Tutorial / Activating your account and payment

1. When you have evaluated
2. Choosing a billing model
3. Activating your account
4. Payment options
5. The monthly statements
6. Upgrading or downgrading your billing model

Your free trial account is fully functional to allow you to try out all the features of SupportByEmail.com, however you are limited to sending twenty messages from the account before having to activate the account and become paying customer.

Activating your account means paying a small fee to remove the twenty message restriction and choosing the billing model that best suits your expected usage of SupportByEmail.com.

SupportByEmail.com is available on a pay-as-you-go metered account, or a pre-payment volume account. Which option you choose is entirely up to you, and will depend on your expected use of the system.

The metered account is designed for users that want to benefit from the time-saving features of the system without having to commit to a regular monthly payment for a service they use only occasionally. It allows even the smallest users to have their own knowledge base and pay a few pence or cents for each message where an answer is suggested and a response is sent. With a metered account, you receive a monthly bill by email for settlement within 14 days.

The volume accounts are designed for users who expect to process a medium to high number of emails through their account on a regular basis. By choosing a volume account and paying for your usage in advance you can benefit from a much better per-message rate than you would get with a metered account. The rate per message decreases the larger account you purchase.

You can see the price list for both types of accounts by clicking Prices in the menu on the left. You can choose to be billed in either UK Pounds or US Dollars, and to see the price list in your chosen currency, click the appropriate symbol in the top right of this page.

Please note that UK customers must be billed in UK Pounds, and will be charged VAT at 17.5% on each bill. No UK tax will apply to overseas customers. You can change your billing model at any time, and the effects of doing so are explained later in this section.

To activate your account and select your billing model, click the activate your account link at the very bottom of the screen. This link will be in a black banner at the foot of the page. This black banner is used to alert you when a bill needs to be paid and will always contain a link to settle your most recent bill. Select your chosen billing model from the drop down list and click the Activate button to start the activation process.

The quickest way to complete your activation is to pay securely online using a credit card. After clicking Activate you will be taken to a bill payment page that advises you of the charge that will be made. Click Pay bill to be transferred to the secure server to make your payment.

If you want to pay by another method, we will activate your account as soon as we receive payment. A list of payment options is given below. Whilst you are waiting for your account to be activated, you can continue to manage your knowledge base and send and receive emails as normal. However your left hand menu will change to remove some options which could interfere with the activation process, for instance you cannot update your account details or change your billing model again until your account is fully active.

If you wish to pay by some means other than a credit card, please contact billing@supportbyemail.com to arrange this as use some of the methods below may be subject to a credit check.

Credit or debit card: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Switch, Delta and Solo are all accepted. Payment is processed securely on our behalf by Worldpay and your credit card number is not stored in our database.

Cheque or money order: A cheque or money order payable to Lightwood Consultancy Ltd. Please allow five working days for funds to clear before your bill is settled.

Standing order: For volume accounts you may set up a standing order for the regular monthly payment. Any additional charges will be billed separately and may be paid by credit card or cheque.

BACS transfer: You can send money direct to our bank account, providing you include your name, company keyword and invoice number as part of the originating bank's reference.

Your billing cycle runs for one calendar month from the date of activation and at the end of each cycle you are sent a notice by email that your account needs to be settled. For metered accounts you need to pay for your usage in the previous month. For volume accounts you need to pay for the next month's usage up front, and pay for any excess charges in the previous month.

You can always view your current statement to see how much you have spent so far in a billing cycle by clicking View statement in the menu on the left. In the top right of the screen is a dropdown that shows Current period by default, which can be used to bring up bills for previous periods.

The statement report shows the number of messages sent each day, along with the respective charge. For volume accounts the charge per message is zero whilst you remain under your chosen monthly usage. Additional charges, for instance for additional email addresses or separate system areas, will be shown separately.

If a bill is outstanding you can pay it from the View statement screen by clicking Click here to pay this bill underneath the statement report. Alternatively, the black footer bar will alert you of any outstanding bills and you can click the link at the bottom of the screen any time to make a payment.

SupportByEmail.com allows you to change your billing model at any time giving you complete flexibility over how you use the service. To change to a different billing model, click Manage account from the menu, choose the new billing model and press Update. Sometimes there are things to consider when upgrading or downgrading your usage, spefically:

Upgrade to first volume account. Volume accounts must be paid for in advance, so when you upgrade to a volume account for the first time you will be asked to settle any usage charges from your metered account since the start of the previous billing cycle at the same time as paying the first volume account fee. Your new billing cycle will then begin on the date that you upgraded.

Upgrading to a higher volume account. Your billing cycle will be reset to start at the current date and you will be asked to pay for the first month's usage at the higher level immediately. Any surplus message allowance from your previous volume account will be added to the allowance at your new level for the first month.

Downgrading your account. There is nothing to pay when you revert to a metered account or downgrade to a lower a volume account and your billing cycle will not change. If you have a surplus message allowance from your volume account you can continue to use this allowance until the end of the billing period.

Remember, if you have any questions about billing and payment, contact billing@supportbyemail.com

Next: Adding new users to your system

Script runtime: 0.01011 sec.