Billing & Plans

Plans, pricing, free trial, and how to manage your subscription.

Plans

All plans include unlimited waitlists and unlimited signups.

Feature	Basic ($3/mo)	Advanced ($10/mo)	Pro ($50/mo)
Unlimited waitlists & signups	Yes	Yes	Yes
Embeddable widget	Yes	Yes	Yes
Viral referral system	Yes	Yes	Yes
Configurable referral boost	Yes	Yes	Yes
Referral leaderboard	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom questions (up to 10)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Phone number collection	Yes	Yes	Yes
UTM tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes
Social sharing buttons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Social proof on forms	Yes	Yes	Yes
Consent checkbox	Yes	Yes	Yes
Close/pause waitlist	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bot protection (honeypot)	Yes	Yes	Yes
API access	Yes	Yes	Yes
CSV data export	Yes	Yes	Yes
CSV data import	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hide MakeEmWait branding	—	Yes	Yes
Hide position numbers	—	Yes	Yes
Domain-restricted signups	—	Yes	Yes
Exclude personal emails	—	Yes	Yes
Custom redirect URL	—	Yes	Yes
Move signup position	—	Yes	Yes
Position offset (inflation)	—	Yes	Yes
Traffic & referral analytics	—	—	Yes
UTM analytics	—	—	Yes
Email templates	—	—	Yes
Per-waitlist template assignment	—	—	Yes
Referral milestones	—	—	Yes
Offboarding emails	—	—	Yes
Email blasts	—	—	Yes
Custom email domain	—	—	Yes
Require email verification	—	—	Yes
Referral notification emails	—	—	Yes
Webhooks, Slack & Discord	—	—	Yes
Team management	—	—	Yes

Annual Billing

Save the equivalent of 2 months by paying annually:

Plan	Monthly	Annual
Basic	$3/month	$30/year
Advanced	$10/month	$100/year
Pro	$50/month	$500/year

Toggle between monthly and annual billing on the Pricing page.

Free Trial

When you create your account, a 7-day Pro trial starts automatically. During the trial:

You have full access to all Pro plan features
No credit card is required
The trial countdown shows on your dashboard

What Happens When the Trial Ends

When your trial expires, your subscription status changes to TRIAL_EXPIRED and tier gating kicks in — features above the free tier become inaccessible. Specifically:

Paid features lock (CSV export, analytics, email templates, etc.)
A banner appears on your dashboard prompting you to subscribe
Your data is kept — nothing is deleted
You can subscribe to any plan to unlock everything again
You can still log in and view your dashboard

Go to the Pricing page
Choose a plan and billing interval
Click Subscribe — you’ll be redirected to Stripe Checkout
Enter your payment details
After payment, you’re redirected back to the dashboard with your new plan active

If you're not logged in when you click Subscribe, you'll be redirected to sign up first.

Manage Your Subscription

From the dashboard, click Manage Billing in the subscription banner. This generates a session URL via the API (POST /billing/portal) and redirects you to the Stripe Customer Portal where you can:

Change your plan (upgrade or downgrade)
Switch between monthly and annual billing
Update your payment method
View and download invoices
Cancel your subscription

Upgrading

When you upgrade, the change takes effect immediately with prorated billing. Stripe calculates the remaining time on your current plan and credits it toward the new plan’s cost for the rest of the billing period.

Downgrading

When you downgrade, the change also takes effect immediately. Stripe handles proration automatically — you receive a credit for unused time on your current plan that is applied to future invoices.

Canceling

When you cancel:

Your subscription stays active until the end of the current billing period
After that, your account reverts to the free trial tier (with an expired trial)
Your data is kept — nothing is deleted
You can resubscribe at any time

Failed Payments & Grace Period

If a payment fails (expired card, insufficient funds, bank decline), MakeEmWait follows Stripe best practices to give you time to fix it without losing access.

What Happens

Payment fails — your subscription status changes to Payment Issue (past due)
You keep full access — all features remain available during the grace period
Stripe retries automatically — Smart Retries attempt the payment up to 8 times over approximately 2 weeks, using machine learning to pick the optimal retry time
You see a warning banner — an amber banner appears on every page of your dashboard prompting you to update your payment method

How to Fix It

Click Update Payment Method in the warning banner or on the Account page. This opens the Stripe Customer Portal where you can enter a new card. If the retry succeeds before you update, the warning disappears automatically.

If Payment Isn’t Recovered

If all retry attempts fail after approximately 2 weeks:

Stripe cancels the subscription
Your account reverts to inactive (same as a canceled subscription)
Your data is never deleted — all waitlists, signups, and templates are preserved
Public signups on your waitlists continue to work
You can resubscribe at any time to restore full access

Signups Never Stop Public signup forms continue to work even after subscription cancellation or payment failure. Your users can always join your waitlists — you just lose access to management features (dashboard, exports, analytics) until you resubscribe.

Timeline

Day	What Happens
0	Payment fails. Status: Payment Issue. Full access continues. Warning banner shown.
1–14	Stripe Smart Retries run automatically in the background.
~14	If payment recovers: status returns to Active, warning removed.
~14	If all retries fail: subscription canceled, access revoked, data preserved.

Automatic Card Updates Stripe works with card networks to automatically update saved card details when you get a replacement card. Many payment failures from expired cards resolve themselves without any action.

Expiring Card Warnings

If your card on file expires within 60 days, the Account page shows an Expiring soon badge next to your card details. If it has already expired, you’ll see an Expired badge. Update your card before the next billing cycle to avoid a payment failure.

Tier Hierarchy

The subscription tiers form a hierarchy:

free_trial < basic < advanced < pro

Features that require a specific tier (e.g., “Advanced or higher”) are available to that tier and all tiers above it. For example, “Hide branding” requires Advanced, so it’s available on both Advanced and Pro.

Payment Processing

All payments are processed securely by Stripe. MakeEmWait never sees or stores your credit card details.

Webhook Events

Your subscription status is kept in sync via Stripe webhooks. When a webhook event fires, MakeEmWait updates both your account profile and your subscription attributes (subscription_tier, subscription_status) to ensure consistency across the system.

Event	Action
`checkout.session.completed`	Activates your subscription after initial checkout
`invoice.paid`	Confirms payment — clears any past due status (handles both renewals and upgrades)
`invoice.payment_failed`	Marks subscription as past due (full access continues during grace period)
`customer.subscription.updated`	Syncs tier and status changes (plan upgrades, payment recovery, etc.)
`customer.subscription.deleted`	Revokes access — the definitive end of a subscription (after cancellation or all retries exhausted)

Account Settings — manage your API key, password, and payment method
FAQ — frequently asked questions about plans, trials, and billing

Previous Account Settings