, contact support: we can raise it.

Changing planCopy Anchor Link

Switch between Plus and Supporter, or change your Supporter amount, under Change plan. The plan's features switch at once; the price changes at your next renewal, so nothing is charged now.

CancellingCopy Anchor Link

Cancel the plan (it asks for your console password) stops it from renewing. Nothing changes until the end of the year you paid for, and you can Undo the cancellation until then. When the plan ends, the account moves to Free (see What's kept on Free).

RefundsCopy Anchor Link

Within 14 days of your first payment or a renewal you can refund it in full yourself: Ask for a refund on Billing (it asks for your console password). The plan then ends at once and the account moves to Free. Each account can do this once. For anything else (an add-on charge, a later refund, a payment you don't recognise) contact support.

When a payment failsCopy Anchor Link

1. Payment failed, retrying. A renewal didn't go through. Our payment processor tries the card again over the following days and emails you. Nothing changes in the account; updating the card settles it sooner.
2. Sending paused. If the retries run out, no mailbox in the account can send. Receiving, reading, mail apps and export keep working. In the webmail, Send says sending is paused and who can fix it. Pay the open invoice from Billing and sending comes back within a minute.
3. Plan ended. If it's still unpaid after 30 days, the plan ends and the account moves to Free.

A payment disputed with the card issuer also pauses sending until the dispute is settled; our support team handles those.

Nothing in the account is ever deleted because a payment failed.

What's kept on FreeCopy Anchor Link

When a paid plan ends, the account moves to Free. What Free doesn't include is held, not deleted:

• One mailbox on our domain stays fully on (the Owner's, by default) with Free's number of aliases and masked aliases.
• Every other mailbox is held: it can't send, it keeps receiving for 30 days after the plan ended, and you can always sign in, read and export it.
• Your own domains stay set up, without catch-all or new addresses; held aliases stop receiving.
• People stay in the account; pending invites are withdrawn.

On Billing, Choose what stays on lets an Owner or Billing Administrator pick the mailbox and aliases that stay on. Subscribing again (or redeeming a code) brings everything back at once.

Deleting the accountCopy Anchor Link

When an Owner deletes the account, a paid plan stops renewing at once and ends when removal starts, after the waiting period; nothing more is charged and no refund is made (ask for the refund first if you're inside the window). If you cancel the deletion, choose Undo the cancellation on Billing to keep the plan renewing. Your invoices stay with our payment processor for tax records. See Delete an account.

An account export includes the plan and billing state (never card or payment details).

Invite codesCopy Anchor Link

Anhourtec sometimes sends invite codes: to let you sign up while sign-up is closed, to give an account a paid plan for a while with no card, or both. A code works once and expires.

• At sign-up: open the link you were sent (or choose Have an invite code? on the sign-up page and type it).
• On an existing account: on Free, or after a paid plan ended, enter it under Redeem a code on Billing. A code made for your email address that gives a paid plan is redeemed here, once you've confirmed your email.

When a complimentary period ends the account moves to Free like any other plan, unless you subscribed meanwhile (a subscription replaces the complimentary period at once; days left on it aren't credited). A wrong, used or expired code gets the same answer: check it with whoever sent it.