Billing & Plans
Pick a plan, manage your subscription, and track validation usage across PlotLens individual and team tiers.
PlotLens has eight plans — four for individual writers and four for teams. Validation runs are the meter; everything else (projects, entities, rules) has a tier cap.
When to use this
Read this page when you are deciding which plan fits your work, when you have hit a validation or project limit, or when you need to change your card, download an invoice, or cancel. Pricing here matches the pricing page and the billing screen inside the app.
Plan tiers
Individual plans are flat. Team plans are per-seat. Annual pricing is roughly two months free.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 1 |
| Lite | $5 | $50/year | 1 |
| Plus | $15 | $150/year | 1 |
| Pro | $29 | $290/year | 1 |
| Small Team | $12/seat/month | $120/seat/year | up to 5 |
| Studio | $25/seat/month | $250/seat/year | up to 20 |
| Production | $45/seat/month | $450/seat/year | up to 50 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Unlimited |
What’s included at each tier
Free. 1 project, 50 entities, 5 custom rules, 10 validations/month. Watermarked JSON export. Basic validation only — no LLM, no real-time.
Lite. 3 projects, 200 entities, 20 rules, 50 validations/month. Clean JSON and CSV export. Basic timeline, basic entity graph, relationship mapping. No third-party integrations.
Plus. 10 projects, 1,500 entities, 100 rules, 200 validations/month. JSON, CSV, PDF, DOCX export. Real-time validation, full timeline, full entity graph, batch validation, spot check, LLM validation, custom rules. Google Docs, Word, Scrivener, and Final Draft integrations.
Pro. Unlimited projects, entities, and rules. Unlimited validations under fair use (500/day soft cap). Everything in Plus, plus multi-project canon, API access, priority processing, and BYOK (bring your own LLM key).
Small Team. Everything in Pro for each seat, up to 5 seats. Shared workspace, role-based permissions, comments, basic audit log.
Studio. Everything in Small Team, up to 20 seats. Advanced roles, full audit log, canon versioning, Slack and Discord integrations. Daily fair-use ceiling raised to 1,000 validations.
Production. Everything in Studio, up to 50 seats. Advanced analytics, branching timelines, outbound webhooks, data export, 99.9% SLA. Daily fair-use ceiling raised to 3,000 validations.
Enterprise. Everything in Production with custom infrastructure, SSO/SAML, on-premise option, and dedicated support. Daily fair-use ceiling raised to 10,000 validations.
How to upgrade
Upgrades take effect immediately and Stripe prorates the remaining days of your current period as a credit on your next invoice.
- Open Account → Billing.
- Click Change plan.
- Pick the tier you want and choose monthly or annual billing.
- Click Upgrade to [Tier]. You will be redirected to Stripe Checkout.
- Confirm your payment method. New limits and features unlock as soon as Stripe confirms the charge.
For team plans, adding seats mid-cycle works the same way — proration is calculated immediately.
How to downgrade
Downgrades are scheduled — they take effect at the end of your current billing period so you keep what you paid for.
- Open Account → Billing and click Change plan.
- Pick the lower tier. The app will warn you if your current usage exceeds the target tier (for example, 11 projects on a plan that allows 10).
- Resolve any over-limit items first, then confirm.
- Your current plan stays active until period-end. After that, the lower tier kicks in.
You have a 30-day grace window after a downgrade. During that window your previous tier’s limits still apply, so you can revert without re-subscribing.
How to cancel
- Open Account → Billing.
- Click Cancel subscription.
- Pick a reason (this helps us improve and may surface a retention offer).
- Review the usage summary, then confirm Cancel at period-end.
Your account stays fully active until the end of the current period. After that you keep read-only access for 90 days so you can export your data. On day 91 the data is purged. If you resubscribe inside the 90-day window your work is preserved; after that, you start fresh.
How to update payment method
- Open Account → Billing.
- Click Manage in Stripe (or Update payment method).
- Stripe’s hosted portal opens. Add or replace your card and save.
- Return to PlotLens. Changes apply on your next invoice; if your account is in dunning, retries resume within minutes.
The portal is available on Lite, Plus, Pro, Small Team, Studio, and Production. Enterprise customers should contact their account manager.
How to view invoices
- Open Account → Billing.
- Scroll to Invoice history.
- Click any invoice to download a PDF receipt from Stripe.
Invoices are pulled live from Stripe — the latest charge appears as soon as Stripe records it.
Usage metering
Validation runs are the primary metered resource. Every real-time check, batch run, and spot check counts as one validation.
- Free / Lite / Plus have a hard monthly cap. When you hit it, validation stops until the next period or until you buy a pack.
- Pro / Small Team / Studio / Production / Enterprise are unlimited under a daily fair-use ceiling. You will see a warning at 80% of the daily cap; the cap resets at midnight UTC.
- Projects, entities, documents, and rules are tracked but only blocked at your tier’s max.
If you run out mid-revision, buy a one-time validation pack on the billing page:
- 50 validations — $5
- 200 validations — $15
- 500 validations — $30
Packs are consumed immediately and don’t roll over. Pro and team plans don’t need them.
Founding Member program
The Founding Member program takes 25% off your first year on any annual plan. It’s limited to the first 500 paid annual subscribers. The discount is grandfathered for as long as your subscription stays active.
To enroll: pick an annual plan during checkout while founding slots remain. The pricing page shows live remaining slots.
Plan availability
| Capability | Free | Lite | Plus | Pro | Small Team | Studio | Production | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time validation | — | — | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Batch + spot check | — | — | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Custom rules | 5 | 20 | 100 | ∞ | ∞ | ∞ | ∞ | ∞ |
| Integrations (Docs, Word) | — | — | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| BYOK (your LLM key) | — | — | — | yes | — | yes | yes | yes |
| API access | — | — | — | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Canon versioning | — | — | — | yes | — | yes | yes | yes |
| Audit log | — | — | — | — | basic | full | full | full |
| Webhooks | — | — | — | — | — | — | yes | yes |
| SSO/SAML | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | yes |
Limits & edge cases
- Failed payment. Your subscription moves to past due and Stripe retries for 10 days. During that grace window you keep access. After 10 days, write actions (validation, uploads) are blocked but you can still read and export. After 30 days the subscription is suspended.
- Declined card at renewal. Stripe retries up to 3 times across 10 days and emails you each time. After the final failure the subscription cancels at period-end. You can resubscribe any time inside the 90-day data window.
- Validation limit hit. Projects, documents, and entities are unaffected — only validation is blocked. You’ll see “You have reached your monthly validation limit.” Upgrade your plan or buy a validation pack to continue.
- Seats at capacity. Team owners can’t add seats above the tier max. Either upgrade tier or remove a member first. Removing seats is blocked if it would leave you over the new tier’s cap.
- Refunds. PlotLens offers a 30-day money-back guarantee — open a support ticket within 30 days of your first payment for a full refund. Founding-member annual discounts are not refundable mid-year.
- Regional pricing. If you’re in a region with adjusted pricing, the discount is detected and applied automatically. You can override it from the pricing page.
- No free trial. There is no time-limited trial — the Free tier is the trial, with 10 validations/month so you can evaluate the product on a real project.
Common pitfalls
- Buying a validation pack on Pro. Pro and team plans are already unlimited under fair use. Packs only apply to Free, Lite, and Plus.
- Expecting an immediate refund on a downgrade. Downgrades take effect at period-end, not immediately — that’s why you keep your higher limits for the rest of the period.
- Trying to downgrade while over a limit. If you have more projects, entities, or rules than the target tier allows, the downgrade will block. Trim first, then change plan.
- Cancelling and assuming data is gone. You have a full 90 days of read-only access after cancellation to export everything before the data is purged.
- Using BYOK on the wrong tier. BYOK is enforced server-side. The pricing page may show BYOK figures for context, but you can only configure a key on Pro, Studio, Production, or Enterprise.