Managing your subscription

This page covers everything to do with paying for flowss: subscribing to a plan, what happens after you pay, reading the plan card on your account page, changing plan or billing cycle, cancelling, failed payments, buying AI point packs, refunds, and the emails you receive along the way. Payments are processed by Stripe: checkout happens on a Stripe-hosted page, and every change to an existing subscription happens in Stripe's billing portal, which you open from your account page. For what each plan includes, see Plans and what they include.

At a glance

Key facts:

• You need to be signed in to subscribe. Every subscription is tied to your flowss account.
• Prices are in US dollars and exclude any tax that has to be collected.
• You can cancel at any time and keep your paid features until the end of the period you have already paid for.
• Changing plan or billing cycle never starts a second subscription: it happens in the billing portal, which keeps one subscription and prorates the difference.
• Nothing you have made is ever deleted because a subscription ends or a payment fails.

Subscribing to a plan

Before you start

• Sign in. If you press a Subscribe button while signed out, you are sent to sign in and then returned to the same plan card on the pricing page.
• Check the plan is open for checkout. A plan card shows a Subscribe button only when that plan can be bought on the billing cycle you are viewing. Otherwise it shows a waitlist link and a note explaining which cycle is not open yet. See Plans and what they include.
• Decide on a cycle. Monthly is charged every month at the list price. Annual is quoted per month and charged once a year at a lower rate: Starter $144 a year, Plus $300 a year, Ultra $588 a year.

Step by step

1. Go to /pricing.
2. Choose Monthly or Annual in the toggle above the plan cards. The cards update to show the price for that cycle and the amount actually charged.
3. Press the button on the plan you want: Subscribe to Starter, Upgrade to Plus or Go Ultra. The button reads Starting checkout… while the payment page is prepared.
4. Stripe's checkout page opens. Enter your payment details. Stripe may ask for a billing address. If you have a promotion code, Stripe's page has a field for it (it is not offered while a launch offer is being applied automatically).
5. Confirm the payment on Stripe's page.
6. You return to flowss, which confirms the payment with Stripe and applies your plan. You may briefly see a page headed Your purchase is ready that says "Continuing to your workspace…" and takes you to your account page; if it does not move on, choose Continue.
7. Your account page shows a green notice: "Your plan is active. Thanks for subscribing." The Current plan card shows your new plan, and every studio your plan includes is open straight away, on every device you sign in from.
8. You receive an email headed, for example, "Your Plus plan is active", which states when the plan renews.

The cycle you chose is sent with your request and is the one you are charged on. If that cycle cannot be sold, checkout refuses with an explanation rather than charging you the other cycle's price.

If you change your mind on the Stripe page

Leave the Stripe page (for example with the back link) and you return to the pricing page. Nothing is charged. A Stripe checkout page stays valid for about half an hour. If you press the same plan and cycle again while a page you opened earlier is still valid, you are taken back to that same page rather than given a second one; choosing a different plan or cycle closes the earlier page.

If the purchase cannot be confirmed straight away

Occasionally the payment completes but flowss cannot confirm it immediately, for example because Stripe was briefly unreachable. In that case you see a page headed We haven't been able to confirm this purchase yet, which says the payment may still be processing or the account update may have been interrupted.

1. Choose Check again. This safely retries the confirmation.
2. If it still does not confirm, choose Go to your account and check whether your plan has changed. Confirmation usually arrives within seconds.
3. Your card statement and Stripe receipt show whether payment was taken.
4. If your plan is still unchanged after a few minutes, use the Tell us link on that page. Quote the checkout reference shown on the page (it begins cs_); it is all support needs to find the payment.

Warning: Do not buy the plan again while a purchase is being confirmed. flowss also guards against this: checkout refuses a second subscription while one is live, and pauses new checkouts for a short time if the outcome of an earlier attempt is uncertain.

Reading your plan card

The Current plan card sits at the top right of your account page. It shows the plan name, the plan's one-line blurb, the price in its top-right corner, how you are billed, when the plan renews, and a button.

Notes on the card:

• Dates are written as day, month and year (for example "3 March 2027") and are calendar dates in UTC.
• When a cancellation is scheduled and a payment has also failed, both lines are shown.
• On a yearly plan, the per-month figure is always shown together with the yearly amount, so "$25 / mo" never appears without "$300 a year".
• When a different billing cycle is available for your plan, a sentence under Manage billing describes it. For a monthly Plus subscriber, for example: "You're billed monthly today. Yearly billing is $25 / mo — $300 charged once a year, $48 (13.8%) less than twelve monthly payments." followed by how switching works (see below). This sentence appears only when that cycle can actually be bought.
• If your plan was just bought and its billing link has not arrived yet (or it was set up for you by the flowss team), the button reads Manage on /pricing instead of Manage billing. This usually resolves itself within moments of a purchase.

The billing portal

Manage billing opens Stripe's own billing portal for your account. Everything about an existing subscription is done there:

• update your payment card;
• see past invoices and receipts;
• change to a different plan (upgrade or downgrade);
• switch between monthly and annual billing;
• cancel, or resume a subscription you have scheduled to cancel.

When you finish, the portal returns you to the plan card on your account page (/account#billing), where you can check the change took effect. The card updates as soon as Stripe tells flowss about the change, which normally takes a few seconds.

While the portal is opening, the button shows a spinner. If it cannot open, a short red message appears under it, such as "Portal unavailable (503)". See Troubleshooting.

Changing plan

To move between Starter, Plus and Ultra while you have a subscription:

1. Open /account and choose Manage billing.
2. In the portal, choose to update or change your plan, pick the new plan, and review what Stripe shows before you confirm. Stripe states the amount due, and the credit for the time already paid for, before anything is charged.
3. Confirm. You return to your account page and the plan card shows the new plan.
4. You receive an email headed "Your plan is now Ultra" (or the plan you chose). It says the change is live now and that "Any difference in price is prorated by Stripe against your next invoice."

Why not use the pricing page? If you press a Subscribe button on the pricing page while you already have a live subscription, checkout refuses with a message such as "You're on plus. Change to ultra in the billing portal — that keeps one subscription and prorates the difference, instead of starting a second one alongside it." and shows an Open billing portal button. This protects you from paying for two subscriptions at once.

If your current plan carries a launch rate, the discount moves with you to the plan you switch to, at that plan's launch price. Any other discount on your account is left as it is.

Switching between monthly and annual

1. Open /account and choose Manage billing.
2. In the portal, change your plan's billing interval.
3. Review what Stripe shows. In the words of the plan card: "Switching between monthly and yearly happens in Stripe's billing portal. Stripe shows what the change does to the period you've already paid for — the exact credit or amount due — before you confirm, and nothing on this account changes until you do."
4. Confirm. Your plan card then reads "Billed yearly" or "Billed monthly" with the new renewal date.

Things to know:

• The switch keeps one subscription; it never opens a second one.
• What you can use does not change. Only how often you are charged changes.
• AI points stay monthly on both cycles: an annual plan still resets its allowance on the 1st of every month (UTC).
• A launch rate is a monthly discount. Moving to annual billing leaves it behind and bills the annual list rate.
• If you try to switch cycles from the pricing page instead, checkout refuses with "You're already on plus. Change how you're billed — monthly or annual — or cancel, in the billing portal. …" and offers Open billing portal.

Cancelling

1. Open /account and choose Manage billing.
2. In the portal, cancel your subscription and confirm.
3. You return to your account page. The plan card now reads "Ends on [date] — won't renew (reactivate in Manage billing)."
4. You receive an email headed "Your flowss subscription will not renew". It confirms you will not be charged again, that you keep every feature of your plan until the end date, and that the account returns to Free afterwards.

What happens next:

• Until the end date nothing changes. You keep every feature you paid for.
• To undo the cancellation, open Manage billing and resume the subscription any time before the end date. Nothing is lost.
• On the end date, the plan ends and your account returns to Free. You receive an email headed "Your flowss subscription is cancelled", confirming you will not be billed again.
• Refunds: cancelling does not pro-rate the remainder. On a prepaid year, access runs to the end of that year and the unused months are not refunded by default. Refunds are handled case by case; contact support.

When a paid plan ends

When a subscription ends (because you cancelled, or because payment could not be recovered) your account moves to Free. Nothing you have made is deleted. Specifically:

Resubscribing restores full access to everything immediately.

Failed payments

If a renewal payment is declined:

1. Stripe retries the payment automatically over the following days.
2. Your plan card shows "Payment failed — Stripe is retrying; update your card in Manage billing."
3. You receive an email headed "Your flowss payment did not go through", once per failed invoice. It says your access continues while Stripe retries.
4. Open Manage billing and update your card. The next retry goes through and nothing is interrupted.

Your access continues while Stripe retries. If the payment keeps failing, the subscription may end and the account returns to Free; your work is not deleted for non-payment.

While a payment is failing, pressing a Subscribe button on the pricing page is refused with: "Your … subscription is still open in Stripe, but its latest payment didn't go through and Stripe is retrying it. Update your card in the billing portal instead of starting a second subscription — a second checkout would bill you twice. Nothing has been charged."

Note: If a renewal reaches flowss a little late, your paid access carries on for up to 72 hours past the end of the period while it arrives, as long as Stripe's last word was that the subscription renews. You are not locked out of studios you have just been charged for.

Buying AI point packs

Point packs add hosted AI points to your balance with a one-time payment. They are available on plans that include a monthly allowance: Plus, Ultra and Enterprise.

On your account page and the pricing page, the line under the buttons reads: "One-time payment. Purchased points never expire and are spent after your monthly allowance."

Where to buy

• Your account page: in the AI points card, the buttons 100 pts — $5 and 500 pts — $20.
• The pricing page: under Need more AI than your plan includes?, a card per pack ("100 points", "$5 once · 5.0¢ per point") with a Buy button.
• In Sketch: when Generate wireframes runs out of points, the error message offers the same two buttons with the note "One-time payment, spent after your monthly allowance and never expiring. Or paste your own API key in Settings — unmetered, on Starter and up." After paying you return to the sketch you were working on. In other studios, the out-of-points message tells you to buy a top-up pack from your account page.

Step by step

1. Choose a pack. The button shows a spinner while checkout is prepared.
2. Pay on Stripe's checkout page.
3. You return to where you started (your account page, the pricing page, or the sketch you bought from).
4. On the account page, a green notice says, for example, "100 AI points added to your balance. Thanks for the top-up." The AI points card shows the new balance, and Points history lists "Top-up — 100-point pack".
5. You receive a receipt email headed "Your flowss AI points are added". It notes that the charge appears on your statement from Voranox Inc., the company behind flowss.

How purchased points behave:

• They are spent only after your monthly allowance is used up.
• They never expire, and they stay on your balance if you change plan.
• Launch discounts never apply to point packs, and a pack's checkout page has no promotion-code field.
• If you leave the Stripe page without paying, nothing is charged and you return to where you started.

If you are on Free or Starter, the packs are refused with: "AI point packs top up a hosted-AI allowance, and your plan doesn't include one. Upgrade to Plus (200 points / month) or Ultra (600) …" On Starter the message adds that you can paste your own API key instead, which is never metered. See AI points and limits.

Refunds and disputes

• Subscriptions. You can cancel at any time and keep access until the end of the paid period. The remainder is not pro-rated, and unused months of a prepaid year are not refunded by default. Refunds are handled case by case: contact support with the Billing topic.
• Point packs. If a top-up is refunded in full, or a card dispute on it is decided against the payment, that pack's points are removed from your balance (never taking it below zero). Points history shows the reversal as "Top-up refunded", "Top-up disputed" or "Top-up reversed". A partial refund leaves the points in place, and points are not removed while a dispute is still open.
• Price changes. Prices may change, but never for a period you have already paid for. A change takes effect at your next renewal, and you are told first.

Emails about billing

Each billing email is sent once per event, even if Stripe delivers the event more than once. Billing emails are service messages, so unsubscribing from product news or getting-started emails does not stop them. The cancellation email also notes that if you cancelled because something was not working, replying to it reaches a person.

Enterprise and managed plans

Enterprise is priced by quote. Choose Contact sales on the Enterprise card to email the flowss team.

A plan that the flowss team set up for you (an Enterprise plan, for example) is managed by a person rather than through self-serve checkout. If you try to subscribe to a self-serve plan from the pricing page, checkout refuses with: "Your enterprise plan is managed for you rather than through self-serve checkout. Contact support to change it — nothing has been charged." Contact support to change or cancel a managed plan.

Billing and deleting your account

Self-service account deletion is temporarily unavailable; deletion requests go through support. Sending a deletion request does not cancel your subscription. If you want to stop paying, cancel in Manage billing as described above. When an account is deleted, any live subscription is cancelled before anything is erased, and invoices held by Stripe are kept because tax and accounting law requires them. See Account settings and your data.

Tips

• Use Manage billing for every change to an existing subscription. It always keeps one subscription and shows the exact amount before you confirm.
• After any change in the portal, glance at your plan card: it is the quickest confirmation that the change took effect.
• If you want to stop renewing but keep working until the end of the period, cancel early. You keep everything until the end date and can resume with one click.
• Expired card? Update it in the portal as soon as you get the "payment did not go through" email; the next retry then succeeds without interrupting anything.
• Buying from the out-of-points message in Sketch returns you to the sketch you were working on.
• Keep your Stripe receipts. If a purchase ever lands on the "We haven't been able to confirm this purchase yet" page, copy the checkout reference shown there (it begins cs_): it is what support needs to trace the payment.

Limits and known constraints

• One subscription per account. A second checkout is refused while a subscription is live; changes go through the portal.
• Checkout (plans and point packs), the billing portal and post-checkout confirmation share one allowance of 40 attempts a day, counted per account and per network address. It resets at midnight UTC.
• A Stripe checkout page is valid for about half an hour.
• If an earlier checkout attempt ended in an unknown state, new checkouts for your account pause for up to 41 minutes to avoid a double charge.
• Point packs are only available on Plus, Ultra and Enterprise.
• Remaining time is not pro-rated on cancellation, and unused months of a prepaid year are not refunded by default.
• flowss does not compute proration itself; Stripe shows the exact credit or amount due in the portal before you confirm a change.
• Enterprise and other plans set up by the flowss team cannot be changed through self-serve checkout.
• Self-service account deletion is temporarily unavailable.

Troubleshooting

Related pages

• Plans and what they include
• Account settings and your data
• AI points and limits
• Bring your own AI key
• Creating an account and signing in
• Privacy and your data
• Reliability, status and support
• Troubleshooting and FAQ