Plans and billing
Pricing, the free trial, invoices and your subscription.
Frequently asked questions
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What payment methods do you accept?
We accept credit and debit cards, including Visa and Mastercard, and PayPal. Payments are processed by Braintree, a PayPal service, and charged in US dollars.
Cards: your bank may ask you to confirm the payment (3-D Secure).
PayPal: connect your PayPal account once, and renewals are charged to it.
You add a payment method when you activate your subscription. To change it later, open Billing & Invoices, pick or add a method under Payment Method and click Save payment method. Your active subscriptions move to the new method automatically.
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Are my payment details secure?
Yes. Your card details go straight from the payment form to our payment processor, Braintree, a PayPal service. HelpCenter.io never stores your card number.
We keep only the card type and its last four digits, or your PayPal email address, so you can see which method you're billed with.
Braintree follows PCI DSS, the security standard for handling card data.
Card payments can be confirmed with your bank through 3-D Secure.
Only the account owner can see or change billing details.
For how we protect the rest of your account and content, see Security and privacy at HelpCenter.io.
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Will I be charged as soon as I activate?
Not if you're still in your free trial. When you activate during the trial, you keep the days you have left, and your first payment is taken when the trial ends.
If your trial has already ended, you're charged as soon as you activate, and your help center comes back online right away.
Yearly plans are paid for the whole year up front.
Monthly plans are charged once a month.
Both renew automatically for the same period, and you get an invoice for every payment in Billing & Invoices.
Ready to go? See Choose a plan and start your subscription.
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How do I cancel my subscription?
You can cancel a help center's subscription yourself, from Billing & Invoices, at any time. It stays active until the end of the period you've already paid for, and you won't be charged again.
Who can do this: The account owner
Cancel a subscription
Click your avatar, then Billing & Invoices.
Under the subscription of the help center you want to cancel, click Cancel subscription. With more than one help center, each one has its own.
Choose the main reason you're cancelling and click Continue.
Depending on your reason, we may suggest something that could help, such as a discount, a short break or a different plan. To go on, click No thanks, continue cancelling.
Check the summary and click Cancel subscription.
If our team bills a help center for you by hand, the last button reads Request cancellation instead. Our billing team stops the charges and confirms by email, and the help center stays online until then.
What happens next
Your help center stays online until the end of the period you've paid for. After that, it goes offline and visitors see a page saying it isn't available.
Its content stays with us for up to 12 months, and you can export your articles from the dashboard until then. See Export or delete a help center.
We email you a confirmation. On an annual plan, there's no refund for the rest of your term.
Changed your mind? Before the subscription ends, click Keep my subscription in Billing & Invoices. After it ends, click Resubscribe there to bring everything back.
If you cancel the help center your main subscription pays for, you choose which of your other help centers it pays for from then on.
If you pause instead
If you accept a pause, your help center goes offline for the months you chose and you aren't charged in the meantime. Visitors see a page that says "We're taking a short break", and your widget and the public API stop serving the help center too. You can still sign in and work in the dashboard, but you can't change the help center's plan or AI add-on until you resume it.
We email you a week before the pause ends. Your help center then comes back, and billing resumes on the same plan and price. To come back sooner, click Resume now in Billing & Invoices.
Delete your help center or account
You can also delete a help center yourself in Settings → Danger zone (account owner only). Deleting cancels that help center's subscription straight away and permanently removes its content, so export it first. If you have more than one help center, contact support before you delete the first one you created, so the others stay online. See Export or delete a help center.
Want your account and data deleted as well? Email support@helpcenter.io from the account owner's email address.
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How much does each additional help center cost?
Each help center has its own plan and subscription, so every additional help center costs the per-help-center price of the plan you choose for it, from $29/month on Bootstrap billed yearly. See Plans and pricing.
You see the price first. When you create a help center from My Help Centers, a confirmation shows the new subscription before anything is created. Click Adjust Plan to pick a different plan, or Yes, continue and create it.
It starts with a free trial of 5 days, or the rest of your own trial if you're still in it.
Plans are independent. Each help center can be on a different plan, and you change them one by one in Billing & Invoices.
You need an active subscription before you can create a second help center.
Running many help centers, for example for clients? Email support@helpcenter.io to talk about your setup.
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Do you charge VAT?
Only for customers in the European Union. HelpCenter.io is run by HelpCenter Solutions Ltd. in Bulgaria, so VAT works like this:
Bulgaria: 20% VAT is always added.
Other EU countries: 20% VAT is added unless you enter a valid EU VAT number.
Outside the EU: no VAT is added.
Prices on the pricing page don't include VAT. Enter your VAT number in VAT Number/Company Id when you activate your subscription, or later under Payment Details in Billing & Invoices. We check the number automatically, and you can type it with or without the country code. A change applies to your next payments.
When VAT applies, your plan's price shows "Including 20% VAT." and each invoice lists the VAT amount.
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- What happens when a trial or subscription ends? Ivan Penchev
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