Plans, Billing, and Account Settings

Captivar’s pricing is designed to let you start cheap and scale only as your portfolio justifies it. This article covers the plans, what each one unlocks, how billing works mechanically, and how to handle the situations that come up around upgrades, downgrades, and failed payments.

The five plans, at a glance

Plan	Monthly	Annual (per mo)	Sites	AI messages	Branding	Best for
Free	$0	—	1	100	No	Testing the product
Founder	$29	$24	1	500	No	Solo founders on one site
Starter	$79	$66	3	2,500	No	Solo agencies, 2-3 clients
Agency	$249	$208	15	15,000	Yes	The agency tier most land on
Enterprise	$499	$416	Unlimited	Unlimited	Yes	Scaled agencies, custom domain

Annual billing is 10× the monthly price — two months free in exchange for committing for a year. If you’re confident you’ll use Captivar at the current tier for at least 10 months, annual is the cheaper choice.

What each plan actually unlocks

Beyond the headline numbers, plans gate specific features:

Free. One site, one form, 100 AI messages per month, 5 bookings per month, 7-day data retention. White-label and custom branding off. Designed as a demo tier — works for a single proof of concept.

Founder. One site (same as Free) but with 500 AI messages, unlimited bookings, 30-day retention, and 3 forms per site. Removes most of Free’s friction without unlocking multi-site management.

Starter. Three sites, 10 forms per site, 2,500 AI messages, 90-day retention. The first plan that supports agency work — you can manage a small portfolio of clients. Branding still off.

Agency. Fifteen sites, unlimited forms, 15,000 AI messages, 365-day retention. First plan with custom branding. This is the tier most agencies land on. The pricing is calibrated to be the obvious choice if you’re managing 5+ clients.

Enterprise. Unlimited everything. Custom subdomain, dedicated support response times, SLA. Aimed at agencies past 20 clients or those with specific compliance or integration requirements.

The headline metric that drives plan choice is usually sites count — once you outgrow the limit, you upgrade. AI messages are second — if you blow past the monthly cap, the receptionist temporarily disables until reset.

How billing works mechanically

Captivar bills through PayPal. When you upgrade to a paid plan, you’re redirected to PayPal to authorize a recurring subscription. PayPal handles the payment instrument (card, bank, balance) and notifies Captivar when each charge succeeds.

Why PayPal: it’s reliable, internationally supported, and doesn’t require you to share card details with Captivar directly. PayPal owns the payment surface; Captivar owns everything else.

Other payment methods (direct card via Stripe, bank transfer, ACH) are planned but not yet live. For Enterprise customers requiring invoicing or wire transfer, contact [email protected] — we can arrange annual invoicing.

Monthly billing cycle

Charges run on the day of the month you started. Subscribe on the 14th and you’ll be charged the 14th of every month going forward. Receipts arrive by email immediately after each successful charge.

Annual billing cycle

Annual subscribers are charged once at signup and once per year on the same date. You see one $2,490 charge for Agency annual on day one, then nothing for 12 months, then another $2,490 charge. We send a reminder email 14 days before each renewal.

Upgrading mid-cycle

If you upgrade from Founder to Agency on day 15 of your billing cycle, PayPal prorates: you pay the difference for the remainder of the current period, then the new plan price starts on the next cycle. The math is automatic — you see the prorated amount before confirming.

Upgrades take effect immediately. Your site limit jumps, the AI message quota expands, custom branding unlocks the moment payment is confirmed.

Downgrading

Two ways to downgrade.

Downgrade at cycle end — the most common. You stay on your current plan through the end of the period you’ve paid for, then drop to the new plan on the next cycle. No refund, no proration. You get what you paid for.

Downgrade immediately with refund credit — Enterprise customers only, and at our discretion. The unused portion of the current period is credited against the new plan. Not standard policy; available case-by-case.

Be careful with downgrades — if you downgrade to a plan that supports fewer sites than you currently have, the excess sites are archived (not deleted). They become inaccessible until you upgrade again. Tracking on them stops; historical data is preserved.

Where billing settings live

Settings (top-right) → Billing.

The page has four sections:

• Current plan — your active plan, next renewal date, monthly cost
• Payment method — connected PayPal account, with a link to change it
• Receipts — every charge with date, amount, and a downloadable receipt PDF
• Plan change — buttons to upgrade or downgrade

Only the owner of the account can see or interact with the Billing page. Admins and members cannot — billing is owner-exclusive.

Failed payments and the grace period

When a payment fails (expired card, insufficient funds, PayPal dispute), Captivar gives you a 3-day grace period before doing anything punitive.

What happens during the grace period:

• All features keep working
• You get an email the moment the payment fails with a link to update the payment method
• A second reminder email at 48 hours
• A final reminder at 72 hours

What happens after 3 days, if payment still hasn’t been resolved:

• The account downgrades to Free automatically
• Sites past the Free limit (1) are archived, not deleted
• Custom branding is hidden (Captivar branding returns)
• AI messages cap at the Free limit (100/month)
• Lead pipeline, historical data, and team configuration are all preserved

To recover: update your payment method through PayPal, then click “Reactivate plan” in Billing. The downgrade reverses, archived sites unarchive, branding returns. No work is lost — just paused.

Account settings

The Account tab in Settings handles your personal user, not the agency. Three subsections:

Profile

Your name, email, and avatar. Changing your email updates the login address and the address that receives all administrative emails. The change requires re-verification — Captivar emails a code to the new address; you enter it to confirm.

Password

Change your password. Captivar requires a minimum length but does not enforce complexity rules — long is better than weird. We recommend a password manager.

If you’ve forgotten your current password, use the “Forgot password” link on the login page instead of trying to change it from inside the dashboard.

Two-factor authentication

Captivar supports email-based 2FA. Enable it in this section.

When 2FA is on, every login prompts for a 6-digit code sent to your email. The code is valid for 10 minutes; a new one is sent if you take longer than that.

Recommended for every owner and admin. Required for Enterprise accounts.

If you lose access to the email address registered with your account, contact [email protected] from any address that has a paper trail to your account (a billing email, a previous support thread). We’ll verify identity manually and restore access.

Cancellation

To cancel a Captivar subscription:

1. Open Settings → Billing. Scroll to the bottom of the page. The “Cancel subscription” link is small and intentionally not flashy.

2. Confirm. A modal asks for a reason (optional but helpful — we read every response). Cancellation does not take effect immediately — it scheduled for the end of your current billing period.

3. Use the platform through the end of your period. Nothing changes until the period ends. You keep full access. We do not pro-rate refunds for mid-cycle cancellation.

4. At period end, your account downgrades to Free. Same behavior as a failed-payment downgrade: sites archived, branding off, pipeline preserved.

If you change your mind during the period, click “Reactivate” on the Billing page and the cancellation is reversed.

For Enterprise contracts with annual prepayment, cancellation is governed by your contract. We do not auto-renew Enterprise; you receive a renewal notice 60 days before the term ends.

Account deletion (irreversible)

Cancellation downgrades you to Free. Deletion removes the account entirely.

To delete, contact [email protected] from the email address on the account. We confirm via a one-time code sent to that address, then schedule deletion for 30 days out — giving you a window to change your mind. After 30 days, the account, all sites, all leads, all pipeline data, all billing history, and all team memberships are permanently deleted. No recovery is possible after that point.

Captivar does not delete accounts automatically based on inactivity. A Free account that hasn’t been logged into for a year stays in your name unless you explicitly delete it.

What happens next

Plans, billing, and personal account are configured. The next article covers the conceptual layer underneath all of this — how roles, plans, and access actually fit together when you stack them — so you can predict what will happen in situations these procedural docs don’t cover.