How plan changes work
Which plans can move where — personal and organization — what an upgrade or a move down costs, what happens when a plan ends (read-only, then locked, then deleted after 90 days locked and a 14-day countdown unless you subscribe), and the two ways out of a locked account.
PulsVault handles plan changes with two rules. Both are worth a minute of your time, because the second one surprises people.
- Plans move up, with one exception. Plans widen — Free to Premium, Premium to Family, Team to Business — but there is no path back to Free and no path between two plans built for different audiences. The one way down is Business to Team, when your organization fits Team's limits.
- A plan that ends does not delete your data straight away. You get 14 days of read-only access to export everything, then the account locks. Locked means "no access", not "erased" — re-subscribe and everything comes back instantly. But a lock is not forever: an account that stays locked for 90 days is deleted after a further 14-day countdown, unless you subscribe first.
Upgrade paths#
Personal plans#
Free and Premium can widen. Solo Professional and Family are both final — neither has an upgrade, and neither leads to the other.
| From | Can upgrade to | Cannot move to |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Premium · Solo Professional · Family | — |
| Premium | Solo Professional · Family | Free |
| Solo Professional | — (final) | Free · Premium · Family |
| Family | — (final) | Free · Premium · Solo Professional |
Solo Professional and Family are not two rungs of one ladder. Solo Professional is a single-seat professional plan; Family is a multi-seat household plan. Moving between them is a change of audience, not an upgrade, so neither is offered as a target of the other, and there is no self-serve way across. If your needs change, contact us.
Organization plans#
| From | Can upgrade to | Can move down to |
|---|---|---|
| Team | Business | — |
| Business | — (Enterprise is arranged with sales) | Team, when your organization fits |
| Enterprise | — | — (changes go through your account manager) |
Team to Business is self-serve: open Billing → Subscription and select Upgrade to Business. If Business is not offered in your billing currency, the option is not shown — contact us and we will make the change. The seats you pay for come with you, billed at the Business per-seat price — never fewer than Business's minimum of 3.
Business to Team is the one move down, and it only happens when your organization fits Team: no more than 10 seats in use, no more than 10 paid seats (use Remove unused seats first if you pay for more), and your stored data within Team's storage pool. It takes effect straight away, with credit for the unused time on Business. To make the change, contact us.
Enterprise is arranged with our sales team — it is not bought online, and no plan upgrades into it in place.
What an upgrade costs#
On a paid subscription, upgrades happen in place and immediately — no new checkout. Before you confirm, we show the exact amount due today: the new plan's price minus an automatic credit for the unused time on your current plan.
Three rules apply to every in-place change:
- It stays in your billing currency. If the plan you want is not offered in that currency, it is not shown as an option — contact us instead.
- A yearly plan cannot switch to monthly. Monthly to yearly is fine.
- During a trial you can only subscribe to the plan you are trying. Other plans open once the trial has converted.
If that credit is larger than the charge, the surplus stays on your account and offsets future invoices. We do not refund it to your card.
A smaller plan has smaller limits — fewer vaults, fewer seats, less sharing. Moving you down would mean silently deciding which of your vaults, members, or shares to switch off. We would rather not guess. The same reasoning rules out sideways moves between Solo Professional and Family: they are not bigger or smaller than each other, just different.
Business to Team is allowed because it can be checked first: the move is refused, with the numbers, unless everything your organization has already fits Team.
The rules above are about a plan you bought. If you were a member of somebody else's family, the Family plan was never yours — you held a seat on it. So leaving the family does not leave you on Family; your account lands on Premium, which grants exactly what the seat did: unlimited vaults, unlimited items and 5 GB of storage. Nothing you created goes over a limit, and Premium, Solo Professional and Family are all open to you from there.
The 14-day read-only window below then applies as usual, and choosing a plan inside it keeps full access.
An organization seat works the same way and ends somewhere different. Your access follows the plan your organization pays for, so when that plan ends every member goes read-only, and when the window closes every member locks — you have not done anything, and there is nothing on your own account to renew.
While it is read-only you can still read and export everything. Once it locks, members can no longer sign in — the sign-in page says the organization's subscription has ended and to ask its owner to renew it — so export before the window closes if you need to. The owner can still sign in, to renew the plan or to delete the organization. An organization left locked for 90 days is deleted after the same 14-day countdown, with every account in it — the same timeline as any other account.
While it is read-only, Billing → Your plan says which state you are in and names who to contact about it — the address your organization publishes, or its owner if it has not published one. Renewing the plan restores everyone at once (see Your plan). Buying a personal plan does not: it covers your own account, not the vaults, teams and projects your organization shares with you.
Cancelling#
Cancelling does not end your plan on the spot, and it does not refund you.
- You keep full access until the end of the period you have already paid for. Cancelling simply switches off the next renewal.
- No refund is issued — not for the remainder of a monthly period, and not for the remainder of an annual one. You paid for that time, so you keep it.
- When the paid period runs out, the plan ends and the read-only window below opens.
Nothing is lost the moment you cancel, and you can re-subscribe any time before the period ends to simply carry on as if nothing happened.
How to tell a cancelled plan from a renewing one. Your plan card switches from Next billing date to Access ends on, with the date you keep access until, and tells you how many days of full access are left. Nothing else changes — every feature, vault and limit stays exactly as it was until that date. If you change your mind, Resume subscription (on Billing → Subscription) undoes the cancellation, and taking it puts the card straight back to Next billing date.
Whatever is left of your current month or year stays yours to use, but it is not paid back — in cash or in credit. Cancelling is not a way to change plan either: when you subscribe again, it is to the plan you had or one it can upgrade to.
What happens when a plan ends#
Three different events end a plan: your trial runs out, the paid period runs out after you cancelled, or a payment ultimately fails. In every case you land in the same two-stage window.
- Read-only — 14 days. You keep your plan and all of its limits. You can open, search, and export every vault. You cannot create, edit, or share. This window exists so you can get your data out, or change your mind.
- Locked — 90 days. When the window closes, access stops. Your encrypted data is retained, not deleted — we keep it. Nothing is readable until you subscribe again.
- Deleted — 14 days later. After 90 days locked, the account enters the same 14-day deletion countdown as a deletion you ask for yourself, and is then deleted. We email you 30, 7 and 1 days before it is erased.
- Re-subscribe — instant. Subscribing again — to your plan or one it can upgrade to — restores full access immediately, with your vaults exactly as you left them. This works from the read-only window, from a locked account, and during the deletion countdown — buying at any point before the account is erased cancels the deletion.
In short: trial or paid plan ends → 14 days read-only → locked → deleted after 90 days locked, unless you subscribe.
Two ways out of a locked account#
A locked account has exactly two exits, and both stay open for as long as it is locked:
- Subscribe again — to your plan or one it can upgrade to. Full access comes back at once, with everything as you left it.
- Delete it. If you would rather go now than wait out the 90 days, delete the account from Account → Delete Account. If you own an organization, you delete the organization instead — the owner-only Delete organization link in the Danger zone of Organization → Information — which closes every account in it, yours included.
Doing neither is a choice too: after 90 days locked, the deletion starts on its own.
The read-only window is your last chance to export without re-subscribing. Once the account locks you must buy a plan again to reach your data. Go to Import & export while you still have read access.
Cancelling does not drop you to Free#
This is the part people expect to work differently. Cancelling a paid plan does not hand you a working free account — it starts the read-only window above. Free is a starting point, not a landing point.
Subscribing again is to the plan you had or one it can upgrade to — never to a smaller one. Your data waits for you — for 90 days once the account locks, plus the 14-day countdown after them.
Trials#
Every paid plan you can buy online starts with a 14-day free trial, once per account — no card required to start. Enterprise has no trial; it is arranged with sales.
- During the trial you have the plan's full access, and you can only subscribe to that plan.
- If you add payment, the trial carries on and billing starts when it ends — or straight away, if less than two days of the trial are left.
- To start paying before the trial ends, use Subscribe now on Billing → Overview: the trial ends today and the first period is charged.
- If it ends without payment, the trial is treated like any other ended plan: read-only for 14 days, then locked, then deleted after 90 days locked unless you subscribe. You do not drop to Free.
The trial is tied to your account, not to the plan. Once you have used it, upgrading later goes straight to a paid subscription.
Related#
- Plans & subscription — change your plan, seats, billing cycle
- Plan comparison & limits — feature-by-feature breakdown
- Invoices — download PDFs, retry failed payments
- Import & export — get your data out