Downgrades & the Free plan

Nothing is ever deleted

The most important thing to know about downgrading: Openbook never deletes anything when an organization moves to Free. Whether the move happens because a trial expired or because you cancelled a subscription, your content stays put. Features and content beyond the Free limits are locked, not removed — and everything locked comes back the moment you upgrade again.

You can downgrade with confidence, try Free for a while, and upgrade later without losing a thing.

Exactly what locks on Free

When an organization lands on Free — after the 14-day trial or after a downgrade — these limits apply:

Members capped at 10. The cap counts organization members whose role is anything other than viewer. Existing members above the cap keep their access — nobody is kicked out — but you can't add more editors until you upgrade. Inviting viewers and guests still works; they never count on any plan.

Spaces capped at 3.

New dashboard and proofing rooms are gated. You can't create new ones on Free. Existing dashboard and proofing rooms stay readable — you don't lose what you already built.

History limited to 30 days. Chat messages and feed posts older than 30 days are hidden. They are hidden, not deleted — upgrade to Pro and they all show up again.

Pinned posts are exempt from the 30-day limit. Pin anything the team must keep visible and it stays visible on Free.

AI is not one of the things Free limits. The assistant, the build agent, its workflows and the concierge all keep working on Free exactly as they do on Pro, whichever mode the organization's AI configuration is in.

What bounds AI the platform pays for is a token allowance on the owner's Bookbag account — the same figure on every plan, set by a platform admin at the account service and shared with every Bookbag product. It does not change when an organization downgrades, because it was never part of the plan. An organization on its own provider key is not metered at all. See AI usage & the token allowance.

Credits are gone. Free used to get 100 credits a month, Pro 4,000 and Business 8,000. There is no credit ledger any more, and any balance an organization held was carried across to the account service as one-off headroom. See What happened to credits.

Everything else keeps working: all 21 room types, space and board templates, and search are part of Free.

What a downgrade never touches

• Your content. Old messages and posts are hidden, never deleted.
• Existing rooms. Dashboards and proofing rooms you already created remain readable.
• Your people. Members above the 10-editor cap stay; the cap only blocks adding more.
• Viewers and guests. Always free, on every plan.

The trial-to-Free transition

Every new organization starts on Pro for 14 days automatically, with no card. About 2 days before the trial ends, the owner gets an email; at expiry the organization becomes Free and the owner gets a second email. The limits above apply from that moment — see Trials & upgrading for the full timeline and how to subscribe before (or after) expiry.

Asking for an upgrade

Only someone who can manage billing can upgrade the organization, from Organization → Settings → Billing. When any other member runs into one of the gates above — the member cap, the space cap, a gated room type or hidden history — they see an "Ask owner to upgrade" button.

Clicking it emails the owner with the specific feature that was blocked and the reason. The owner can then upgrade from the Billing page, and the locked feature or content is available again within seconds of checkout completing.

Upgrading restores everything at once: hidden messages and posts reappear, dashboard and proofing room creation unlocks, and the member and space caps lift.