Billing

This page covers what each plan gets you, what happens when your trial ends, how upgrading and canceling work, and where to go for receipts or to change a card.

Plans at a glance

Cliff has three plans:

• Trial Every new account starts on a 14-day free trial the moment you sign up. The trial gives you the same level of access as a Pro subscription so you can try the full product without paying anything. There's no credit card required to start the trial.
• Pro The standard paid plan. Pro gives you a comfortable amount of usage for everyday work — chatting, lessons, web search, document drafting — and unlocks every lesson in the curriculum.
• Pro Plus A higher tier for heavier users. Pro Plus has the same features as Pro but with noticeably more usage headroom each session and each week.

For the specifics of how usage is measured and what fills up your weekly and session meters, see the Usage Limits article.

Your 14-day trial

When you create your account, Cliff automatically starts a 14-day free trial with full access to the product:

• All chat features, including web search and document drafting.
• The full lesson catalog.
• The same usage budgets as a Pro subscription.

You can see how many days are left under Account → Usage, and we'll send a reminder before the trial ends. Nothing happens automatically when the trial runs out — we won't charge a card we don't have. Your account just becomes a Free account until you decide to subscribe.

Upgrading

When you're ready to subscribe — either during the trial or after it has ended — click any Upgrade button in the app. The most common places:

• Account → Usage has an Upgrade option once your trial is winding down.
• The chat box shows an Upgrade plan button if you've hit a usage limit and there's a higher tier available.
• Trying to send a message on a Free account opens the upgrade dialog directly.

Picking Pro or Pro Plus takes you to a secure checkout page to enter your card details. After you complete checkout, you're brought back to Cliff and your new plan unlocks within a few seconds.

How payments work

We work with secure payment providers to handle all checkout, payment, and subscription management. What this means for you:

• Your card details are kept secure Payment details go through our checkout provider, Polar, over a secure connection, and Polar stores them on its own PCI-compliant infrastructure.
• Receipts Every time your subscription renews or a one-time charge succeeds, Polar emails an invoice to the address on your account. Save those for your records — they include the line items you may need for taxes or reimbursement.
• Subscriptions Pro and Pro Plus are billed on a recurring schedule starting from the day you subscribed. The charge appears on your statement under Polar's processor name.
• Tax Sales tax / VAT is calculated at checkout based on your billing address and broken out as a separate line on every invoice.

Canceling

You can cancel your subscription at any time. When you cancel:

• You keep full access until the end of the period you've already paid for. If you're three weeks into a month, you'll have one more week of full access.
• After the period ends, your account moves to the Free state. You don't lose your data — old chats, lessons you've completed, and any documents you've created are all still there. You just can't start new chats or take new lessons until you resubscribe.
• Resubscribing is one click — the app will prompt you the next time you try to use a paid feature.

You'll see a confirmation email, and the cancellation takes effect on your billing-period boundary, not immediately, so you get the time you've already paid for.

If a payment fails

Cards expire, banks decline, and renewals occasionally hit a snag. If a renewal payment fails:

• Polar will retry the charge a few times over the following days and email you each time.
• During the retry window, your access stays active so a one-time hiccup doesn't lock you out mid-conversation.
• If every retry fails, your account moves to Free until you update your card and the next charge goes through.

The fastest fix is to follow the link in any payment-failure email — it takes you straight to a secure form to update your card.

Refunds

If something has gone wrong and you'd like a refund — for example, an accidental upgrade, a duplicate charge, or a renewal you meant to cancel — head to the Support page and let us know your account email and a quick note about what happened. We'll work with Polar to process the refund directly to your original payment method. Most refunds clear within a few business days.

FAQ

Do I need a credit card to start the trial? No. Trials are free and don't ask for a card. You'll only enter payment details when you choose to upgrade.

What happens if I sign up, don't upgrade, and come back later? Your account waits for you if you don't upgrade to pro. Sign in and upgrade whenever you're ready — your old data is still there.

Where do I find my invoices? Polar emails one for every successful charge, and you can also access them through the link in any Polar email. We're working on bringing receipts directly into Account → Billing in a future update.

Is my payment information secure? Yes. Our checkout provider Polar is a PCI-compliant payments processor that handles billing for thousands of software products. Cliff never sees or stores your card number.

I have another question. Head to the Support page and we'll get back to you. For account-specific issues — refunds, billing disputes, plan changes — that's the fastest path.