Plans and billing

There are four plans, and the line between them is simple enough to state in a sentence: Starter is everything that runs on our own systems. Professional is everything that runs on somebody else’s meter, and everything somebody else’s software runs on ours. Crew and Scale are Professional plus a team — Scale a bigger one, with more included. No tool is ever on Scale alone.

Understand what each plan includes

Plan	Transaction fee	What it includes
Starter	0.25% + card fees, with a $1 minimum	Everything that runs on our database — clients, jobs, proposals, invoices, payments, costing, checklists, reporting, your public page — and 1 GB of storage for your photos and files
Professional	0.25% + card fees, no minimum	Everything on Starter, plus the things that cost us per use — AI drafting, receipt scanning, text messages, maps and bank connections — and what other software drives: API keys, webhooks, the Zapier app and accounting sync; and 25 GB of storage
Crew	0.25% + card fees, no minimum	Professional, plus office seats — add more when you need them — and unlimited field workers
Scale	0.25% + card fees, no minimum	Crew, with more office seats included, more added at a lower price each, and larger allowances

That rule is worth knowing, because it predicts the answer without you having to look anything up. A calculation over your own records is on Starter. Anything that spends on a model, a carrier or a bank API is not, and neither is anything another company’s software drives — a key, a webhook, a connection to your books. The one exception is your inbound lead address, which takes a lead from any form and is on every plan. On Starter your keys and webhooks are kept, paused, and work again on Professional — and you can still remove any of them: a Zap you turn off takes its webhook with it.

See your allowances and what you have used

Professional, Crew and Scale each include a monthly allowance of AI and of receipt scans, and a number of bank accounts you can connect — Crew’s larger than Professional’s and Scale’s larger again, because a bigger team spends more of each. The pricing page lists every figure. Each is the whole business’s, shared by everyone in it.

Billing shows each allowance with what is used beside it — 312 of 500 — and the day the month’s use starts again. The owner and managers see it — anyone whose role includes How the business works; a manager sees the plan and its usage, and the subscription itself stays the owner’s.

Storage is there too, in gigabytes — 2.3 GB of 25 GB — with See what is stored. Every plan has storage — Starter 1 GB, Professional 25 GB, Crew 100 GB and Scale 500 GB — and Storage says what counts against it, what happens at 80% and when it is full, how to ask for more, and how to make room.

When an allowance runs out, the message says so, when it starts again, and which plan includes more — never only limit reached. A business with more bank accounts connected than its plan includes keeps every one of them; it can connect another once it is under the number, and the bank page says why until then.

Your allowances are always your plan’s current ones. When a plan’s allowance goes up, you have the larger one the next day. When one goes down, nothing changes for you until a renewal at least 30 days after the owner is told by email what changes, from what to what, and on which date. Billing shows the same until then. On a free trial, or a plan SMG Tools provides, a lower allowance applies when the month next starts again. A card change or a scheduled cancellation never lowers anything.

See what SMG Tools caught for you

The owner’s Billing page shows What SMG Tools caught: what came in this month so far, and last month, set beside what your plan costs a month — in the phone app, without the price. A month that caught only work booked shows how many were booked, never $0. It is read from your own records, and each line is something that happened after the product did its part — a reminder went, then the invoice was paid. It never claims what your customer would have done otherwise.

Line	What it counts
Paid after an automatic reminder	Payments in the month on invoices whose first automatic reminder went before the payment
Booked after a due-again reminder	Jobs made in the month for a client within ninety days of a reminder that the same work was due again — a count of the work, not money
Accepted after an automatic follow-up	Proposals accepted in the month after their automatic follow-up went, at their total
Accepted after a follow-up SMG Tools prompted	Proposals accepted in the month after a quote gone quiet was put in somebody’s For you and they followed it up, at their total
Change orders accepted	Change orders accepted in the month that add to a job’s price
Deposits collected up front	Deposits paid in the month on proposals and online bookings
Priced up to target before it was sent	A line on a draft proposal raised from under its target margin to at or above it, counted when the proposal is first sent — at the raise
Parts billed from the parts check	Parts the invoice’s check put on an invoice, counted when the invoice is sent with them on it

The money is what reached you: a payment less any refund and the sales tax it carried, never a tip, and nothing voided. Each record counts once — a deposit’s payment is a deposit even when a reminder went first, and a proposal followed up automatically and then from For you is counted under the follow-up SMG Tools prompted. Work booked after a due-again reminder is counted as the jobs themselves, with no amount: what they bring in arrives on their invoices, which count where they count. Open a line to see the invoices, proposals and jobs behind it.

The last two lines are recorded from October 17, 2026, and each says counted since that day; nothing before it is estimated. Paid after an automatic reminder and Booked after a due-again reminder are left out while you do not use Client Reminders, unless the month already counted some, and Parts billed from the parts check only shows where you use Inventory. A month with nothing to count says Nothing to count yet this month rather than a zero.

It is the owner’s alone, as the subscription is: a manager’s Billing page does not show it. The owner’s monthly summary carries the same figures for the month just ended, and the assistant answers what did SMG Tools catch this month? with them. Nothing here is ever added up across businesses.

Start with a free trial

Every new business gets 90 days of Professional free, from the moment its first person verifies their email. There is no card to enter and nothing to switch on. The trial’s AI and receipt-scan allowances start again every month of the trial, counted from the day it began.

When the trial ends, your account moves to Starter unless you have subscribed. Nothing you recorded is deleted — the Professional features switch off and your data stays. A business that subscribes before the trial begins stays on its plan; it is never put on a trial instead.

Know how the transaction fee works

The fee is deducted from the payment, never added to what your client is charged.

A $150 invoice is a $150 charge to your client. On Starter, $144.35 reaches you: our fee is the $1 minimum, because 0.25% of $150 is less than a dollar, and Stripe’s card processing is $4.65 at its standard 2.9% + 30¢. Stripe charges its fee to your own Stripe account, at your Stripe rate.

The $1 minimum on Starter is what Professional removes. On small tickets that is the whole argument for upgrading: on a $40 service call, $1 is 2.5%.

Change your plan

Upgrade or cancel from your Billing page, which is the owner’s. Payment details, receipts and recurring charges are handled by Stripe rather than by us — we never see or store your card.

A move to another plan takes effect on your account immediately, and the features it gates follow. Moving up from a plan you already pay for, and moving from Scale to Crew, happen on the Billing page itself: before anything changes you see your new monthly total and what the next invoice carries for the rest of the month. Your office users come with you — moving up, every seat you had stays; moving from Scale to Crew, everyone in the office keeps a seat, as added office users. Moving to Professional or Starter is done with Manage subscription.

Canceling keeps what you paid for until the end of the period. Billing then says Ends with the date, and that you keep your plan until then, rather than Renews. Changed your mind? Manage subscription keeps it, and the end date goes away. Once it has ended you are on Starter, and Billing offers every paid plan again.

Every plan change, made on Billing or with Manage subscription, emails the owner what it was and what it is now. If a payment fails, your plan stays while Stripe tries again — update your card with Manage subscription; a second subscription can’t be started beside one that is past due — and you are emailed when the payment goes through.

Sometimes SMG Tools provides a business’s plan itself — for a pilot, a partner or a test account. Your Billing page then says Provided by SMG Tools, with the day it ends if it ends, and offers only the plans above it. When it ends you have the plan you pay for, or Starter. A plan you also pay for through Stripe is still billed until you cancel it with Manage subscription.

SMG Tools can also set a single limit or feature for you on top of your plan — three office seats, a larger AI allowance for a month. Each one is listed under Provided by SMG Tools on your Billing page, with the day it ends if it ends; after that you have what your plan gives.

The phone assistant can be provided the same way. Call answering on your Billing page then says Provided by SMG Tools: there is nothing to pay for it, and nothing to cancel. If it is set to end, the page says when: calls to your number stop reaching you that day, and the number itself stays yours for 30 days after, then goes back to the phone company unless something of yours, such as your text messages, still uses it.

Know what happens if you downgrade

Nothing you recorded is deleted by changing plans. What changes is what you can do next.

Every plan keeps files, so a receipt image or a job photo you stored stays yours to open after a downgrade. If what you have stored is more than your new plan’s storage, nothing is removed: new files wait until you are under it, and Storage says how to make room. A checklist report you already generated stays yours; a plan change is never what stops a customer being told what was done.

Get credit for referring somebody

If you invite another business and they subscribe, you earn credit against your own bill. See Referring another business.