Your Refficks subscription, and what read-only means

This article explains what you pay Refficks for your workspace, where to subscribe and manage it, and what happens if a trial ends or a subscription lapses: the workspace becomes read-only and its tracking pauses until it is paid for, and three months unpaid closes the account.

Switched off: Billing is not switched on for workspaces yet. Until it is, Settings › Workspace › Billing says "Refficks is not charging for this workspace. Everything is included, with no limits.", nobody is held to a trial, and no workspace can become read-only. The rest of this article describes how it works once Refficks switches it on.

The short version

• A new workspace starts with a free trial of 30 days, with everything included and no card asked for. One trial per email address: a second workspace you open starts without one.
• The Alpha plan is for the first 50 merchants who start paying, and its price is yours for good: it never goes up, and your place is kept if you cancel, so you can come back at the same price.
• The regular price is higher. While Refficks is new, early merchants pay less: the Alpha plan first, then early-adopter prices that have not been set yet. The Billing screen names the regular price beside the Alpha price.
• You subscribe, change your card and cancel on Stripe's own pages, reached from Settings › Workspace › Billing. Refficks never sees your card number.
• When a trial ends or a subscription lapses, the workspace is read-only and its tracking is paused: "Partner links still take people to your site, but no clicks or sales are recorded, and what was already approved can still be paid. After three months unpaid, the account closes."
• A sale made while tracking is paused is never credited to a partner, even after you subscribe. Subscribing starts tracking again at once.
• Owners and admins can subscribe and manage billing; everybody else is told to ask one.

Where you stand

Settings › Workspace › Billing shows a badge and one sentence:

Owners and admins are emailed 7, 3 and 1 days before a trial ends, and when it has. While tracking is paused, a Tracking is paused card below says since when, and the day the account closes if it is still unpaid.

Subscribe

1. Go to Settings › Workspace › Billing.
2. On the Alpha plan card, read the price, "The regular price is …" under it, and "The price is yours for good. It never goes up, and your place is kept if you cancel, so you can come back at the same price." Under that: "Your place lasts as long as your account. If the account closes after three months unpaid, the place ends when its data is deleted 90 days later." The card does not say how many places are left.
3. Press Subscribe. Stripe's checkout opens; pay there. While you are there, the card says "A place is kept for you while you are at checkout."
4. Back in Refficks, the page says "Stripe is confirming your payment" for a few seconds, then "You're subscribed". The card then names your place, for example "This workspace has Alpha place 12 of 50, and keeps it."

To change your card, see invoices or cancel, press Manage billing. "Your card, invoices and cancelling are on Stripe's billing page." When all 50 Alpha places are taken, the card says the next plan is coming soon, at an early-adopter price below the regular price, that its price has not been set yet, and that the page will say when it opens.

Staff plan: workspaces belonging to Refficks's own people are put on a Staff plan in Stripe by Refficks. The card says "Everything Refficks does, with no limits, and nothing to pay." It cannot be changed or cancelled from the screen.

What read-only means

A read-only workspace shows a Read-only bar at the top of every screen, with Subscribe for owners and admins and "Ask an owner or an admin of this workspace to subscribe." for everybody else. The bar ends with the day the account closes if it stays unpaid. Any change is refused with a sentence such as "Your free trial has ended, so this workspace is read-only and its tracking is paused. Partner links still take people to your site, but no clicks or sales are recorded, and what was already approved can still be paid. After three months unpaid, the account closes. Subscribe in Settings › Billing to make changes and start tracking again."

Tracking pauses while the workspace is unpaid

Tracking stops at once when a trial ends without a subscription or a subscription ends, and starts again the moment the workspace is paid for. Nothing is paused while Stripe is still retrying a failed payment.

While it is paused:

• Partner links still work for visitors. Somebody who follows a partner's link still lands on your site, on the page the link would have opened. No click is recorded, no cookie is set, and nothing of the partner's rides along in the address.
• The Refficks script does nothing on your site. It sets no cookie and sends nothing. The referral panel on your site shows nothing, and nobody can join a referral programme from it.
• Sales are not kept or credited. A sale your store, payment provider or server reports is read, not counted, and what it said is not kept. Its delivery shows "Tracking was paused when this happened, because the workspace was unpaid, so it was not counted." Your server's events API answers TRACKING_PAUSED.
• Sales made during the pause stay uncredited for good. They are judged by when they happened, so a sale reported or brought in after you subscribe is still not credited if it was made while tracking was paused. A sale made before the pause that arrives during it is credited as usual.
• Refunds are still read. A refund, dispute or credit note for a sale from before the pause takes its commission back as usual.
• Your partners are told in their portal, on every page: "… has paused tracking. Your links still take people to their site, but clicks and sales are not being recorded right now". They are not told why.
• History says so: "paused · Tracking" when it stopped and "resumed · Tracking" when it started again, both written by "Refficks, automatically".

Three months unpaid closes the account

If tracking stays paused for three months, Refficks closes the account, as if you had asked for it: nobody can sign in, and its data is deleted 90 days later except what the law says must be kept. Owners and admins are emailed 30 days and 7 days before, and when it closes, and Settings › Workspace › Billing shows the date throughout. To reopen a closed account within the 90 days, write to support@refficks.com.

What keeps working

• Paying money already approved: building, approving, sending and recording payouts, through files, PayPal, Tremendous or store credit, and recording refusals and returns.
• Taking things away: disconnecting integrations, revoking API keys, removing teammates, ending a support session, switching a webhook, the assistant or autopilot off.
• Privacy and your data: erasing a customer or partner, and the export.
• Keeping integrations connected: reconnecting or testing an integration, and bringing in missed orders from before the pause.
• Your own settings: your emails and scheduled reports.

What waits until you subscribe

• Waiting commissions and rewards are neither approved nor rejected, by hand or by a plan's timer. "This commission is waiting to be approved, and while this workspace is read-only only what is already approved is paid. Subscribe in Settings › Billing to approve it." A commission due to approve itself keeps its date, and "approves itself at the next hourly check after" you subscribe.
• Everything else that changes something: new programs, plans, partners, emails, settings, and switching anything back on.

Nothing is deleted, and nothing anybody was already owed changes.

Refficks staff are never held

Somebody at Refficks with Refficks's own admin access, signed in with their second factor, is never held by a read-only workspace, in their own workspace or one they are supporting. They see the same Read-only bar, with "Your own changes still go through, because you have Refficks admin access." This is about Refficks's staff, not your workspace's Admin role: your own admins are held like everybody else. A plan's timer is never let through.

Related

• Approve commissions: what waits while read-only.
• Pay your partners: paying what was already approved.
• Team roles and permissions: who can subscribe.
• Retention, erasure and closing your account: what closing an account means.