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Managing Your Plan

Everything to do with your plan is on one page. Open the Dead Simple Chat dashboard, select Settings in the left sidebar, and you land on the Account tab.

What is on Settings -> Account​

The top of the page is a short list of rows. What you see depends on the state of the account, so not every row is there every time.

RowWhat it tells you
Current PlanThe plan the account is on right now.
Payment StateWhether the subscription is paid, has failed, or is being cancelled.
Cancel PlanAppears while you are on a paid plan and payment is in good standing. See Cancelling a plan.
Upgrade PlanAppears when you are not on a paid plan. It takes you to Plans & Pricing.
Payment MethodUpdate Payment Method opens the card form. See Changing the card.
Subscription End DateAppears only after you cancel. The date the plan actually ends.
Available StorageHow much file storage you have used, against how much the plan allows.

Below that is an Account Info form — first and last name, website, company and address fields — with a Save button. It is your own record of who the account belongs to. It is not used for billing, and it does not change what appears on a receipt. See Billing FAQ.

Available Storage counts files, not messages

The Available Storage row measures the files and images people have uploaded into your chat rooms. The helper text beside it says "Files will be auto deleted 30 days from the date they were uploaded" — so the figure reflects the last 30 days of uploads, and it goes down on its own as older files age out. Deleting messages, files or whole rooms also returns the space immediately.

Message history is not part of this figure.

If you need the attachments from a room for your own records, export them before they age out. See Exporting Messages and Files.

For how many people can be in your chat rooms at once and how many rooms you may have, see Plans and Quotas.

Changing your plan​

Plans are listed under Plans & Pricing in the left sidebar of the dashboard, or at deadsimplechat.com/pricing.

Moving up​

Choosing a larger plan is self-serve. Pick the plan you want on Plans & Pricing and complete the card payment. The change takes effect straight away — you do not wait for the billing cycle to turn over.

You are charged pro-rata. Partway through a billing cycle you pay the difference between what you have already paid for and the plan you are moving to, not a fresh full price.

Moving down​

Moving to a smaller paid plan is not a single step, because a downgrade takes effect at the end of the billing cycle rather than immediately. The dashboard says as much when you try:

You can only downgrade to a lower tier plan after the end of your current billing cycle. You can upgrade anytime and upgrade will be pro-rated.

To end up on a smaller plan, cancel the current one. It keeps running to the end of the cycle you have paid for, and when that date arrives the account drops back to the no-cost level. From there you can pick whichever plan you want.

When the buttons say "Contact Us"​

Some plans are not bought from the page. Where a plan is sized for an event, or is larger than the listed options, the button reads Contact Us rather than Purchase, and the page carries a "Need a custom plan for your event? contact us." link. Those open a chat with the support team.

Accounts that are already on a plan arranged with support work the same way in reverse: the dashboard will tell you to get in touch rather than offering the change itself. If that happens, it is not an error — see contact support.

Cancelling a plan​

On Settings -> Account, press Cancel Plan. You are taken to a confirmation page that says:

Are you sure you want to cancel the plan?

You will be on the plan till the end of the billing cycle.

Press Yes, Please cancel my plan to go through with it, or No, I don't want to cancel to back out. Nothing is cancelled until you press the confirmation.

What cancelling actually does​

It stops the renewal. It does not switch anything off today.

  • You keep the plan, and everything it includes, for the rest of the billing cycle you have already paid for.
  • You are not billed again.
  • When that date arrives, the account moves to the no-cost level and keeps its allowances from there.
  • Nothing is deleted. Your chat rooms, their messages, their settings and their members all stay where they are.

Back on Settings -> Account, Payment State now reads cancelling, and a highlighted Subscription End Date row appears with the date and the note "You will no longer be charged, your plan will automatically end on the mentioned date." That date is when the change actually happens.

Changing your mind​

While the plan is in that state, a Resume Plan button sits next to Payment State. Press it and the subscription goes back to renewing as before — same plan, same date, no new payment. It is self-serve and you can do it any time before the end date.

If you have more chat rooms than the smaller plan allows​

The confirmation is held back if the account is carrying more chat rooms than you would be allowed once the paid plan ends. Instead of the confirmation you get a page telling you how many chat rooms you have, how many are allowed, and the date your plan would otherwise renew.

Delete the rooms you no longer need — see Deleting Messages and Rooms, and export anything you want to keep first — then come back to Settings -> Account and press Cancel Plan again. You can do this any time before the renewal date.

If you let the plan lapse while still over the allowance, the chat rooms themselves keep working for the people using them, but the dashboard shows an Account Locked page — "Upgrade your plan or delete chat rooms to unlock." — with the room list and a Delete, Export Messages and Export Files button on each row. Bring the count down, or move back up to a larger plan, and the dashboard opens again.

Updating the card​

Update Payment Method on Settings -> Account opens a payment form where you enter the card you want to use from now on. There is nothing else to do — the new card is used for the next renewal.

If a payment has failed, two things change until you fix it:

  • A banner appears across the dashboard: "Your payment has failed. Please update your payment info to prevent the service from being suspended."
  • The Payment Method row on Settings -> Account shows "Your Last Payment had Failed. Please update the payment by pressing the Update Payment Method button".

Updating the card clears both. The emails Dead Simple Chat sends about a failed payment also carry a link straight to the same form, so you can fix it without signing in first.