Billing and credits

DocReadi runs on credits: every page you process draws down a balance, and your plan decides how that balance is filled. This chapter covers plans and tiers, how credits and top-ups work, the payment rails, firm/pooled billing, the Subscription page, and South African tax invoices. For exact current prices, always check the public /pricing page — it's the single place DocReadi guarantees the numbers match what you're actually charged; this guide describes mechanics, not figures that could drift out of date. (The one figure it does state, the free-trial credit grant, is read live from the same setting signup grants from.)

How credits work

One credit covers one page processed. OCR (for scanned documents) is bundled into that — you don't pay extra for it. The first re-extraction on a document is free (useful if you've just fixed a validation error and want DocReadi to try again); any further re-extraction after that charges again. Custom templates are charged at the same per-page rate as the built-in document types. A run in the test-extract sandbox also draws down your balance, one credit per page, the same as a normal extraction — it's refused up front if you're out of credits.

Two things cost nothing. An e-invoice XML sent as an .xml file is read out of the file rather than extracted by a model, so no credit is charged for it — though your workspace still has to have credits available for processing to start. The sample invoice on your onboarding checklist goes further: it never draws down a credit and runs even when your workspace is completely out of credits, so it works for a trialist before their first top-up.

Your credit balance comes from two sources, and they behave differently:

• Subscription credits — a monthly allocation that comes with your plan. It resets each billing cycle; unused credits don't carry over.
• Top-up credits — a one-time purchase, on top of your subscription. Top-up credits don't expire at renewal — they stay valid for a year from purchase, and DocReadi draws down your subscription allocation first, then falls back to top-ups.

When your workspace runs out of credits, you'll see a banner on every page prompting you to top up or choose a plan; documents already in the pipeline still complete, but new ones wait until credits are available (see Troubleshooting for the awaiting-credits state).

Plans and tiers

DocReadi's plans range from a free trial through to a negotiated Enterprise tier, with Standard, Pro, and Firm in between. Broadly:

• Trial — 200 free credits (one credit is one page) for 90 days, no card required, capped to a single workspace. The credit figure is the one in force when your workspace was created — a later change to the trial offer doesn't alter an existing trial. When the 90 days end, unused trial credits expire unless you've subscribed or bought a top-up (then you keep them); top-up credits stay usable for 12 months from purchase. A trial workspace also doesn't start processing documents until its admin verifies their email — see Verifying your email.
• Standard — a paid, single-workspace plan with a monthly credit allocation.
• Pro — a paid plan that supports multiple workspaces under one login, useful once you're running more than one entity or brand through DocReadi.
• Firm — built for accounting and bookkeeping firms running several client workspaces on pooled billing (see below); supports the most workspaces of the self-service tiers.
• Enterprise — custom credits, SLA, and integrations, arranged directly with DocReadi rather than through self-service checkout.

Each paid tier can be billed monthly or annually where annual billing is available for that tier; annual billing is priced at two months free versus paying monthly, shown on the Subscription page as an amortised monthly rate. Where annual isn't yet offered for a tier, only the monthly option appears.

A plan with room for more than one workspace also has a workspace cap. Where that cap fits your needs, a workspace add-on is available as a recurring add-on purchase that raises it further — offered directly on the Subscription page when applicable.

Pro, Firm, and Enterprise also include Factur-X emission as an Outbox bundle format; Trial and Standard don't see it as an option.

Payment rails

DocReadi checks out in the currency and payment rail that fits your billing country:

• ZAR — billed via Paystack. DocReadi is the seller of record on this rail, so a South African Revenue Service (SARS) tax invoice is issued for every charge (see below).
• USD / EUR / GBP — billed via Polar, which acts as merchant of record and handles VAT on your behalf.

Your rail is set automatically from your workspace's billing country; you don't choose it directly. Whichever rail applies, the Subscription page shows a Manage subscription (Paystack) or Manage or cancel subscription (Polar) button for changing or ending your plan.

The Subscription page

Subscription (Workspace settings, requires the Admin role) is where you manage everything above. Top to bottom, it shows:

• Current plan — your tier, the credits you can spend (your plan's credits plus any unexpired top-ups, split underneath when you have top-ups — the same balance document processing draws on; once an unpaid trial has ended its credits show as 0), your renewal date, and subscription status.
• Workspace add-on (where applicable) — buy or manage extra workspace capacity.
• Client workspace usage (only if your workspace is a billing owner for other workspaces — see Firm and pooled billing below) — a table of each client workspace's credit use this month and all-time.
• Billing details for your tax invoice (ZAR rail only) — your registered company name, VAT number, and billing address. DocReadi needs these on file before it can process a subscription or top-up charge, since they're what appears on the SARS tax invoice.
• Plans — the tier cards, with a Subscribe button per tier and a monthly/annual toggle; Enterprise shows Contact sales instead. If your workspace is billed by a firm, the cards are informational — plan changes go through your firm's administrator.
• Credit top-ups — buy a top-up pack directly, with a Discount code field for a code from DocReadi. If your workspace is billed by a firm, this section instead points you to your firm's administrator — a pooled client workspace can't buy its own top-up.
• Tax invoices (ZAR rail only) — your recent invoices, each with a Download link.

Discount codes

A discount code applies as a percentage off a top-up purchase. On the ZAR rail, enter it in the Discount code field on the Subscription page before buying a pack — DocReadi validates it live and shows the discount before you confirm. On the USD/EUR/GBP rail, the code is entered on Polar's own checkout page during a top-up. Codes are single-purpose (they reduce the price of a top-up, not a subscription) and may carry an expiry or a redemption cap set by DocReadi.

Most codes are also capped to one redemption per workspace. If your workspace has already used a code, entering it again shows "You've already used this code." (or, for a code allowing more than one use per workspace, "This workspace has reached its limit for that code.") instead of applying the discount.

On the ZAR rail, going to checkout with a code holds that use for your workspace for an hour while you pay. If you leave the payment page without paying and try again within the hour, you'll see "You have an unpaid checkout using this code. Finish that payment, or try again in an hour." — after the hour the code is free to use again. If you do complete the earlier payment, even late, the discount still applies to it.

Firm and pooled billing

If you manage more than one client on DocReadi, a billing owner workspace (the firm) can hold the plan and credit balance that its client workspaces draw from — a client doesn't need its own subscription, and its credit use is billed back to the firm. This is set up by DocReadi on request, since linking one workspace as another's billing owner is an administrative action.

Once set up, the firm's Subscription page shows the Client workspace usage table described above, so you can see how much each client is consuming without switching into their workspace. A client workspace on a pooled arrangement sees its own document activity as normal, but its Subscription page defers billing actions (subscribing, topping up) to the firm.

Adding a workspace yourself

If your plan supports more than one workspace of your own (Pro, Firm, or higher), you can create additional workspaces without contacting DocReadi. Open the account menu (your name, top right) and use the Add a workspace form: give the new workspace a name and a short handle (lowercase letters, digits and underscores, starting with a letter), then choose Create workspace. DocReadi provisions it and switches you straight into it.

A few things govern this:

• Role — you need the Admin or Firm admin role. Reviewers don't see the option.
• Standalone accounts only — the Add a workspace form appears only when your own workspace holds its own plan. If your workspace is billed by a firm (a pooled client), whether you may spend the firm's workspace allowance is the firm's decision, so you're directed to your firm admin instead.
• Plan cap — each plan allows a fixed number of workspaces. Once you reach that number, the form is replaced by a prompt to add the workspace add-on or move to a higher plan. Buying the workspace add-on (see above) raises the cap; if the add-on later lapses, workspaces created beyond your base cap are suspended (their data is preserved) rather than deleted.

Every workspace you add this way pools under the same billing owner automatically, drawing on the same credit balance — you don't set up a separate subscription for each one. Use the tenant switcher (see Getting started) to move between them.

SARS tax invoices

On the ZAR/Paystack rail, DocReadi issues a South African Revenue Service tax invoice for every subscription charge and every top-up, once your billing details (company name, VAT number if applicable, billing address) are on file. You don't need to request one — it's generated automatically and appears in the Tax invoices table on the Subscription page, where you can download the PDF at any time. Invoice amounts are VAT-inclusive. This applies to the ZAR rail only; Polar (USD/EUR/GBP) handles VAT itself as merchant of record and doesn't issue SARS invoices.

Previous: Delivering documents. Next: Workspace administration — users, roles, and the rest of the settings that aren't about billing.

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