How to manage your subscription and billing in Validate

Everything about your Validate subscription is self-serve: the plan, the card, the invoices and the storage. You should never need to email anyone to change any of it. Billing lives in the settings and is visible to admins only, so if you cannot see it, ask whoever set up your company.

Before you start

• You need the Admin role. Billing is not visible to project managers, office staff or engineers.
• Card and payment details are handled by Stripe. Validate never sees or stores your card number.

Step 1: Open your billing settings

Click your profile icon, open Settings and go to the Billing & subscription tab. The subscription card shows your current state: on trial it shows the trial end date, and on a paid plan it shows the plan and price.

Step 2: Upgrade from the trial

While you are on the trial, the billing page shows the two plans: Monthly at £149 a month or Annual at £1,490 a year, which works out at two months free. Pick one and click Upgrade. You go to a Stripe checkout page to enter your card, and you land back in Validate with the subscription active. Every plan includes unlimited users, so adding your team never changes the price.

Step 3: Update your card or manage the subscription

Once you are paying, click Manage Billing. This opens your Stripe billing portal, where you can update the payment card, change details and see your full payment history. If a payment ever fails, a banner appears on the billing page with an Update payment method button that takes you to the same place. Your data is untouched while you sort the card out.

Step 4: Find your invoices

The Invoice history card lists your recent invoices from Stripe with their status and amount. Click the link icon on any row to open the hosted invoice for downloading or forwarding to your accounts. The full list lives in the Stripe portal.

Step 5: Keep an eye on storage

The Document storage card shows how much of your allowance your drawings, photos and documents are using. If you get near the limit a warning appears, and you can click Buy 50 GB block to add storage at £25 a month per block. Uploads are blocked once a file would take you over your storage limit, not only when storage is already completely full, so add a block before you get close.

Step 6: Cancel or reactivate

If you need to leave, click Cancel subscription. Validate is clear about what happens: the subscription runs to the end of the current billing period, and you then have 30 days to export your data before it is deleted. The Download all records button gives you everything. If you change your mind, Reactivate takes you back through the Stripe portal and your data is exactly where you left it.

If something looks wrong

• You cannot see the Billing tab. You do not have the Admin role. Ask your admin to make the change or to grant you access.
• A payment failed. Use the banner's Update payment method button. Once the card is fixed, Stripe retries and the account restores itself.
• You upgraded but the page still shows the trial. Give it a moment and refresh. The confirmation comes back from Stripe and the page updates.