Subscription
Service plans, the trial, who pays for a domain, and what happens when nobody does
On Comentario Cloud, the hosted Comentario service, adding comments to your own website takes a subscription: a service plan that covers the domain. Reading and writing comments on other people’s websites doesn’t.
In short
- Each domain is paid for by one of its owners, its subscriber. Whoever creates a domain becomes its subscriber.
- The subscriber’s service plan decides how many domains they can pay for, and how many page views a month each of them may have.
- The first time you become a subscriber, you get a free trial of one week.
- A domain that isn’t covered by a plan — because the trial ended, the plan lapsed, or it’s over its limits — keeps serving comments for a grace period of one week, and is then suspended: its comments stop being served until a plan covers it again.
- You buy, change and cancel a plan through Stripe, which also takes care of invoices and receipts.
Where to find it
- The Pricing page, linked in the top menu and the footer, lists the plans on sale and lets you buy one or change yours.
- The Subscription section of your Profile shows your plan, until when it’s in force, how many domains you pay for against how many it allows, and buttons to change the plan or manage your billing.
- The properties page of a domain shows, below its heading, whether the domain is covered, who pays for it, and its page views this month. The buttons to take over its subscription, give it up, or answer someone’s request to take it over are among the domain’s management buttons.
- In the domain list, each domain carries a badge telling its state, and its page views this month.
What you’re told, and when
Your Profile and the domain’s page always show where things stand. Besides that, you get an email whenever something is about to be decided while you might not be looking:
- your trial is about to end (two days ahead);
- a complimentary plan granted to you is about to end (a week ahead);
- your subscription is about to renew, and for how much;
- a payment for your subscription has failed;
- a domain you pay for — or, when nobody pays for it, any domain you own — has entered its grace period, or has stopped serving comments.
That’s all: receipts and invoices come from Stripe, and the visitors of your website get no email at all. During a domain’s grace period they see a notice above the comments, which says the site isn’t covered by its service plan and will stop serving comments soon.
A service plan sets the limits of the domains you pay for. The plans on sale, with their prices and limits, are listed on the Pricing page.
The first time you become the subscriber of a domain, you get a free trial: one week on a service plan, with nothing to pay and no payment details to give.
A domain may have several owners, but only one of them pays for it: its subscriber. The domain’s limits are those of the subscriber’s service plan, and of nobody else’s.
A domain that isn’t covered by a service plan isn’t cut off at once. It gets a grace period of one week, during which it goes on serving comments, and is suspended after that.
Payments for service plans are handled by Stripe. Comentario never sees your card details.