Billing

What Plantains costs, and where you manage it. Every account starts with a 90-day free trial, then moves to the Basic plan. Only the account's Owner sees Billing.

How billing works

Plantains charges in three ways:

• A subscription: the Basic plan, $25.00 a month or $250.00 a year, after the free trial. It's billed to a card on file.
• A fee on card payments: a small part of each payment registrants make by card on your forms (1% + $0.25 on Basic). It's taken from the payment automatically, so it never shows up as a bill.
• Registrations without a card payment, on Basic: 250 a month included, then 1¢ each, on the monthly invoice.

The subscription is between you and Plantains. The money registrants pay goes to your own Stripe account (see Payments and refunds).

The free trial

A new account can build forms right away, but it can't publish them, and its forms take no registrations, until it has a plan. The free trial is that plan for the first 90 days: every feature, as many forms as you like.

1. Open Billing in the sidebar.
2. Under Bill after the trial, choose Monthly or Yearly. You can change it later.
3. Click Add a card and start the trial, and enter the card on Stripe's secure checkout page. You come back to Plantains when it's done.

During the trial:

• Plantains' fee on card payments is 3% + $0.50 per registration (it drops to 1% + $0.25 on Basic).
• Registrations without a card payment are free, however many there are.
• A few days before it ends, the Owner gets an email with the date Basic begins and what it costs.

When the trial ends, the account moves to Basic and the card is charged automatically. To stop instead, close the account before then (see Closing and reopening): you're never charged. Each account gets one trial: an account that's closed and reopened pays from the start.

The Basic plan

Basic is $25.00 a month, or $250.00 a year (12 months for the price of 10). It includes 15 open forms. Each open form beyond that is $2.50 a month ($25.00 a year on yearly billing), and Stripe prorates it: you pay for the part of the month (or year) it's open.

An open form is one that's published and taking registrations:

• its Accepting entries switch is on, and
• its Registration closes time, if it has one, hasn't passed.

Closed forms are free, and so are drafts. A race's form that closes after the event stops counting by itself, so the 15 forms are the ones you're running right now, not every form you've ever made.

Plantains' fee on card payments

When registrants pay by card, Plantains keeps a small fee from the payment. It's taken automatically by Stripe, next to Stripe's own fee, and the rest reaches your Stripe account.

• On Basic: 1% + $0.25 per registration. During the trial: 3% + $0.50.
• The percentage applies to every card payment. The fixed part is charged once per registration, at checkout: later payments on the same registration (a teammate's share, an upgrade, a balance, a transfer fee) only have the percentage.
• On a $100.00 registration paid by card, that's $1.25 on Basic ($3.50 during the trial).

You choose who pays it: you, out of what registrants pay, or registrants, as a fee added to their total. See Plantains' fee: who pays it. What reaches your bank, and what happens to fees when you refund, is in Fees, and what reaches your bank.

Registrations without a card payment

Some registrations don't go through a card payment in Plantains: free entries, or forms with payments turned off (when you collect the money another way). On Basic they're counted, 250 a month included, then 1¢ each, and added to the monthly invoice. On yearly billing, they're billed monthly on their own.

They're free during the trial, and registrations paid by card never count here: Plantains' fee on the payment covers them.

The Billing page

Once the trial or Basic has started, Billing shows where the account stands:

Your card, invoices and billing period

Click Manage billing to open Stripe's billing portal for the account. There you can update the card, see and download past invoices, and change the billing name, email, address or tax ID shown on them. Close the portal to come back to Plantains.

To change how often you're billed, click Switch to yearly (or Switch to monthly) on the Billing page. Stripe prorates the change, and the Owner gets an email with the new terms. You can switch during the trial too: it sets how you're billed once it ends.

If a payment doesn't go through

If the card is declined, the Billing page says The last payment didn't go through, and Stripe tries again over the following days. Update the card under Manage billing.

If the invoice is still unpaid after Stripe's tries, you can't create or duplicate forms until it's paid. Your open forms keep taking registrations in the meantime, so a race already open isn't affected.

Closing and reopening

To stop paying for Plantains, close the account: click Manage billing and cancel the plan in Stripe's portal. It closes at the end of the period you've paid for (during the trial, when the trial ends, so you're never charged). Until then, the Billing page says when it closes, and you can change your mind in the same place.

Once it's closed:

• Your forms stop taking registrations.
• Nothing is deleted: forms, registrations, codes and settings all stay, and you and your team can still sign in to see them.
• To take registrations again, open Billing and click Reopen on Basic. A reopened account pays from the start (there's no second trial).

Comp accounts

Plantains can make an account comp: free, with every feature, no subscription and no Plantains fee on card payments. Its Billing page says Comp account. It's set by Plantains, not something you can choose.

Who sees Billing

Only the account's Owner. Other roles don't see Billing in the sidebar, and can't change anything about the plan. See Your team.