Subscribing and changing plan

Every SmarteBuild company is billed the same way: one flat subscription per company, on the Estimator, Builder or Developer plan, paid monthly or annually. There is nothing per user and nothing per gigabyte — every plan includes unlimited users, storage and projects.

Current prices are on smartebuild.com.au/pricing. Prices are in Australian dollars and include GST — the figure you see is the figure you pay, and your tax invoice shows the GST component separately.

From the trial to a plan

The free trial gives you every Builder module for 30 days with no card. A few things are kept for the paid plans - see What’s in each plan. When it ends, SmarteBuild tells you at sign-in and sends you to the Admin panel. You can subscribe any time before that too.

1. Sign in to admin.smartebuild.com.au as an administrator. You land on Subscription.
2. Press Subscribe.
3. Choose the plan — Estimator, Builder or Developer — and Monthly or Annual. The total updates as you choose.
4. Press Continue to secure payment. You are taken to Stripe’s page to enter the card and billing address.
5. When the payment goes through you are brought back to Subscription, which now shows the plan as Active with the next renewal date.

Access is switched on the moment Stripe confirms the payment, usually within a few seconds. If the page says the payment is still being confirmed, refresh it a minute later.

Tip

Annual is ten months for twelve. If you know you will be using SmarteBuild for the year, paying annually saves two months. You can switch between monthly and annual from Stripe’s billing page — see Invoices, your card, pausing and cancelling.

If you open something your plan does not have

A module your plan does not include still shows in the menu, with a padlock. Open it and the page says what it belongs to — Development is part of the Developer plan — with a See plans and upgrade button through to the Admin panel.

Nothing is hidden from you. You can always see what the next plan up would give you.

Upgrading now switches everyone on

When a company changes plan, everyone who already has an account gets the new plan’s modules and the permissions that go with them, automatically. It used to be that each module had to be ticked on for each person by hand, and the usual result was a company paying for a plan half its staff could not see.

Worth a look at who can do what after an upgrade all the same — automatic means everyone, and a feasibility shows the land price and the margin.

Choosing between Estimator and Builder

Estimator takes you up to winning the work; Builder takes you through delivering it. The full module-by-module comparison is in What is in each plan. If you are unsure, start on Estimator — upgrading is a button, and the difference is prorated.

Changing plan

Plan changes apply to the whole company at once; there is no per-user plan.

1. On Subscription, press Change plan.
2. The two plans are shown side by side with what each includes; yours is marked Current. Pick the other one.
3. The exact charge (or credit) appears underneath before anything happens. Press Upgrade and pay, or Downgrade, to confirm.

Upgrading is charged straight away. You pay the difference between the two plans for the rest of the current month — or year, on annual billing — and the confirmation shows the exact amount before you agree to it. If the card payment does not go through, nothing changes: update your card under Card & invoices and try again. From your next renewal you pay the new plan’s price.

Downgrading also takes effect at once. The unused part of what you paid for the dearer plan is taken off your next invoice. You are never charged twice for the same days.

Modules appear or disappear from everyone’s menu straight away. Nothing is deleted on a downgrade — a Purchase Order raised on Builder is still there if you move to Estimator; you just cannot open the module until you upgrade again.

Note

You cannot change plan while your subscription is paused or set to cancel. Resume it, or press Keep my subscription, first — then change plan. If it is the price that made you cancel, moving to Estimator may be the better answer.

Monthly or annual

To switch between monthly and annual billing, press Card & invoices on Subscription and pick the other option on Stripe’s billing page. Moving to annual charges the year straight away, less what is left of the month you have already paid for. Moving to monthly credits what is left of the year against your monthly invoices, so you do not pay again until that credit is used up.

Enterprise

Enterprise is Builder with onboarding and priority support, priced by agreement for franchises and multi-entity businesses. It is set up by SmarteBuild rather than from the Subscribe button. Contact us through the website.

Discounts and promotions

If you were given a promotion code at sign-up, or a negotiated rate, it is applied to your subscription at Stripe and shows as a discount line on every invoice for as long as it lasts. There is nothing to enter here after the first time. If a discount you were promised is not on your invoice, contact SmarteBuild — it is fixed on our side, not by re-subscribing.

Businesses with more than one company

Companies lets one administrator run several entities from one login, each with its own subscription. Adding a company there creates it and then takes you to its Subscription page to subscribe. The Company drop-down at the top of the Admin panel menu switches between them.