About Annual Payments

Whether you're on the Standard or Plus plan, you can choose to make an annual payment which gives you a discount on the per User per month cost. This article will explain everything about annual payments at Help Scout, including how to switch to annual, how to switch back to monthly after your credits expire, and how the annual payments are calculated and applied.

By default, only the Account Owner can make an annual payment, but the Account Owner can grant the Manage Account: Billing and plan changes permission to Administrators and Users to give them access as well. Check out User Roles and Permissions for more information on those settings.

Make an Annual Payment

Click over to Your Plan and click Switch to Annual to make an annual payment by credit card.

Please note that any dollar amounts shown here are for illustrative purposes only and do not represent the amounts you will see in Your Plan.

A modal window will pop up that will show you the savings you'll get with the annual discount. Click Pay Now to immediately make an annual payment using the credit card you have on file for the amount shown.

Alternate Payment Methods

Help Scout accounts with 10 or more users may opt to receive an invoice for annual prepayment in order to pay via check, wire transfer, or PayPal. Just reach out to our team with the following information:

Your organization's billing address
How many total users you'll have
How many Docs sites total you need
What add-ons (like additional Inboxes or HIPAA features) you need, if any

We ask that invoices be paid on receipt, as your account may become inactive after 30 days without payment.

Switch Back to Monthly

When you pay annually by credit card, your Auto-renew setting controls your billing period. If Auto-renew is on when your pre-paid credit runs out, we will bill the credit card on file for the annual amount for the number of Users, Docs sites, and add-ons you have at that time. Auto-renew is the default for any new annual payments made by credit card.

Head to Your Plan and toggle Auto-renew annual payment off if you'd like to switch back to monthly billing when your annual credits have been depleted. If your credits remaining will cover a partial month payment, you'll be charged the remainder amount for that month. Your next monthly payment will be charged to the credit card on file at your plan's regular monthly rate.

Annual payments made by PayPal, Wire Transfer, or Check are not eligible for Auto-renew. When your annual credit runs out, you will need to contact our team to arrange a new invoice for payment, or add a credit card to your account to renew.

How the Annual Credit Works

When you make an annual payment, we'll credit your account with that payment. Then each month we'll run a billing cycle for the coming month against that credit and deduct the cost for the number of Users, Docs sites, and add-ons you have on that billing date from the credit, along with any charges pending for Messages, the proactive Beacon messaging tool. (See Messages Pricing for more.)

If you aren't using Beacon Messages (or always stay below the included number of unique viewers), and don't add any more users or change plans, that credit will last you for a year. If you add additional users or upgrade your plan, we'll simply deduct more from your credit balance each month and you'll buy another bundle of credits when the ones in your account are used up. If you remove users through the year or downgrade your plan, your credit will last longer than a year.

If you are using Beacon Messages and incur charges for more than the included number of viewers each month, those charges will be deducted from your annual credit each month and your credit will not last a full year. All past invoices are available to any user that has the Manage Account: Billing and plan changes permission where you can see how the credits were allocated at Your Plan > Invoices.

Refunds

If for any reason, you are unhappy with your Help Scout purchase, we do offer a 30-day money back guarantee. If you decide not to use Help Scout in your business within 30 days from your first payment, you may request a full refund. This applies to both annual and monthly subscriptions.

Help Scout for Good or Other Discounts

If your organization has qualified for discounts, such as through our Help Scout for Good program, that discount will be applied to the monthly deduction from your credits rather than to the annual payment.

Note that the discount for paying annually applies only to the User costs; add-ons and extras do not receive a discount for annual payment.