Billing

Written by Joseph Russo, Principal Architect, Networks and Tech, AskVault · Reviewed by Allison Chan

Last updated: October 31, 2026 · 4 min read

TL;DR

Manage your plan, payment method, invoices and usage. Billing is in USD worldwide through Dodo Payments, our merchant of record. Upgrades apply at once, prorated; to downgrade, cancel and resubscribe when the plan ends. Only the account owner sees this page. The Free plan has no time limit.

What the Billing page shows

The page shows:

1. Current plan. Free, Starter, Growth, Business, Enterprise. Includes quota usage.
2. Invoices. On a paid plan, your recent payments, each with a link to its invoice from Dodo Payments when one is available.
3. Usage. Current cycle's message count and storage usage.
4. Plan changes. Upgrade or cancel buttons. Each plan card lists the channels a customer on that plan can use and what it adds over the plan below it. A channel that needs something more says so on the card, for example voice minutes sold separately or your own Twilio account.

The page does not show the card on file. To change the card on your subscription, email billing@askvault.co from your account email.

Only the account owner can view and change billing.

Plan tiers

Plans differ in message credits, content storage (MB), workspaces, seats and features.

Plan	Price (USD/mo, excl. tax)	Messages/mo	Content	Team	Workspaces
Free	$0	50	5 MB	1	1
Starter	$39	2,000	15 MB	1	2
Growth	$99	6,000	40 MB	4	5
Business	$249	15,000	100 MB	10	15
Enterprise	Custom	40,000 floor (custom)	2 GB	Unlimited	Unlimited

Plans are billed in USD through Dodo Payments, our merchant of record. Prices exclude tax; any tax that applies where you are is calculated at checkout. Annual prepay (10 times the monthly price, about 17% off) is available on Starter, Growth and Business.

Enterprise and custom agreements

Enterprise plans, and any plan our team sets up for you by agreement, are managed by our team rather than through self-serve checkout. Once our team has set your plan up under your agreement:

• Your plan only changes when we change it. Payments, refunds, failed charges or cancellations on any self-serve subscription still attached to your account no longer move you to another plan.
• Your negotiated message allowance is kept. If your agreement includes more than the 40,000 monthly message floor, every monthly reset refills to your agreed amount.
• Plan changes go through your account manager. Change Plan on the Billing page explains that your plan is managed by our team instead of opening checkout. Contact your account manager or support to change it.

Upgrading

Plan upgrade applies immediately:

1. Open Billing > Change Plan.
2. Pick the target plan.
3. Review the proration. Charged today: difference between old and new plan, prorated for the days remaining in the cycle.
4. Confirm.

Once the change goes through:

• Plan switches.
• New limits apply (more messages, more content, more team seats).
• Features the new plan includes become available (for example WhatsApp on Growth). Channels an earlier downgrade turned off stay off until you turn them back on from the Channels page.
• The prorated amount is charged on your saved payment method.

An upgrade switches your existing subscription directly rather than creating a second one, so you are never billed twice.

Locked workspaces and set-aside pages after an upgrade (once enabled)

Rolling out behind a flag, not yet switched on. Once it is enabled, as soon as an upgrade of your existing subscription takes effect:

• Workspaces locked by an earlier downgrade unlock, up to the new plan's workspace limit. The ones locked longest come back first.
• Pages your content cap set aside start indexing under the new plan's larger cap.

When upgrades wait for the payment (also rolling out), both happen once the payment is confirmed.

If we can't confirm your current subscription

Before a plan change goes through, we check the subscription you already pay for with the payment provider.

• Nothing is charged when your subscription can't be confirmed. If the payment provider can't confirm the subscription you already pay for at that moment, the plan change stops, nothing is changed or charged, and you're asked to try again in a moment. You are never signed up for a second subscription next to the one you have.
• The upgrade price follows the same rule. The amount shown before you confirm is never a new-subscription price for a change that would stop at this step.
• If your account isn't linked to the subscription you pay for, you're asked to contact support, and we change your plan for you.

The price shown when our record of your plan is out of date (once enabled)

Rolling out behind a flag, not yet switched on. Once it is enabled:

• The confirmation matches the charge. If our record of your plan differs from the plan your payment provider bills, the amount and timing shown before you confirm a plan change are worked out from the billed plan, as the change itself is.
• No "nothing charged" for a change that charges today. For example, if you pay for Starter but the Billing page still shows Business, choosing Growth is an upgrade. The confirmation shows the prorated amount charged today, not a change at your next billing date.
• No charge quoted for a change that charges nothing today, and no new-subscription price for a plan you already pay for.

Upgrades that wait for the payment (once enabled)

This upgrade safeguard is rolling out and is not switched on yet:

• The new plan starts when the payment is confirmed. Your new plan and its message credits start once the prorated payment goes through, usually within a minute. If the payment is declined, you stay on your current plan with everything you already paid for. A declined upgrade does not put your account into a payment-failed state.

Another upgrade safeguard already applies:

• Upgrading from an annual plan keeps it annual. If you're on annual billing and upgrade with Monthly selected, the upgrade is applied to your annual plan. The unused part of your current year is credited toward the new annual price, and your new year starts when the upgrade takes effect.

Moving to monthly when that new year ends. Also rolling out and not switched on yet: once it is enabled, the move to monthly billing you selected is scheduled for the end of that new annual year. Nothing is charged for the switch itself; from that date you're billed the monthly price. While the switch is scheduled, you undo it on the Billing page before changing plans again or cancelling.

Starting a second checkout by accident

• A second checkout is refused while your first payment is still being confirmed. If you pay for a plan and start another checkout before that payment is confirmed (in a second tab, or by clicking Upgrade again), you see "You already have a subscription that is active or still being confirmed" and nothing is charged. You aren't shown a price to confirm first. Refresh the Billing page after a minute to see your plan.
• A checkout you left without paying never blocks you. You can start again straight away.
• Another account's subscription never blocks yours. If two AskVault accounts paid with the same email address, a subscription that belongs to the other account does not stop you subscribing.

Message credits after a mid-cycle upgrade

If you already pay for a plan:

• An upgrade adds the extra credits as soon as it takes effect. You get the difference between the new plan's monthly message allowance and the old one's, added to the credits you have left. For example, Starter (2,000) to Growth (6,000) adds 4,000. Your balance never goes above the new plan's allowance. When upgrades wait for the payment (still rolling out), the extra credits are added once the payment is confirmed, together with the new plan.
• The full new allowance arrives at your next monthly reset. Your reset date does not move. The billing cycle restart that comes with an upgrade does not refill your credits a second time. The exception is an upgrade from annual billing with Monthly selected. Your monthly reset date then moves to the day of the month you upgrade (the 28th at the latest), and the new plan's full allowance is available straight away.
• Switching the same plan from monthly to yearly billing adds no credits. Your current balance carries over unchanged.
• Purchased top-up credits are never affected.

Switching from monthly to yearly billing (once enabled)

Rolling out behind a flag, not yet switched on. Today, choosing Yearly above the plans shows Current Plan on your own plan, with no way to switch. Once it is enabled:

1. Choose Yearly above the plans. If you pay monthly, your current plan shows Switch to yearly billing.
2. Review the charge. You see what you'll be charged today: the yearly price for a new yearly billing period that starts today, less credit for the unused part of your current month.
3. Choose Confirm switch. Nothing is charged until you do.

Your existing subscription is switched to yearly billing, so you are never billed twice. Your plan and its features stay the same. If the switch can't be made from the Billing page, you're told so, nothing is charged, and you can email billing@askvault.co to have it switched for you.

Downgrading

You can't switch straight to a lower paid plan from the Billing page yet. Downgrade on a lower plan opens a short explainer with the steps:

1. Cancel your current subscription. Choose Go to Cancel Subscription in the explainer, or Cancel subscription on the Billing page, then Confirm cancel. You keep your current plan until the end of the billing period and are not charged again.
2. Subscribe to the lower plan once your current plan ends and your account is on Free.

Downgrade to Free is the same cancellation: your plan stays active until the end of the billing period, then the account moves to Free.

Rolling out behind a flag, not yet switched on: scheduled downgrades. Once they are switched on, Downgrade asks you to confirm, then schedules the lower plan for the end of your billing period. You keep the current plan's features until then, nothing is refunded, and you can undo the change from the Billing page before it takes effect.

If your agent is set to an AI model the new plan doesn't include, it switches to the new plan's default model when the plan changes, so it keeps answering. You can pick any model your plan includes in agent settings.

What changes when a downgrade takes effect

A downgrade (or a cancellation reaching Free) removes what the new plan doesn't include. Nothing is deleted:

• Extra workspaces are locked, read-only. If you have more workspaces than the new plan allows, the ones you used most recently stay active and the rest are locked. You can still open, browse and export a locked workspace, delete it, or remove a teammate from it. Edits are refused, and its agent stops answering visitors while it is locked. If you're on Free and choose a paid plan, locked workspaces unlock, up to the new plan's limit. Upgrading a paid plan you still have doesn't unlock them yet.
• Branding returns unless the new plan includes removing it, or you hold an unexpired remove-branding add-on.
• Channels the new plan doesn't include are turned off (for example WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack or email below Growth). Their settings are kept. If you're on Free and choose a paid plan that includes them, they turn back on automatically. After upgrading a paid plan you still have, open each one on the Channels page and turn it back on. Outbound webhooks pause too, and resume once your plan includes them again.
• The AI phone line stops if the new plan doesn't include voice. Your number is not released.
• Team seats count across your whole account. Each person counts once, however many of your workspaces they belong to, and a pending invite holds a seat. Nobody is removed, but new invites and acceptances past the new plan's seat limit are refused.
• Conversation history is never cut short retroactively. The new plan's shorter retention window applies only to history created after the downgrade. Earlier history is kept for up to 365 days.

Common downgrade reasons:

• Never upgraded. The account simply stays on the Free plan.
• Switching from Business to Growth because Business features weren't needed.
• Pausing the team seasonally.

Cancellation

Full cancellation:

1. Billing > Cancel Subscription.
2. Pick reason (helps us improve).
3. Confirm.

Cancellation:

• Account stays active until end of cycle.
• No further charges.
• At cycle end, account drops to Free (50 messages per month, 5 MB cap, widget and hosted chat page only, no time limit).
• Data is kept. Workspaces over the Free cap of 1 are locked, never deleted, until you upgrade. A Free workspace is removed only after 30 days with no conversations (see Free plan).

When your subscription ends (once enabled)

Rolling out behind a flag, not yet switched on. Once it is enabled:

• The email says your subscription has ended. When the period you cancelled runs out, the email says the subscription has ended and your account is on Free. It no longer says you keep access until a date that has already passed.
• A subscription that ends without you cancelling it is flagged to our team. The email says it ended and did not renew, and that no further payment was taken. Our team is told, so we can help you resubscribe.
• Changing your card is not a payment. A card change on its own does not clear a failed payment. The failed-payment state clears when the outstanding payment is collected, or when our payment provider confirms the subscription is active again.

Enterprise plans are set up by our sales team, so they are changed and cancelled through your account team rather than from the Billing page.

To fully delete (not just cancel), see account deletion.

Inactive Free workspaces

A Free workspace with no activity for 21 days is paused, and you get an in-app notice and an email. Send your agent a message to resume it. If it stays inactive for another 9 days, it is removed.

A paused workspace is never removed while it holds something you paid for (purchased credits or voice minutes), or while your account still has a subscription on record or paid time remaining. It is paused and you are notified, and the notice says it will not be removed.

Payment methods

Every customer, India included, is billed in USD through Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, which handles global tax and compliance. Checkout is a hosted redirect and works the same in every country: there's no separate India-specific checkout flow today.

To change the card on your subscription, email billing@askvault.co from your account email.

Invoices

Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, issues an invoice for every charge and holds it. AskVault does not store copies of your invoices:

• On the Billing page. While you are on a paid plan, the Invoices card lists your recent payments, read from Dodo Payments when you open the page, with a link to each invoice when Dodo Payments provides one.
• Format compliant with your jurisdiction's tax rules (e.g., GST invoicing for customers in India).

International customers get tax-compliant invoices for their jurisdiction.

Usage monitoring

Track current cycle:

• Queries used / quota. Bar chart with daily breakdown.
• Storage used / cap. In MB, with per-source breakdown.
• Team seats used / cap.
• Days remaining in cycle.

When approaching quota:

• 70% used: in-app notice.
• 90% used: in-app notice and an email to the account owner.
• 100% used: in-app notice and email; the agent pauses until you top up, upgrade or the cycle resets.

Upgrade or wait for cycle reset.

Auto-recharge (once enabled)

Available once enabled; rolling out behind a flag. On a paid plan, the account owner can turn on auto-recharge in Billing, under the message-credits card:

• Pick a pack and a threshold. When your credits fall below the threshold, we buy that pack on the card you saved with a previous purchase. You need to have bought a pack once, so that a card is on file.
• You confirm the price first. Before it turns on, we show the exact charge, for example: "We'll charge your saved card $16 for 1,000 credits when your credits fall below 200, at most 3 times a month."
• At most 3 recharges a month. After the third, we tell you and stop charging until next month. Billing shows "Recharges this month: n/3" and the result of the last one.
• Credits arrive only when the payment succeeds. Until then, a conversation that runs out of credits stops, as it does today.
• A declined card switches it off. We email you and we don't try again. Buy credits or turn auto-recharge back on in Billing.
• It applies to your own account only. A teammate cannot change it for you.

Quota reset

Cycles run monthly aligned to your subscription start date:

• Sign up May 5: cycles run 5th to 4th each month.
• Usage resets to 0 at midnight UTC on the cycle start day.

Carryover: no rollover. Unused quota expires at cycle end.

Trial behavior

New accounts start on the Free plan, no credit card required: 50 messages, 5 MB, 1 seat, 1 workspace, no time limit.

Some accounts still see a trial countdown on this page or get reminder emails about a trial ending. That label is being retired, and nothing is deleted or downgraded when it reaches zero. A Free workspace is removed only after 30 days with no conversations, following a pause notice at 21 days. See Free plan and the trial label.

Upgrade any time under Billing > Change Plan.

Discounts

One discount path:

• Annual prepay. Pay 12 months upfront at 10 times the monthly price (2 months free, about 17% off). Available on Starter, Growth and Business.

AskVault does not offer promo codes or non-profit and education discounts today. Enterprise pricing is custom; ask sales.

Tax handling

Every price AskVault shows, on the pricing page, the Billing page and at checkout, excludes tax. Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, calculates any tax that applies where you are at checkout.

Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, works out the tax that applies where you are, such as VAT or GST, adds it at checkout and shows it as a separate line on the invoice. If you need a tax ID shown on your invoices, contact support.

Refund policy

• Monthly subscriptions. Non-refundable. Cancel any time to stop the next renewal.
• Annual subscriptions. Non-refundable. Cancel any time to stop the next annual renewal.
• Add-ons (phone numbers, extra message packs). Non-refundable once provisioned.
• Exceptional circumstances (billing error on our part, duplicate or unauthorised charge, outage of more than 36 hours in a month, material defect we cannot fix): email within 30 days of the charge. Any refund is at our discretion.

There is no refund window and no refund button in the dashboard. Email billing@askvault.co from your account email with your receipt or invoice number. Refunds, when granted, go to your original payment method and typically reflect within 5 to 10 business days. Full policy: Refund policy.

Payment disputes (chargebacks)

This is what happens when your bank questions or disputes a charge.

• A bank inquiry does not change your plan. If your bank only asks us about a charge, your plan and your agents keep working while we answer it.
• A chargeback moves the account to Free. When a chargeback is actually opened, the account moves to the Free plan and the subscription is set not to renew, so it cannot charge you again.
• If we win the dispute, your plan comes back. If the bank decides for us, your paid plan is restored automatically for the rest of the period you already paid for, as long as your subscription is still active with our payment provider. The subscription stays set not to renew, so the plan ends with that period. After that you can subscribe again from the Billing page. Workspaces locked and channels turned off when the account moved to Free are not turned back on automatically; email billing@askvault.co if you need them back.
• If the bank decides for you, the account stays on Free. The subscription stays cancelled. You can subscribe again from the Billing page once the current billing period has ended.
• A plan our team manages for you is not changed automatically. If your plan is set up by agreement (see Enterprise and custom agreements above), a chargeback does not move it to Free or cancel its subscription, whatever the bank decides. It does still lock workspaces and turn off channels the way a downgrade to Free does (see What changes when a downgrade takes effect above). Our team reviews the dispute and contacts you.

Questions about a disputed charge: email billing@askvault.co from your account email.

API access for billing

There is no public API for this page today; use the dashboard.

Audit and compliance

AskVault records some billing events on your account in its audit log, for example plan changes, cancellations and refunds. Not every billing event is recorded. Each entry records the account and the time.

• Audit-log entries are deleted 365 days after they are recorded. The one billing exception is the record that a refunded subscription must not be reactivated, which is kept.
• Invoices are not part of the audit log. Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, issues and holds them (see Invoices above).
• If you delete your account, these entries are kept without your personal details until the 365-day cleanup. See account deletion.

Agency partner plan level

Approved agency partners get a higher plan level for limits. It is not a billed plan. It covers these limits: workspaces, conversation history, trial status, team seats, message credits, and whether you can buy top-ups and voice packs.

• Approval. Trial countdowns on your workspaces end. Workspaces locked by an earlier downgrade unlock up to the new limit.
• Suspension. Your limits return to the plan you pay for. Message credits above that plan's allowance are removed. Credits you bought are kept. Workspaces above the limit become read-only and are not deleted.
• The agency program ending. Your limits return to the plan you pay for straight away. Message credits you already have are not removed. At your next monthly reset, you get that plan's allowance.
• Referrals. A partner earns no commission on an account paid for with the partner's own billing account.
• Not switched on yet. Re-crawl schedules, the default AI model, analytics access and usage alerts will follow the partner plan level too. Checkout will not sell you a plan at or below your partner plan level, because it would add nothing. Nothing is charged. You can still move to a cheaper billed plan, or buy a plan above your partner level.

Planned features (on the roadmap)

Documented for accuracy:

• Per-workspace billing. Today, billing is per account.

Limits

• Refund window. None. Fees are non-refundable on monthly and annual plans.

Common pitfalls

Payment reminders not arriving. They may be in spam. Add billing@askvault.co to your safe senders.

Wrong tax details on an invoice. Invoices come from Dodo Payments, our merchant of record. Contact support with the correct details.

Quota exceeded mid-month. Upgrade plan or wait for cycle reset. Quota carryover is not available.

Paid for message credits or voice minutes, but they have not appeared. Credits are normally added within seconds of payment. If a purchase is still pending after about 30 minutes, AskVault re-checks it with our payment provider and adds the credits if the payment went through. You are never credited twice for the same payment. If a purchase is still missing after an hour, email billing@askvault.co with your receipt.

FAQ

Can I pay in USD?

Billed in USD through Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, which handles global tax and compliance. Checkout is a hosted redirect and works the same in every country.

What happens if my card fails?

Dodo Payments, our merchant of record, retries a failed renewal automatically, and we email you when a payment fails. If the payment does not recover, the account moves to the Free plan. There is no card-update button in the dashboard today: to change the card on your subscription, email billing@askvault.co from your account email.

Can I switch payment methods mid-cycle?

Yes. Email billing@askvault.co from your account email to change the card on your subscription.

Do you bill annually?

Yes, on Starter, Growth and Business (10 times the monthly price, about 17% off).

Will my data delete if I cancel?

No. The account drops to the Free plan with a 5 MB cap and no time limit, and your data is kept. To fully delete data, use account deletion.

Related guides

• Pricing breakdown
• Refund policy
• Account deletion
• Uptime target and SLA
• Workspace settings

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