Seats

On a paid plan, an organization buys seats. A seat is capacity, not a person: you buy a number, and people occupy them.

Seats decide two things at once, which is why they matter more than a headcount:

• The bill. Pro is priced per seat.
• The allowances. Pro's storage, egress and tool-call ceilings are each multiplied by the seat count, so buying a seat raises what the organization can hold as well as who it can invite.

Your Personal organization always holds exactly one person, so it has no seat count to manage.

What occupies a seat

Every member and every outstanding invitation holds one.

Counting invitations is deliberate. An invitation you have sent is capacity you have already promised away, and it would be a poor surprise for the person accepting it to be turned back at the door. So the two doors count differently, on purpose:

The effect is that an invitation already sent can always be honoured, even if the organization filled up in the meantime.

Two more rules follow from "a seat is capacity":

• Removing a member frees their seat immediately, ready for the next invitation. It does not change the bill — you still own the seat, and it still renews.
• Withdrawing an invitation frees its seat the same way.

On Free, a company organization gets 10 seats. They are not bought and not billed, but they are counted by exactly the same rules.

Reading the seat count

The Plan section states the seats bought, with the headroom beside them:

Being over happens after a plan ends, after a subscription is attached at a smaller count, or if an owner's quota was changed by hand. Nobody is removed and nothing stops working — you simply cannot invite anyone else until you add a seat. See when the seats are fewer than the people.

Changing the seat count

1. Open Plan & usage (how).
2. Click Change seats — or Add seats, if this subscription has no renewal date to reduce against yet.
3. Set the number with the stepper, or use the +1 / +2 / +5 shortcuts. The shortcuts count from the seats you already hold, so pressing one twice does not compound.
4. Read the ledger: what you already hold, what you are adding or removing, the new total, the rate, and the new recurring bill.
5. Click the confirm button, which names the change — Add 2 seats · $100/mo, or Reduce to 3 seats.

The two directions behave differently, because one of them you have already paid for:

• More seats are usable straight away. Someone who has just bought a seat should not have to wait to fill it.
• Fewer seats take effect at the renewal, never on the click. See reducing the seat count.

When the money moves

Buying seats is the one place your term changes what happens. (A reduction is charged nothing either way — see reducing the seat count.)

The difference is deliberate. A month of seats on credit is a rounding error and not worth a second invoice and a second processor fee; a year of them is not.

The recurring figure in the dialog (rate × seats) is exact and ours to compute. The prorated charge for the rest of this cycle is Paddle's, with tax, so the dialog tells you when it lands rather than quoting a number we cannot stand behind.

What adding a seat does not do

A mid-cycle seat raises the ceilings and leaves the counters where they are. You have bought capacity, not a fresh allowance, and your billing date does not move. See when the billing month starts.

Reducing the seat count

Seats you have bought are paid for to the end of the cycle, so a reduction does not take them away early. It is parked for the renewal instead: you keep every seat you hold until then, and the subscription renews at the smaller number.

Set a number below what you hold and confirm. The dialog says what will happen:

The seats you have stay until 14 October, when the subscription renews at 3. Nothing is charged for the change.

Nothing is charged, and nothing is refunded. The renewal is billed at the new count; there is no mid-cycle credit to issue because there is no mid-cycle change.

Once parked, Plan & usage carries a standing note:

Seats drop at the end of this cycle. This organization renews at 3 seats on 14 October. The 5 you have now stay until then.

Keep 5 beside it calls the reduction off and leaves the subscription where it is. So does setting the count back to what you hold.

The floor

The stepper will not go below the people already in place — members plus outstanding invitations — and says so:

This organization holds 4 members and outstanding invitations, so it can't hold fewer seats than that.

Remove members or withdraw invitations first, and the floor drops with them. The floor is checked again when the reduction actually lands, so a roster that grew while it waited is honoured rather than overridden.

A subscription that has no renewal date yet has no boundary to park against. There the stepper floors at the seats you hold and only Add seats is offered.

When the seats are fewer than the people

An organization can legitimately hold more people than it has seats — after a plan ends, after a subscription is attached at a smaller count, or after an owner's quota was changed by hand. Plan & usage says so:

Add a seat before inviting anyone new. The subscription carries 3 seats and this organization has 5 members. Everyone keeps working — invitations are what stop, including any already sent.

Nobody is removed and nothing they do is interrupted. Only invitations stop, and that includes ones already sent, which cannot be accepted until a seat is free.

Seats and cancellation

While a subscription is scheduled to end, the seat editor is not offered at all — there is no cycle after this one for a change to apply to. The same is true while the plan is paused.

Use Keep subscription first, then change the count.