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Two modules, one subscription EU hosted Built inside a working fire door company
Money · setup

Seat plan or Usage plan — and how to tell which.

Two billing methods, and you are on one of them, never both. One charges for the people in your team; the other charges for the work you log. Neither restricts what you can do. This is how to work out which is cheaper for the way you actually operate, and how to switch when that changes.

4 min read OwnersFinanceNew accounts

Section 01How to do it

  1. 01

    Start the trial without choosing

    The trial is the whole product with nothing held back and no card. Run a real building through it before you think about billing at all.

  2. 02

    Do a normal month, not a demo month

    The comparison is only useful if the activity is representative. Inspect what you would inspect, issue the quotes you would issue.

  3. 03

    Read the comparison in Billing

    It prices your last 30 days under both methods and tells you which would have cost less, and by how much. It is the same service that bills you, so it is not an estimate.

  4. 04

    Sanity-check it against your shape

    A small team doing high volume usually lands on Seat. A large team doing occasional jobs usually lands on Usage. If your answer disagrees with your shape, look at why before you commit.

  5. 05

    If Seat, decide monthly or annual

    Annual is around 20% less for the same thing. It is a cash-flow decision, not a product one.

  6. 06

    Re-check it after a busy quarter

    The right answer changes as the business does. Switching costs nothing and loses nothing.

Section 02What the app actually does here

  • A workspace is on the Seat plan or the Usage plan — the two are never combined on one bill
  • Seat plan: £29 a month for one user and £65 for two, then a flat £50 for each user after that — all ex VAT, with volume not metered at all
  • Seat plan can be billed monthly or annually, and annual is around 20% less
  • Usage plan: no seat charge, unlimited users, billed monthly only
  • Usage charges a door’s first inspection at one rate and every re-inspection at half that
  • Fire stopping is charged per penetration on the Usage plan, and not at all on the Seat plan
  • Compliance PDFs — inspection reports, evidence packs, survey reports and both Works Completed Reports — are free on the Usage plan
  • Only commercial documents (quotes, invoices, RAMS) carry a per-PDF charge, deduplicated across download and email
  • Billing prices your last 30 days of real activity under both methods and names the cheaper one
  • Switching to the Seat plan applies immediately; switching to Usage takes effect at your next renewal, so you are never billed twice for one period
  • Client portal users are free on both plans and never count as a seat
  • No setup fee, no export fee, no minimum term and no per-client charge on either method

Section 03What goes wrong

Every one of these has cost somebody real time. They are cheap to avoid and expensive to unwind.

Assuming you pay both

You do not. There is no usage bill on top of a seat bill, and no seat bill on top of a usage bill. If a comparison spreadsheet adds them together, it is wrong.

Choosing Usage because it looks cheaper on day one

Early in a billing period Usage always looks cheaper, because you have not logged the month yet. Compare over a rolling 30 days, which is what the app does.

Adding a seat you do not need

On Seat, every active user counts. On Usage, they do not. If your team is large and your volume is low, the Usage plan removes that question entirely.

Counting your clients as users

They are not. Portal access is never a seat, on either plan, however many people your client invites.

Section 04Questions

Q01

Can we be on both?

No, and you would not want to be — each method already includes everything. You choose one when you subscribe and can move between them at any time.
Q02

Is there an annual Usage plan?

No. Annual billing applies to the Seat plan. The Usage plan is billed monthly, because it is charged on what you did that month.
Q03

What happens to our data if we switch?

Nothing. Switching changes how the bill is calculated, not what is in the workspace.

Section 05Related

Start today

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Everything above is checkable inside the trial, on a real building, with nothing held back and no card required.

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