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Billing plans, changes, and cancellation

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Billing is only available in a web browser, not the SortScape mobile app. Sign in at app.sortscape.com, then open Settings → Company → Billing.

GST on Australian subscriptions

Section titled “GST on Australian subscriptions”

SortScape is a business service for lawn, garden, and property-maintenance businesses. Australian prices advertised to business customers are shown excluding GST.

The pricing page marks Australian prices as excluding GST. Before you confirm a plan or add-on, Billing shows the subtotal, GST, and the total that will be charged. GST also appears separately on your SortScape invoice.

Monthly vs annual plans

Section titled “Monthly vs annual plans”

Monthly plans (flexible)

Section titled “Monthly plans (flexible)”

Monthly plans are billed in advance each month and offer full flexibility.

What you can do at any time:

  • Upgrade or downgrade your plan (e.g. Basic ↔ Premium)
  • Increase or decrease your user count using the sold sizes (1, 2, 5, 10, then steps of 5)
  • Add or remove add-ons (e.g. SMS)

AI Receptionist add-on

Section titled “AI Receptionist add-on”

Removing the AI Receptionist add-on takes effect immediately, unlike cancelling your whole SortScape subscription. See the AI Receptionist 30-day trial for that add-on’s trial, and Managing your AI Receptionist subscription for removal steps and what happens to your phone number.

How billing works:

  • Changes take effect immediately

  • Charges are prorated and applied on your next invoice Examples:

  • Upgrade mid-cycle: You’ll be charged a prorated amount for the upgrade, plus the full amount for the next month
    → your next invoice may be higher than usual

  • Add an SMS bundle mid-cycle: Your renewal date stays the same. See Adding more credits.

  • Downgrade mid-cycle: You’ll receive a credit for the unused portion of your previous plan
    → your next invoice may be lower than usual

Important:

  • You cannot select a plan with fewer users than you currently have active
  • To reduce user count, you must first deactivate users

Annual plans (best value, less flexible)

Section titled “Annual plans (best value, less flexible)”

Annual plans offer a discounted rate but require a 12-month commitment across your full subscription (plan, users, add-ons).

What you can do at any time:

  • Upgrade to a higher user tier

  • Upgrade from Basic to Premium

  • Add SMS packages What you can only do in the final month:

  • Downgrade plans (e.g. Premium → Basic)

  • Reduce user count

  • Reduce or remove SMS packages

  • Switch to monthly billing

See Switching from annual to monthly billing for step-by-step instructions.

Switching from annual to monthly billing

Section titled “Switching from annual to monthly billing”

In the final month before your annual renewal date, you can move to monthly billing yourself under Settings → Company → Billing.

When you can switch

The Monthly billing toggle unlocks once your renewal date is within one month. Until then, it stays disabled on the plan chooser. For example, if your annual plan renews on 2 July, you can usually switch from early June onward.

How to switch

  1. Go to Settings → Company → Billing
  2. Click Change plan
  3. Select Monthly on the billing interval toggle
  4. Choose your plan and continue to checkout
  5. Review the prorated amount and click Confirm plan

What happens when you switch

  • The change takes effect immediately, not on your annual renewal date
  • Stripe calculates a prorated charge or credit for the remainder of your current billing period
  • Your subscription renews monthly from that point forward

If you have cancelled your subscription

If you have already clicked Cancel, Change plan is hidden until you click Reactivate plan under Settings → Company → Billing. You cannot switch billing intervals while a cancellation is pending.

If your subscription has already ended

If your annual plan has expired and your account is inactive, you do not switch plans. You choose a new subscription on the plan selection screen, and monthly billing is available from the start.

Cancellation policy (all plans)

Section titled “Cancellation policy (all plans)”
  • Cancelling your subscription does not take effect immediately
  • Your account will remain active until the end of your current billing period
  • No refunds are provided for unused time
  • After the billing period ends, your subscription will not renew This applies to both monthly and annual plans.

SMS add-ons on annual plans

Section titled “SMS add-ons on annual plans”
  • SMS credits are purchased in bundles of 100 messages a month
  • On an annual plan, SMS bundles are billed annually with the rest of your plan. You can’t pay for them monthly
  • If you add a bundle partway through the year, you pay a prorated amount straight away for the time left until your renewal date. After that, the bundle renews with your plan each year at its full annual price
  • Once added, a bundle stays until the final month before your renewal date. You can’t remove it for a few months and add it back later
  • No pay-as-you-go option

For example, if your plan renews on 29 October and you add a bundle in February, you pay for February to October when you add it. On 29 October the bundle renews for another 12 months with your plan.

For how credits work and what makes a message use more than one, see SMS text message credits.

Proration on annual upgrades

Section titled “Proration on annual upgrades”

If you upgrade your annual plan:

  • The unused portion of your current plan is credited
  • You only pay the difference for the remainder of the billing period
  • The difference is charged to your saved card straight away, on its own invoice. It is not added to your next renewal.
  • Your billing date does not change

If your card declines that charge, the upgrade isn’t applied and you don’t owe anything for it. Your plan stays as it was, and the charge isn’t retried or added to your renewal. Make sure the card has the funds, or change it under Settings → Company → Billing, then upgrade again.

When to choose each

Section titled “When to choose each”
  • Monthly: More flexible, easier to change plans at any time
  • Annual: Lower cost, but requires commitment and has limited downgrade options

Free trial accounts

Section titled “Free trial accounts”

A new SortScape account starts with a 14-day free trial, counted from the day you sign up.

A free trial includes a small number of text messages, so you can see how they work. To send a lot of texts, choose a paid plan, and add text message credits if you need more than that plan includes. See Text messages on the free trial.

While the trial is running, the bar at the top of SortScape says “Your trial expires in” followed by how many days are left. Open Settings → Company → Billing when you want to choose a plan. Billing does not show a separate end date. The bar does.

When the trial ends, you can extend it by 14 days, up to two times, from that same Billing page. See I need more time on my free trial.

Two other trials last 30 days, and only after you are paying for SortScape:

Neither of those is the trial a new account gets at signup.

If you are on a SortScape free trial and have not chosen a paid plan yet, you do not have a subscription to cancel.

Under Settings → Company → Billing, you will see Choose a plan, not a Cancel button. That is expected.

To stop using SortScape during your trial

  • You do not need to cancel anything. There is no charge while you are on the trial.
  • You can simply stop using the app. When your trial ends, your account becomes inactive if you have not subscribed.
  • If you want your data deleted immediately, use Delete account in the SortScape mobile app. See How do I delete my account. This permanently deletes your business data and cannot be undone.

The Cancel steps below apply only after you have an active paid subscription.

Pausing your subscription (monthly plans)

Section titled “Pausing your subscription (monthly plans)”

If you are on a monthly paid plan and are not ready to use SortScape yet, you can pause your subscription under Settings → Company → Billing instead of cancelling.

What pause does

  • Stops your subscription from renewing after the end of your current billing period
  • Keeps your account and data so you can come back later
  • Does not refund or extend your current billing period. You keep access until that period ends, but you are still charged for it.

How to pause

  1. Go to Settings → Company → Billing
  2. Click Pause
  3. Confirm the prompt

Pause is only shown on monthly plans. If you are on an annual plan, use Cancel instead (see How to cancel your account).

Reactivate before your billing period ends

If you paused (or cancelled) but your current period has not ended yet, open Settings → Company → Billing and click Reactivate plan. Your subscription will renew as normal.

After your billing period ends

Your account becomes inactive until you choose a new plan. Paused accounts keep your business data. If you cancelled instead of pausing, your account is deactivated when the subscription ends.

Not the same as pausing jobs

To pause repeating jobs on your schedule, see How can I pause my repeating jobs?.

How to cancel your account

Section titled “How to cancel your account”

If you are on a monthly plan and plan to return later, consider pausing your subscription instead of cancelling. Pause stops renewal at the end of your billing period and keeps your account data.

To cancel your SortScape subscription:

  1. Go to Settings → Company → Billing
  2. Click the Cancel button
  3. Confirm your cancellation Your account stays active until the end of your current billing period, then becomes inactive. See Cancellation policy.

Available user counts

Section titled “Available user counts”

Plans are sold in set user counts, not one seat at a time. The available sizes are:

  • 1 user
  • 2 users
  • 5 users
  • 10 users
  • then 15, 20, 25, and so on in steps of 5, up to 50 users

If you need more than 50 users, contact us.

There is no 3-user or 4-user plan. If three people need to log in, be scheduled on jobs, or track time, choose the 5-user plan. If only two people need access, you can choose the 2-user plan after you deactivate any extra users.

Current prices for each size are shown under Settings → Company → Billing, and on the pricing page.

Changing to a lower-cost plan

Section titled “Changing to a lower-cost plan”

If you can’t see a cheaper plan option, it’s usually because your current user count exceeds that plan’s limit.

For example:

  • If you have 6 active users, you won’t be able to select the 5-user plan

To select a lower-cost plan:

  1. Open Settings → Company → Employees
  2. Deactivate any users who will not be using the app
  3. Return to Settings → Company → Billing
  4. Select your desired plan As you reduce your active user count, additional lower-tier plans will become available.

Feature access when changing plans

Section titled “Feature access when changing plans”

When you upgrade or downgrade your plan, some features may become unavailable depending on your plan tier and when you signed up.

Current plans (signed up from 29 May 2025)

Section titled “Current plans (signed up from 29 May 2025)”

Both Basic and Premium include scheduling, quoting, invoicing, online payments, photo upload and sharing, property history, and manual email and text messages.

The following features require Premium on current pricing:

Customer communication

Reporting and insights

  • Business reports (employee hours, customer time, revenue, and similar charts under Reports) — see Running business reports
  • Activity log (audit trail of changes in your account), see The activity log

Quoting

  • Optional line items on quotes
  • Line item photos on quotes

Scheduling

Time tracking

  • Automatic job timers (start and stop job timers by GPS as crews arrive and leave; experimental, iPhone app) — see Automatic job timers

Chemical tracking

Integrations

If you downgrade from Premium to Basic, you will lose access to these features. Image timestamps are turned off automatically, and service report and business report screens are no longer available. Chemical application records you already saved stay readable and the spray diary report can still be exported, but new applications can’t be recorded.

See the plan comparison on our pricing page for a side-by-side list.

Legacy plans (signed up before 29 May 2025)

Section titled “Legacy plans (signed up before 29 May 2025)”

Legacy plans keep some features, including Xero and QuickBooks Online, even after you try Premium and switch back. See Legacy plan features and plan changes.