Billing, plans, and invoices
Last updated 2026-05-04
Everything you need to know about paying for Boat Guru, switching plans, and finding your receipts.
Plans
Boat Guru has three tiers during Phase Zero:
- Free. One included diagnostic flow with temporary access to the full diagnostic experience for that flow. After the flow is resolved, ongoing diagnostics require a paid plan.
- Plus. Ongoing paid diagnostics, citations, saved history, and sharing for one active boat.
- Pro. Everything in Plus, plus multiple personal boats and mechanic handoff reports that summarize symptoms, context, tests, readings, likely causes, parts considered, citations, and safety notes.
Pricing is shown on your billing page when you're signed in. Paid Plus and Pro diagnostics use a visible fair-use policy for abuse, automation, resale, account sharing, and extreme non-DIY usage. Phase Zero does not use hidden Plus or Pro diagnostic message-count quotas.
Upgrading
From your account, open the billing section and click "Upgrade." You'll be sent to Stripe Checkout, our payments processor, where you enter card details and confirm the plan. Once payment clears, paid features unlock immediately — no waiting, no email confirmation step.
Downgrading or canceling
You can downgrade or cancel any time from the same billing page. Click "Manage subscription" — that opens the Stripe billing portal, where you can:
- Switch from monthly to annual (or vice versa)
- Downgrade to Free at the end of your current period
- Cancel entirely
- Update your payment method
- Change your billing email
Downgrades and cancellations take effect at the end of your current billing period, so you keep paid features until the date you've already paid through.
Invoices and receipts
Every payment generates an invoice. You can find all of them in the Stripe billing portal under "Invoice history" — download as PDF for your records or for expense reimbursement. If you need an invoice with a specific company name or VAT field, edit your billing details in the portal first, then re-download.
Refunds
If something went wrong — duplicate charge, you canceled but were billed anyway, or you signed up by mistake — email us within 14 days of the charge and we'll sort it out. We don't have a fully self-serve refund flow yet; for now it's a real human reading the email. Use the contact form and include the invoice number from your receipt.
Failed payments
If your card fails (expired, insufficient funds, fraud lock), Stripe will retry a few times over about a week and email you each time. If all retries fail, your account drops back to the Free tier automatically — your boat profile, manuals, reports, and chat history are preserved, you just lose paid features until you update your card. To fix it, open the billing portal and add a new payment method.
Questions about a charge
The fastest path is the contact form with your invoice number and the date of the charge. We aim to respond within one to two business days.