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Subscription Management

Manage your subscription from Settings → Billing.

Subscription lifecycle

Subscribe → Active → (Auto-renew) → Active → ...
              ↓ Cancel
           Active until period end → Downgrade to trial

When you subscribe, the plan is active immediately and bills again at the same price each month / year (your choice at signup).

Renewal

Subscriptions renew automatically. Picora sends an email 3 days before each renewal as a reminder.

If your card expires or fails before renewal:

  • You receive a “payment method needs attention” email
  • A grace period of 3 days keeps the plan active
  • After 3 days without resolution, plan downgrades to trial automatically — your data is preserved but access to pro features (video, etc.) is paused
  • Data is retained for 90 days after downgrade; if you don’t re-subscribe within 90 days, video / Markdown documents may be marked for deletion (you’ll be emailed first)

Cancellation

Cancellation prevents the next renewal but does not refund the current paid period.

  1. Go to Settings → Billing
  2. Click Cancel subscription
  3. Confirm — you’ll see “Cancels at end of current period”

You retain full pro features until the period ends (e.g., if you cancel on day 10 of a monthly subscription, you keep pro access through day 30).

After period end, the plan downgrades to trial with the data retention rules above.

Downgrade (between paid tiers)

To go from pro_plus to pro:

  1. Settings → Billing
  2. Click Change plan → pro
  3. The change applies at next renewal (no immediate refund)

If your current usage exceeds the lower tier’s limits, you’ll see a warning. The downgrade still proceeds at next renewal, and at that moment:

  • Existing resources are not deleted
  • New uploads above the new limit are rejected with QUOTA_EXCEEDED
  • You’re prompted to either delete excess resources or re-upgrade

Upgrade (mid-cycle)

To go from pro to pro_plus mid-cycle:

  1. Settings → Billing
  2. Click Change plan → pro_plus
  3. Pay the pro-rated difference for the remainder of the current period
  4. The new tier activates within 30 seconds

The next full bill at renewal will be the pro_plus monthly amount.

Refund policy

Within 14 days of first paid subscription

Full refund on request, no questions asked. Email support@picora.me with your account email and order ID.

After 14 days

Refund only granted if:

  • Picora’s billing system charged you incorrectly (verifiable in audit logs)
  • Service was unavailable for >24 hours within the billing period
  • You’re entitled to local consumer protection rights (e.g., EU 14-day cooling off — already covered above)

In these cases, Picora pro-rates the refund based on usage gap.

Mainland China specifics

Per 消费者权益保护法, mainland users have:

  • 7-day no-reason refund for first paid subscription if no significant usage occurred (defined as <10% of plan quota consumed)
  • Subsequent refunds at platform’s discretion based on actual service interruption

Invoice / receipt

Lemon Squeezy / Polar / WeChat / Alipay each send their own receipts:

  • Lemon Squeezy: email + downloadable PDF (with EU VAT if applicable)
  • Polar: email + downloadable receipt
  • WeChat / Alipay: in-app transaction record (Picora can issue 增值税普通发票 on request, see below)

For mainland Chinese users requesting 增值税专用发票 (special VAT invoice for B2B), email finance@picora.cn within 90 days of payment with your 公司名称 / 税号 / 开户行 / 银行账号.

Subscription receipts in dashboard

Settings → Billing → History shows all payment events with:

  • Date
  • Amount + currency
  • Plan changed to
  • Gateway
  • Receipt link

Records are retained 5 years for tax compliance.

Common issues

Payment succeeded but plan didn’t activate — webhook delivery may be delayed. Wait 5 minutes; if still not active, contact support with the order ID. We can manually re-trigger webhook from the admin panel.

Cannot cancel — button disabled — your subscription was created via Lemon Squeezy / Polar / etc. and you must cancel from their dashboard if your account is linked to multiple gateways. We’re working on unifying this.

Receipt missing tax info — Lemon Squeezy auto-includes VAT for EU; for other regions, contact finance@picora.me.