Plans and billing

Two things carry a cost in Candor: your plan, and the automated interviews you run. This article explains how the plans differ, what gets billed and when, and how project slots work. For the current prices, see the pricing page or your own Billing tab, which always shows what your workspace is actually on.

The three plans

They form a ladder, and you move up it when the previous step runs out of room.

  • Free Trial. Where every new signup starts. One active project and one automated interview run, which is one report. Enough to take a real question end to end and see what comes back before you decide anything. No card needed.
  • Free Subscription. No monthly fee. Automated interviews are billed individually as you run them. Choosing this plan needs no card, but launching your first automated interviews does. This is the right plan if your research comes in bursts rather than continuously.
  • Base Subscription. A monthly fee that includes more active projects and a lower price per automated interview. Worth the switch once you’re running research regularly, since the per-interview saving is what pays for the monthly fee.

What gets billed

Only two things: your plan’s monthly fee, and completed automated interviews.

Everything wrapped around an interview run is already included. Audience generation, persona building, interview guides, and synthesis reports are not billed separately. Neither are live interviews you run yourself, on any plan.

The charge for an automated run lands when the report is ready, and covers only the sessions that completed. Sessions that failed or were abandoned aren’t billed. You pay for research you can read.

When a card is required

On the Free Subscription, a card has to be on file before you can launch automated interviews, because that is the first action that owes money. Everything before it is open to you without one: create a project, generate an audience, build personas, write and approve a guide.

If you try to launch without one, you’ll get an Add a card to run interviews prompt with a link to your billing settings. Add the card and launch again.

Subscription plans already have a card from signup, so they never see this. The Free Trial is governed by its one-report limit rather than by charging, so it isn’t card-gated either.

Project slots and archiving

Every plan includes a number of active projects. Those are your slots. Once they’re full you have two options.

  • Add a slot. An extra monthly charge per slot, on top of the plan fee. You can remove a slot again later from the same place.
  • Archive a project. Frees its slot at no extra cost, and makes the project read-only. Its audience, personas, and past interviews stay fully viewable. You just can’t run new interviews or regenerate anything until you unarchive it.

Archiving is usually the right answer for finished work. Research projects have a natural end, and keeping one active past that point is paying to hold a slot you aren’t using. Add slots when you genuinely have several projects running at once.

One thing to know before you archive: unarchiving needs a free slot. If you’re at your limit, Candor will block the unarchive until you archive something else or add a slot. See Projects, slots, and archiving for the full lifecycle.

Where to see and change it

Settings, then the Billing tab. It shows the plan you’re on, what it includes, and your interview usage, which you can filter by year to check what a period actually cost. From the same tab you can change plan, add or remove a slot, update your card, and cancel or resume a subscription.

Cancelling schedules the end of your subscription at the end of the current period rather than cutting it off immediately, and you can resume before that date without losing anything.

The Billing tab is visible to workspace owners and admins only. Editors and viewers won’t see it. See Inviting your team and choosing roles for what each role can do.

Where to go next

Common questions

Two things: your plan's monthly fee, and automated interviews. Everything else that surrounds them is included. Generating an audience, building personas, writing interview guides, and producing synthesis reports are all part of the run you already paid for. Live interviews you conduct yourself are free on every plan and always have been. So the only usage lever you control day to day is how many automated interviews you launch.

When the report is ready, not when you click launch. The charge covers the automated interviews in that run that actually completed. Sessions that failed or were abandoned aren't billed. This is deliberate: you pay for research you can read, not for attempts. It also means a run you launch and a charge you see can be separated by the time it takes the interviews and the synthesis to finish.

On the Free plan, automated interviews are billed per interview, so there has to be a payment method on file before a run starts. Picking the Free plan itself needs no card, and you can set up projects, generate an audience, build personas, and write a guide without one. The card is only required at the point you launch automated interviews, because that's the first action that owes money. Subscription plans already have a card from checkout, so they never see this prompt.

Each plan includes a number of active projects. That's your slots. When you've filled them, you can either add an extra slot for an additional monthly charge, or archive a project you're finished with, which frees its slot at no extra cost. Archiving makes the project read-only: the audience, personas, and past interviews stay fully viewable, but you can't run new interviews or regenerate anything until you unarchive it. For most teams that's the right trade on a finished project, since paying to keep one active is money spent on a slot you aren't using.

Only workspace owners and admins. Editors and viewers don't see the Billing tab at all. That's the same permission that governs adding slots, changing plans, and cancelling. If you need a change and can't see the tab, ask an owner or admin in your workspace.

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