How billing works

Tabla is billed per editor; viewers are always free. For what each plan includes and what's free, see what's free; this page is how the bill itself works.

Who counts as an editor

An editor is someone who can change something in at least one of an account's databases — an owner, an editor, or anyone in a team account that lets everyone edit a database. Each person counts once per account, however many databases they edit there. Someone who can only view is never counted, and neither is an admin who edits nothing.

The first editor on an account is always free. On a team account, that's the longest-serving admin who edits something there; if no admin edits, it's the longest-serving editor. Editors 2–10 are $6 a month each billed yearly, or $8 monthly; 11–20 are $8, or $10; 21–25 are $10, or $12. From the 26th on, they cost nothing.

Setting up payment

An account's admins set up payment from Billing — in a team account it's the Billing row on the account's page (Manage, beside the team's name on home, gets you there), and for your own account it's in the menu under your picture. Pick Monthly or Yearly (yearly is chosen to start with, and shows what it saves), then Set up payment, and you're taken to Stripe's checkout to pay. Adding a second editor from the Share dialog shows the same choice, with Continue to payment; when other people already edit there, it prices all of them, since the bill covers them from the day you pay. Only an admin can set it up; anyone else is told who can, and the admins get an email with a link straight to checkout.

Payment comes first: adding a second editor asks for it before anyone is given editing access. An invitation goes out once it's set up — when you come back from checkout, the address is still waiting in the Share dialog, and one click sends it.

Prices are set in US dollars. At checkout, Stripe may show the amount in your own currency, and you can pay in dollars instead. Tax is added on top where it applies, and Stripe works it out from your billing address. Payments go through Stripe, which sells Tabla for us, so your bank statement reads LINK.COM* TABLA.

Adding and removing editors

Adding one is charged right away, for the rest of the current month or year — out of your credit first, if you have any — and the new total starts at the next bill. The Share dialog says what it will cost before you confirm. An invitation is charged when it's accepted, not when it's sent, so nothing is charged for someone who never shows up. Your renewal date doesn't move.

Removing one gives you credit for the time already paid, straight away. It pays for what comes next before your card does — an editor you add, then your next bills — and it isn't paid out. On a yearly plan the confirmation says the amount before you remove anyone. The Billing page shows how much credit you have and what your next bill comes to.

You never set a number yourself: the bill follows the people who can edit, and changes as they do.

Monthly or yearly

Switch between them under Manage billing, on the Billing page. Monthly to yearly happens at once, with the rest of the month credited. Yearly to monthly starts at your next renewal. Either way, you keep the prices your account started with.

Manage billing is also where your card, your invoices, your tax ID and canceling are — it opens Stripe's own page for your account. Your recent invoices are also listed under the plan on the Billing page, each with what became of it (paid, refunded, or a payment that failed) and a link to view it or save it as a PDF.

If a payment doesn't go through

Stripe tries the card again over about two weeks, and everyone keeps editing while it does. The account's admins see a note at the top of Tabla saying the last payment didn't go through, pointing to Billing, where Manage billing is the place to update the card. If it still can't be paid, the plan ends.

When a plan ends

When you cancel, you keep everything you've paid for until the end of the month or year. After that — or when a plan ends because a payment couldn't be made — the account's one free editor keeps editing, and everyone else can only view. Nothing is deleted: every record, file and table stays, every role is remembered, and setting up payment again gives everyone back what they had. Payments aren't refunded.

The admins see who can only view: in the Share dialog it says so beside each of them, and the Billing page names the one person who still edits.

Team accounts

A team account pays for its own editors, and its admins manage the bill. Moving a database into a team account moves its editors' cost there: the Move dialog shows both bills before you confirm — what the team will be charged now and from then on, and what the account it leaves goes down to. If the team has no payment yet, you're asked to set it up first.

Deleting a team account ends its plan that day rather than at the end of the month or year. Anyone who can open a database can export it first, for free.

If you were a team before billing started

Accounts that had more than one editor when billing started have fifteen days to set up payment, and their editors keep editing until then. That covers the editors you had that day. Adding anyone new during the fifteen days needs payment set up first, and the bill then starts that day for all your editors — the Share dialog shows the total before you go to checkout. The Billing page says the date your editors are free until, and three days before it every admin gets an email with that date and the price for the editors you have.