Your platform plan is what you pay Mateflow for your community. It decides which features your community has and how much it can hold. This article explains the free trial, where to manage billing, and what each billing status means.
Who can do this: In the admin console: community owners, admins, and billing admins. In the creator dashboard: the workspace owner and teammates with Finance access. · Where: Web. · Plan: Applies to every platform plan.
What your platform plan is (and what it isn't)
Each community has its own platform plan (sometimes called a Mateflow subscription). You pay Mateflow for it, monthly or annually, and it sets your community's features and limits — members, spaces, storage, AI, and more.
Your platform plan is not the same as Subscription Plans. Subscription Plans are what your members pay you, set up in Admin → Monetization → Subscription Plans. See Ways to earn with your community.
Where to manage your platform plan
Billing appears in two places. Each one manages different things:
| Place | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Admin → Billing (your community's admin console) | See this community's plan and status, subscribe, change or cancel the plan, check usage, buy add-ons (owner only), and download invoices under Invoices |
| Dashboard (app.mateflow.com) → Billing | See all communities in your workspace together: subscriptions with their next charge, Invoices, Payment methods (cards for the whole workspace), and billing information under Settings |
| Dashboard (app.mateflow.com) → Communities → [your community] → Plan | See one community's plan, trial, and usage. During or after a free trial, choose a plan and pay here. For other changes, the owner clicks Manage plan in community admin |
Plan changes and cancellation happen in the admin console. See Change or cancel your plan and Invoices, payment methods, and tax details.
How the free trial works
Every new community starts with a free trial of a paid platform plan. You don't pick a plan when you create the community: the creation page names the trial plan and how long the trial lasts. The trial doesn't need a credit card.
- Your time left appears as Trial · N days left on Admin → Billing → Overview, and as Trial · Nd left in the creator dashboard's Communities list.
- A banner at the top of the admin console shows the days left, with a button to subscribe.
- You can't extend a trial yourself. To ask for more time, contact Mateflow support.
- During an unpaid trial, some limits can be lower than the plan's normal allowance. On Admin → Billing → Usage, those rows have a Trial badge and say Trial ceiling — [limit] once you subscribe.
Subscribe to your platform plan
- Go to Admin → Billing → Overview and click Subscribe.
- On Activate your subscription, choose the plan you're trying (marked Your trial) or another plan, and Monthly or Annual.
- Click Subscribe. If you picked a different plan, review the change and click Continue to Checkout.
- Pay in the secure Stripe checkout.
When payment succeeds, you see Finishing up… and then You're all set. If activation takes longer, you see Payment received; refresh the page after a minute. If you leave checkout, you see Checkout cancelled and no charge is made.
You can also subscribe from Dashboard (app.mateflow.com) → Communities → [your community] → Plan. Under Choose a plan, pick Monthly or Yearly and a plan, click Continue to payment, and pay on Stripe.
Adding a card in the creator dashboard doesn't start a subscription on its own. Always subscribe by choosing a plan.
If you subscribe during the free trial, billing starts right away and the rest of the trial isn't kept.
What happens if the free trial ends without a subscription
If the trial ends before you subscribe, your community moves to the Free plan instead of closing, and Mateflow emails you to say so. Members, posts and courses stay and nothing is deleted. Features the Free plan doesn't include switch off, but your settings are kept and come back when you subscribe. If members pay you, their subscriptions move to the Free plan's platform fee from their next invoice.
Each account can have one community on the Free plan. If yours already has one, the trial ends differently: a short grace period starts and Mateflow emails you that the trial has ended. The Billing overview shows Trial ended — choose a plan and Subscribe now, and the status reads Trial ended · N days of grace left.
During the grace period, members can still browse and post, but nobody can create spaces, courses, or blog articles, upload files, or send invitations.
When the grace period ends, the community is paused. Everyone who opens it, including you and your admins, sees a page saying it's temporarily closed while the owner updates the subscription, and the admin console can't be opened either. The page adds a line for the owner, "Own this community? Sign in to the Mateflow creator dashboard to sort out billing and reopen it.", with Open creator dashboard. If the dashboard says you don't have access, switch to the workspace this community belongs to first.
A cancelled plan ends the same way: it moves to the Free plan if your account doesn't have a Free community yet, and otherwise gets a 3-day grace period and then a pause. See Change or cancel your plan.
To restore a paused community, open the creator dashboard at app.mateflow.com and go to Communities → [your community] → Plan. After a free trial or a cancelled plan, choose a plan and billing cycle there and click Continue to payment; the community reopens as soon as the payment goes through. After failed payments, the page shows This community is paused with the unpaid invoice: click Retry payment next to it, then Pay, to pay it with your workspace's default card. The community reopens once the payment is confirmed. See Troubleshoot billing and plan problems.
Platform plan statuses on the Billing overview
The plan card on Admin → Billing → Overview shows your plan name and list price, a status badge, and the next date that matters. When a charge is coming, it shows the real amount with any discount and tax, as Next charge $X · [date], and About if the amount is an estimate. The card also shows your platform fee on member payments. Below the badge:
- Trial · N days left / Trial · ends today — free trial in progress.
- Trial ended — the trial is over; subscribe to keep your community running.
- Active — your plan is paid and renews on the date shown.
- Past due — a renewal payment failed. The owner pays the unpaid invoice under Last payment failed on the same page.
- Cancels soon — you cancelled; the plan ends on the date shown.
- Moving to Free — you chose to move to the Free plan at the end of the period.
- Cancelled — the paid plan has ended. Choose a plan to subscribe again.
- Complimentary ended — a complimentary plan has ended. Choose a plan to keep the community online.
- Billing paused — you paused billing; it resumes on the date shown.
A change you scheduled for the end of the period, such as a downgrade, also appears on the card, with Undo. See Change or cancel your plan.
Below the plan card you'll find your default card, anything under Needs attention, and your billing details. Cards and billing details are read-only here and managed in the creator dashboard. See Invoices, payment methods, and tax details.
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