Billing and Plans

Your plan decides what your account can do each month. This page explains how plans and allowances work, what happens when you reach a limit, and where to manage your billing.

See Your Plan

Your plan is shown in three places:

• The sidebar footer shows your Current Plan (on Free, with an Upgrade link)
• Account Settings shows the Subscription card with your plan, status, and renewal date
• The user menu in the header has a Billing entry: on paid plans it opens the Stripe billing portal, on Free it takes you to the pricing page

The Plans

PodcasterPlus has four self-serve tiers plus two special plans:

• Free: a taster for creating and publishing new episodes. One podcast, small monthly allowances, and paid features like automations, webhooks, AI credits, and back-catalogue import are not included
• Creator: for a growing solo show. Unlimited podcasts and the core paid features with entry-level allowances
• Studio: bigger allowances, more team seats, plus extras like data export
• Production House: high allowances, ten team seats, and agency features like client workspaces
• Enterprise: sales-led with custom pricing and negotiated limits. Not everything is unlimited; caps are agreed per contract
• Founders: a one-time early-adopter purchase that grants Studio-level features for three years

Prices and current per-plan numbers live on the pricing page, which always shows the live figures. For the full limit matrix, see Plan Limits.

How Monthly Allowances Work

Plans include monthly allowances for things like episode slots, automation runs, email sends, AI credits, and push notification deliveries.

• Allowances reset on the 1st of each month
• They're shared across all podcasts on your account, with one exception: calendar connections are counted per user, so each teammate has their own
• Storage isn't monthly: it's a running total of the audio you've uploaded, and deleting audio frees space immediately

Episode slots go by recording month

Your episode allowance is tied to the month an episode is scheduled to record, not when you create it. Each calendar month has its own set of slots, so you can plan ahead: scheduling a recording in a future month uses that month's slots.

When a month is full, PodcasterPlus tells you directly: every episode slot for that month is taken, and you can add an episode pack, upgrade your plan, or pick a date in another month. Guests booking through your booking links simply aren't offered dates in full months.

The Free plan has two separate episode limits

These sound similar but are different walls:

1. 2 episode slots per month: how many episodes you can line up for a given recording month
2. 2 published episodes per month: how many episodes can actually go live in a month. Unpublishing an episode doesn't free up this allowance; it resets on the 1st of the next month

Paid plans have larger slot allowances and no separate publishing cap.

AI credits

AI features draw from one shared pool of AI credits. Transcription uses about 1 credit per minute of audio, and AI guest research uses a flat 5 credits per job. When the pricing page talks about "transcription hours", that's the same credit pool expressed in hours.

If a job would exceed your remaining credits, it's skipped and you're notified; nothing is charged behind your back.

What Happens at a Limit

When you hit a wall, PodcasterPlus shows a dialog at the moment it matters, titled for the situation: Plan limit reached, You've reached your monthly limit, This month is fully booked, Publishing limit reached, or This is a paid feature.

Each dialog explains the specific limit and offers an Upgrade button: on Free it goes to the pricing page, on paid plans to the Subscription card in your settings. Hitting a limit only blocks the new action; nothing you've already created is removed.

Imports are a guideline, not a wall

Back-catalogue imports have a soft monthly allowance: going over prompts a nudge but never blocks an import. (Importing itself is a paid feature, so it isn't available on Free.)

Add-On Packs

Add-on packs absorb a busy month without changing plans. They're one-time purchases, not subscriptions, listed under One-time add-on packs on the pricing page with a Buy pack button:

Pack	Grants	Valid for
Episode pack	+10 managed episodes	6 months
AI credits pack	+300 AI credits	6 months
Email pack	+5,000 email sends	1 month

Packs apply to your account instantly after checkout. Your plan's base allowance is used first, then packs; unused pack balance expires at the end of its validity window.

Promotion Codes

If you have a promotion code, apply it at checkout. On the Stripe payment page, select Add promotion code, enter the code, and the discount is applied to the total before you pay.

Codes work on every paid purchase: any plan, monthly or annual, and the one-time add-on packs. Each code carries its own rules, set when it was issued, so one may be limited to a particular plan, a first purchase, or an expiry date. The payment page tells you straight away if a code doesn't apply to what you're buying.

Apply the code during checkout

A code has to be entered on the payment page. It can't be added to a subscription that's already running, so if you have one, use it before you confirm.

A code that covers the full amount still completes normally. There's nothing to pay, and your plan or pack is activated the same way.

While a discount is running, plan change previews show the standard price with a note naming your discount, since the amount you're actually charged depends on how long the discount lasts.

Manage Billing

On paid plans, the Subscription card in Account Settings has a Manage Billing button. It opens Stripe's secure billing portal in a new tab, where you manage your payment method and invoices.

Upgrade or Downgrade

Plan change buttons live on the same Subscription card, such as Upgrade to Studio or Downgrade to Creator. A dialog previews the change before you confirm:

• Upgrades apply immediately. Your card is charged a prorated amount for the rest of the current billing period, and the new features are available right away
• Downgrades apply at the end of your billing period. You keep your current plan until then, and there's no charge today
• Downgrading to Free cancels your subscription; you keep your paid features until the end of the billing period

Enterprise and Founders plans are managed separately; the card directs you to contact support for changes.

See what changes before you confirm

When you pick a smaller plan, the dialog shows a What changes summary before you confirm: any features you'll lose, anything you have more of than the new plan includes, and monthly allowances where this month's usage already exceeds the new plan's number (those pause until the 1st).

Three things must fit the new plan before a downgrade can be scheduled. If any of them don't, the dialog shows a checklist instead of scheduling the change:

1. Podcasts: if you have more podcasts than the new plan allows, each extra podcast is listed with a Settings link so you can delete what you no longer need
2. Team members: if you have more team members than the new plan's seats, the dialog lists them with a Manage team link. Removed members keep their episode credits
3. Externally hosted podcasts (only when downgrading to Free): external hosting requires a paid plan, so the dialog lists each externally hosted podcast. Convert it to PodcasterPlus hosting or delete it to continue

Resolve the items, reopen the dialog, and confirm. Everything else (automations, templates, booking links, calendar connections, storage) never blocks a downgrade; it follows the keep-working rule below.

While a downgrade is scheduled

Until your billing period ends, nothing changes:

• For a downgrade to another paid plan, the Subscription card shows Switching to the new plan with the date, and a banner reminds you that your plan changes on that date. Changed your mind? Click Keep current plan on the card or the banner, and the scheduled change is cancelled
• For a downgrade to Free, the card shows when your subscription ends, and a banner offers Reactivate to keep your paid plan going

After the switch: what you have keeps working

When the new plan starts, anything you created under the old plan keeps working. Nothing is deleted or switched off. If you have more of something than the new plan includes (for example more automations or booking links), the existing ones keep running; you just can't add more until you're back under the limit or upgrade again.

A banner in the app lists exactly what you're over on, with links to review each area. Monthly allowances that are already past the new plan's number pause until they reset on the 1st.

Upgrading again lifts the limits immediately, and everything simply resumes; there is nothing to rebuild or re-enable.

Podcasts and storage over the limit: the 30-day window

Stored audio counts everything kept for your episodes: the published file, plus the lossless master retained when an upload is converted (see Audio Processing).

Hosted podcast feeds and stored audio are the one place an overage can't stay forever, because your feeds keep costing money to serve. If your account has more podcasts than your plan allows, or more stored audio than your storage limit, a 30-day window starts:

• You get an email when the window starts, with reminders on day 7 and day 21, and a final warning on day 27 that names the exact date your feeds will stop serving
• During the window everything keeps serving normally. Resolve it by upgrading, deleting podcasts, or deleting audio
• After 30 days, feeds over the limits stop serving: with too many podcasts, your newest podcasts beyond the allowance; with too much storage, all of your feeds

Nothing is ever deleted. A suspended feed and all of its episodes stay safely in your account, and the podcast's settings page shows a notice while its feed is suspended. As soon as you upgrade, or delete enough podcasts or audio to get under your limits, your feeds are restored and you receive a confirmation email.

External hosting requires a paid plan

Externally hosted podcasts aren't part of the 30-day window, because PodcasterPlus doesn't serve their feeds. On Free, an externally hosted podcast's feed continues on your external host unaffected, but publishing and link management in PodcasterPlus are paused until you upgrade, convert the podcast to PodcasterPlus hosting, or delete it.

If a payment fails

If a renewal payment fails, you keep your plan while Stripe retries the charge. A banner in the app explains the situation with an Update Payment button that opens the billing portal. Your plan only moves to Free if the payment can't be recovered, and then the keep-working rules and the 30-day window above apply.

Your exact numbers can differ

The plan matrix documents each plan's defaults. Your account's live numbers can be higher, for example from add-on packs or negotiated Enterprise caps, and the app always enforces and displays your real allowances.

What's Next?

• Plan Limits: the full limits and features matrix
• Account Settings: your Subscription and Storage cards