When does a downgrade take effect?

At the start of your next billing period. Until then you keep your current plan's features, the billing page shows a notice naming the plan you're changing to and the date it takes effect, with a Scheduled badge on the target plan, and you can cancel the change at any point before that date.

What happens to passports over the new limit after a downgrade?

They stay published — PassportCraft never moves a published passport to draft because of a plan or limit change. The banner tells you that you're at your limit and you can't publish new passports until you upgrade or manually unpublish some to get within range. No data is lost, and you remain in full control of which passports stay live.

Is canceling the same as downgrading?

No. Downgrading switches you to a cheaper paid plan at the next billing date. Canceling ends the subscription entirely: it runs until the end of the period you've paid for, then your organization moves to the Free plan.

Upgrading, downgrading, and publish limits

Who can change the plan

Only owners and admins can upgrade, downgrade, or manage the subscription. Editors can open the Billing page to see the plan and usage; viewers don't have a Billing tab at all.

Upgrading

Go to Settings → Billing and pick monthly or yearly billing with the toggle.
Click Upgrade (or Choose plan, if you don't have a paid subscription yet) on the plan you want.
If you're subscribing for the first time (including during or after the trial), you're taken to a Stripe checkout page to enter payment details. If you already have a paid subscription, the change applies directly, no checkout needed.

Upgrades take effect immediately: your new publish limit and seats are active right away, and Stripe invoices a prorated amount covering the difference for the remainder of the current billing period. An upgrade also cancels any scheduled downgrade or pending cancellation on the subscription.

On a trial: every paid plan shows Choose plan while your trial is active. Buying starts the paid subscription right away — there's no need to wait for the trial to run out. What the trial itself includes is covered in Plans and publish limits.

Downgrading

Downgrades are scheduled, not instant — you've already paid for the current period, so you keep it:

In Settings → Billing, check that the pricing toggle matches the billing period you're on — a downgrade keeps that period, so Downgrade stays greyed out until it matches. Then click Downgrade on a lower plan.
The billing page now shows "Changing to {plan} on {date}", where the date is your next billing date, and the target plan card shows a Scheduled badge.
Until that date, nothing changes in PassportCraft: current plan, current limits. Stripe's billing portal already lists the new plan, because that is what your next invoice will be for.
To change your mind, click Cancel downgrade in the notice (or Switch downgrade to pick a different target plan). Upgrading also clears the scheduled change.

On the billing date, the new plan and its limits take effect. There's no proration on a downgrade; the new plan simply starts with the new period.

Over-limit passports stay published

If a downgrade (or a cancellation, or anything else that lowers your limit) leaves you with more published passports than the new plan covers, all of them stay published. PassportCraft never automatically moves a published passport to draft.

What changes is that you reach the at-limit state:

A banner across the app tells you where you stand: "You're at your published-passport limit on the {plan} plan ({published}/{limit}). Upgrade to publish more."
You cannot publish additional new passports until you either upgrade to a higher plan or manually unpublish some to get within the new limit.
No data is lost and no QR codes go dark. Your existing published passports continue to resolve normally for anyone scanning them.

To resolve the overage, unpublish the passports you choose to make room, or upgrade again to clear the banner.

When a trial expires

The trial ends differently from a paid downgrade: your organization moves to the Free plan automatically, but no grace countdown starts. Passports you published during the trial stay live; you just can't publish anything new while you're over the Free limit of 3. The banner offers to Choose a plan — or unpublish down to 3 to keep publishing on Free.

Cancel vs downgrade

Downgrade — you stay a paying customer on a smaller plan. Scheduled for the next billing date, as above.
Cancel — you end the subscription. It runs until the end of the period you've paid for (the billing page shows a Cancels at period end badge, with an Undo cancellation button if you reconsider — clicking it opens your billing portal where you confirm the renewal), then your organization moves to the Free plan. Published passports stay live; you simply cannot publish new ones beyond the Free limit of 3 until you upgrade or unpublish down to that limit.

How to cancel, and what to export first, is covered in Canceling your subscription and exporting your data.

If a payment fails

A failed renewal puts the subscription in Past due: a red banner appears with an Update payment method button that opens the Stripe billing portal. You keep your plan while Stripe retries, but if the payment stays unresolved for more than 7 days, publishing is paused until it's fixed — that's cause 5 in Why can't I publish my passport?