Subscription Billing (Your TimelyChurch Plan)

This article is about your church's TimelyChurch subscription -- the monthly or yearly fee you pay to TimelyChurch to use the platform. It is completely separate from Stripe Connect (which is how donors give money to your church). If you're looking for online giving setup, see Setting Up Online Giving instead.

Two Different Stripe Relationships -- Don't Confuse Them

This is the single most important thing to understand:

Both relationships use Stripe under the hood, but they are entirely separate accounts, settings, dashboards, and data flows. A failure in one does not affect the other.

This article covers the first one: managing your church's TimelyChurch subscription.

Available Plans

TimelyChurch offers the following plans (current as of this writing):

Founding pricing on Pro: The first 25 churches to subscribe to Pro lock in the $129/month founding rate for life -- it never goes up, even after the list price takes over. Once those 25 founding spots are filled, new Pro subscriptions are billed at the $149/month list price. The upgrade screen shows how many founding spots remain. (Yearly Pro billing is $1,290/year -- two months free versus paying monthly.)

Note on Giving Features: The giving and finance modules -- Online Giving, Funds, Giving Statements, Reports, Pledges, Budgets, and Accounting -- are part of the Pro plan. On the free Starter and the Growth plan, these appear as locked nav items with an upgrade prompt; you'll need to be on Pro to use them. Multi-Campus plans include everything in Pro plus the Association HQ surface. Check the Billing & Plans tab for the current plan comparison and limits.

Where to Manage Your Subscription

In TimelyChurch:

1. Sign in as a church administrator (regular users cannot manage subscriptions).
2. Go to Settings, then open the Billing & Plans tab.
3. From here you can:
   • See your current plan and renewal date
   • Upgrade or downgrade plans (monthly or yearly)
   • Add extra storage to your plan
   • Open the Stripe Billing Portal (Manage Billing) to manage your payment method, invoices, and billing email

The Billing & Plans tab is the single place all subscription management lives. (Any "Upgrade Plan" link elsewhere in the app simply takes you to this same tab.)

Upgrading Your Plan

1. Go to Settings > Billing & Plans (or click Upgrade Plan anywhere it's offered).
2. Choose Monthly or Yearly billing using the toggle.
3. Choose the plan you want.
4. Click Subscribe (or Switch Plan if you already have a paid plan).
5. You're redirected to a Stripe Checkout page hosted on Stripe's servers.
6. Enter your card details and confirm. International churches (UK/EU/AU) may also be asked for a VAT/GST number -- Stripe Tax collects the correct tax automatically.
7. Stripe processes the first charge.
8. You're redirected back to TimelyChurch with confirmation. Your church's plan is updated immediately.

If you already have a paid subscription and you switch plans, Stripe handles proration automatically -- you'll be credited for the unused portion of your current plan and billed only the difference for the new one.

Yearly vs. Monthly

• Monthly billing -- charged on the same day every month based on when you subscribed.
• Yearly billing -- charged once per year, at a discount of roughly 15% compared to 12x the monthly price (about two months free; check the Billing & Plans tab for the current yearly rate).

You can switch between monthly and yearly at any time by selecting the new cycle and plan from the Billing & Plans tab.

Extra Storage

If you need more file storage than your plan's base quota provides, you can add a storage add-on (for example, +10 GB or +50 GB) from the Billing & Plans tab without changing your plan tier. The add-on is billed monthly through Stripe and prorated onto your next invoice; you can remove it anytime.

Downgrading or Cancelling

To Downgrade to Free (Starter) or Cancel Entirely

1. Go to Settings > Billing & Plans.
2. Click Manage Billing (this opens the Stripe Billing Portal).
3. In the Stripe portal, click Cancel subscription.
4. Stripe gives you the option to cancel immediately or at the end of the current billing period (most plans default to cancel-at-period-end).

When the subscription is cancelled or the billing period ends:

• Your church drops back to the Starter (Free) plan automatically.
• Your data is preserved (donations, members, accounting records, everything).
• Any features unique to higher tiers (including the giving and finance modules) become unavailable, but historical data is intact and reappears if you re-subscribe.

You can re-subscribe at any time from the Billing & Plans tab.

To Switch to a Lower Paid Plan

Use the Billing & Plans tab and pick the lower-tier paid plan. Stripe prorates the change, just as with an upgrade. Downgrades that drop a feature take effect at your next renewal -- you keep your current features until then.

Viewing Invoices and Receipts

TimelyChurch defers all subscription invoicing to Stripe's hosted billing portal. To view, download, or print invoices:

1. Go to Settings > Billing & Plans.
2. Click Manage Billing.
3. The Stripe Billing Portal shows all past invoices with PDF download links.
4. Each invoice includes:
   • Invoice number
   • Date
   • Plan and billing cycle
   • Amount paid
   • Payment method used

Stripe also emails an invoice receipt to your billing email address each time a charge is processed. Check your spam folder if you're not receiving them.

Updating Your Payment Method

1. Go to Settings > Billing & Plans.
2. Click Manage Billing.
3. In the Stripe portal, click Update payment method.
4. Enter the new card details.
5. The next renewal will use the updated method.

What Happens If a Subscription Charge Fails

Stripe handles subscription failures with the same dunning system used for donation recurring charges:

• Stripe automatically retries the charge over several days (Smart Retries run for roughly three weeks).
• Stripe sends dunning emails to your billing email asking you to update your payment method.
• Your subscription is marked past due. TimelyChurch keeps your access open during a short grace window (7 days by default) so a retry can succeed without locking you out -- you'll see a warning while you're in the grace period.
• If the grace window passes and all retries still fail, access to paid features is suspended and the subscription is ultimately cancelled (the church returns to the free Starter plan). Your data is preserved.

To prevent disruptions, keep your payment method current. The Stripe Billing Portal makes this easy.

Permissions

Only church administrators (and TimelyChurch super admins) can manage subscriptions. Regular users, member-portal users, and staff without admin permissions cannot view or change billing.

If you need to change who has admin permissions, see the user/role management documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will my donation data be deleted if I downgrade or cancel? No. All donation records, accounting data, member records, and historical statements are preserved when you change plans or cancel. You can always re-subscribe and pick up exactly where you left off.

Q: Does cancelling my TimelyChurch subscription cancel donor recurring gifts? No. Donor recurring gifts run through Stripe Connect on your church's connected account, which is a different relationship. Donors will continue to give, and Stripe will continue to deposit funds into your church's bank account, even if your TimelyChurch subscription lapses. However, online giving, statements, and the other finance modules are part of the Pro plan -- if your subscription drops below Pro, you'll lose access to the recording and reporting side of giving (the data stays intact). Contact support before letting a Pro subscription lapse if you have active recurring givers.

Q: Can I get a refund for an unused portion of a yearly plan? Stripe does not auto-refund proration on cancellation. If you cancel mid-year, the cancel-at-period-end behavior keeps your access until the year is up; you don't get a refund for the unused months. Refunds are handled case-by-case within 7 days -- contact [email protected].

Q: Where do I see what plan I'm on? Settings > Billing & Plans shows your current plan, renewal date, and billing cycle at the top of the tab.

Q: How do the founding Pro spots work? The first 25 churches to subscribe to Pro lock the $129/month founding rate for life. After those 25 spots are claimed, new Pro subscriptions are billed at the $149/month list price. If you're already on the founding rate, it stays at $129/month for as long as you keep your subscription -- it never increases to the list price.

Q: Can a single church be on multiple plans? No. Each church has a single subscription. (If your organization is multi-church / multi-tenant, each church is billed independently.)

Related Articles

• Setting Up Online Giving -- For Stripe Connect (donations from members), not the platform subscription.
• Refunds and Chargebacks -- For donation refunds, not subscription refunds.