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

BoatGuru has two consumer memberships: BoatGuru Plus and BoatGuru Pro.

• Fourteen-day trial. Choose Plus or Pro, add a payment method, and get full access to the selected plan. Before that, you can get one short preliminary assessment to see whether BoatGuru understands your boat problem.
• BoatGuru Plus monthly. $24.99 monthly. Cancel anytime.
• BoatGuru Plus annual (recommended). $249.99 yearly — about $20.83 per month, billed annually — saving 17% compared with monthly billing.
• BoatGuru Pro monthly. $39.99 monthly. Cancel anytime.
• BoatGuru Pro annual. $399.99 yearly — about $33.33 per month, billed annually — saving 17% compared with monthly billing.

Both paid plans include unlimited boat questions, photo and document uploads, help that uses your manuals, saved conversations, links to source material, and reports you can share with a mechanic under a fair-use policy. Plus includes one saved boat; Pro includes up to five personal boats, each with its own saved history.

Upgrading

From your account, open the billing section and click "Start free trial." You'll be sent to Stripe Checkout, our payments processor, where you select Plus or Pro and choose monthly or annual billing. Full features for that plan 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)
• 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.

Monthly members who cancel may be offered a Seasonal Pause. During the free pause, your saved boats, manuals, and history remain available to read, but you cannot ask new questions, add photos, or add manuals. You choose a restart date up to six months away and get a reminder before paid access resumes.

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, paid access ends — your boat profile, manuals, reports, and chat history are preserved, but ongoing diagnostics pause 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.