When a free trial ends without a subscription, or a subscription ends, your help center goes offline until you activate a plan. Nothing is deleted, and activating brings it back right away.
Your content is safe. Articles, categories, your design and your settings are all kept while your help center is offline.
What your readers see
Your help center shows a page that says "This Help Center is Taking a Break" and "This help center is currently unavailable due to an expired subscription."
The page offers Log In & Reactivate for you and Create Your Own Help Center for visitors.
AI assistants connected to your help center's public MCP server can't reach it anymore.
What you see in the dashboard
You can still sign in, but instead of your articles and settings, dashboard pages show "Unfortunately, your subscription trial has expired. Please activate your subscription to continue using HelpCenter.io." The message mentions the trial even when a paid subscription has ended. Billing & Invoices keeps working, so you can activate from there.
Bring your help center back
Sign in at helpcenter.io/app/signin, or click Log In & Reactivate on your help center.
Click your avatar, then Billing & Invoices. You can also go straight to helpcenter.io/app/account/billing.
Pick your plan, add your billing details and a payment method, and click Activate.
You're charged when you activate, and your help center is back online straight away. See Choose a plan and start your subscription for each step.
When a payment fails
If we can't charge your payment method, your subscription becomes past due. Your help center stays online, and:
A banner in the dashboard says your subscription "has gone past due" and for how many days, with an Update Payment Method button.
We email the account owner.
To fix it, open Billing & Invoices, add a new card or PayPal account under Payment Method and click Save payment method. Saving it also retries the overdue payment. Don't leave it for long: if the payment keeps failing, the subscription can be canceled, and your help center goes offline.
Troubleshooting
Your help center still shows the "Taking a Break" page after you activated. Wait a minute and reload the page. If it's still there, email support@helpcenter.io.
You can't open Billing & Invoices. Only the account owner manages billing. If you're a team member, ask the owner to reactivate.
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