When You're Charged: How Your Billing Cycle Works

When You're Charged: How Your Billing Cycle Works

This article answers the question most people arrive with: when does LobbyFlight actually take money, and which date does it use? The short version is that your account starts with a 14-day free trial that needs no card, the first charge happens when your paid subscription starts — at the end of the trial if you choose a plan during it, or on the day you choose one afterwards — and that day becomes the renewal date for every payment after it.

Monthly or yearly, decided when you choose a plan

You choose your billing interval when you choose a plan. The pricing page and the billing page in the portal both have a Monthly / Yearly toggle. Whichever one is selected when you complete checkout becomes the interval of your subscription.

Monthly means a calendar month at a time, and yearly means a calendar year at a time. It is not a rolling thirty-day cycle: if your renewal date is the 15th, the period runs from the 15th of one month to the 15th of the next, whether that month has 28, 30 or 31 days.

The interval cannot be switched later inside the portal. Portal → Billing lets you move between plans, but not between monthly and yearly.

The start of your paid plan sets your renewal date

Registration starts a 14-day free trial with no card and no charge. When you choose a plan, Stripe Checkout asks for a card or SEPA mandate. If you do that during the trial (with at least two days to go), the remaining trial days carry over and the first charge is taken when the trial ends — register on 8 March, choose a plan on 10 March, and the first payment is taken on 22 March, with every following payment falling on the 22nd (or on 22 March of the next year if you chose yearly billing). If you choose a plan after the trial has ended, the first charge is taken that day and that day becomes your renewal date.

As long as you have not chosen a plan, we send an email three days and again one day before the trial ends reminding you to choose one; if you already have, you get one email three days before the first charge with its date and amount. Either way, the end of the trial is never a surprise. If you don't choose one, nothing is charged — the trial simply ends.

Because the renewal date comes from the day your paid subscription starts and not from a fixed day of the month, every account has its own date. There is no company-wide 1st-of-the-month run.

One subscription per organisation, not per hotel

If you run more than one property, they do not each have their own cycle. The Stripe subscription belongs to the organisation, and the billing view is resolved through the property that holds it. Every property in the organisation therefore shows the same plan, the same renewal date and the same invoices — one payment covers the group. The plan includes one hotel; each additional hotel is a line on that same invoice, and a paused hotel is not charged. See Organisation and Properties for how properties are grouped.

Where to see your renewal date

Open Portal → Billing. Underneath the price and plan status you will find a single line, "Renews on {date}", showing the end of your current period. That is your next payment date. The line is hidden when your subscription is already set to cancel, because in that case a warning banner at the top of the page tells you the date it will end instead.

Your dashboard also mentions it, but only when it is close: the list of things that need your attention shows a note when the period ends within the next seven days, and a critical entry if a payment has failed. Both link straight to the billing page.

The Manage Subscription button at the top of the billing page opens the Stripe customer portal, where the card on file and the cancellation are handled.

What you actually get billed

The base amount is your plan price: Basic is €69 per month, Pro is €149 and Premium is €199. Yearly billing costs ten times the monthly price — two months free — so €690, €1,490 and €1,990 a year, saving €138, €298 and €398 respectively. Plan Comparison covers what each plan includes.

Two things can change the amount on a given invoice:

If you enter a promotion code at checkout, it changes the amount of the first invoice. Some codes are restricted — WELCOME25, for example, applies to monthly subscriptions only, and is ignored if you pick yearly billing.

VAT and your billing address

A billing address is required at checkout, because tax is calculated by Stripe Automatic Tax based on the country you are billed in. There is no single flat rate that applies to everyone. If you are a business with a VAT ID, you can enter it during checkout, and it is applied to your invoices.

Invoices and receipts

The billing page has a Payment History table listing payments that have already been taken, with the date, the invoice number as Stripe issued it, the amount, the status, a link to the invoice in Stripe and a PDF download. There is no preview of a future invoice in the portal — for that, open the Stripe customer portal through Manage Subscription.

After each successful renewal payment you receive a receipt by email containing the amount, the plan, the period it covers and links to the invoice in Stripe and its PDF. If a payment fails, you get an email about it immediately and your subscription status changes to *past due* in the portal. There is no reminder email in the days before a charge; the dashboard note within the last seven days of the period is the advance warning. Payment Failures explains what to do when a charge is declined.

These emails are not optional and there is no notification setting for them, because each one is tied to something that actually happened to your money.

Changing plans mid-cycle

Upgrades and downgrades take effect immediately and are prorated by Stripe against the time left in your current period, so you pay or are credited the difference straight away rather than waiting for the renewal date. Your renewal date itself does not move.

A downgrade behaves the same way on the invoice, but be aware that the limits change immediately as well: display count, branding level, languages, weather and analytics are lowered across every property in the organisation as soon as the change goes through, not at the end of the period. The lower plan must also cover all your hotels, paused ones included: Basic one, Pro six. Upgrade or Downgrade Your Plan walks through this.

Can you move the billing date?

No. We do not offer a way to shift the renewal date — it is set once, when your paid subscription starts, and there is no control in the portal or in support tooling that moves it.

The only way to end up with a different date is to cancel and subscribe again once the paid period has run out, and it is rarely worth it: the new subscription's renewal date is the day you subscribe again, and you would lose service in the gap between the end of the old period and the new subscription. Cancelling is done in the Stripe customer portal and takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for; see Cancel Subscription.

Complimentary accounts

Accounts on complimentary access have no billing cycle at all. Their billing page shows the features they have and nothing else — no renewal date, no payment history, and no invoices are generated.

Next steps

Support

If something about your cycle or an invoice does not add up, write to info@lobbyflight.com. The full help centre is available inside the portal under Portal → Help.