Module 4: Understanding plan limits and billing

In this module:

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Managing your plan's cost drivers

Account usage, plan limits, and your available budget will guide the selection of your Delighted tier. They are thoroughly intertwined. Balancing this trio will help you right-size your Delighted plan to fit your evolving needs.

Given the costs involved, your Delighted budget, plan limits, and usage merit periodic inspection. It’s easy to sum things up by quantifying seven drivers:

  • Sends: Your anticipated survey Sends across all projects
  • Projects: The number of Projects your program requires
  • Users: The Users you invite to your program
  • Trends: The Trends you and your team wish to create and track
  • Kiosks: The number of remote Kiosks you need for your survey campaign
  • Integrations: Any Premium integrations that you need (like Salesforce or Hubspot)
  • Features: The Premium features essential to your program (like Custom Sending Domain, Custom Translations, Smart Trends, or Additional Questions)

Luckily, the "Plans and Billing" page will let you easily track the key drivers on one page. (It’s a very helpful page to be sure.) 

Note: This is an image of a Premium Plus account where all of Delighted's features have been turned on!  If your plan doesn't allow some of these features, they will be greyed out. 

With these drivers in mind, use Delighted’s pricing grid to determine which tier is a good fit. After you’ve selected your plan, the Plans and Billing page will help you monitor your usage.

Navigate to this page by:

1
Clicking "Account."
2

Choosing "Plans and Billing."

3

Scrolling to review the activity of your plan's drivers.

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Monitoring your send and displays

Delighted tracks Sends survey sends (or displays, depending on which platform you're using) on the Plans and Billing page. (Sends is our shorthand for the total number of surveys sent or displays made monthly through your distribution mix: Email, SMS, Link, Web, Kiosk, and so on.) 

Sends and displays accumulate across all of your team’s projects are applied toward your limit for the current billing cycle. Billing is calculated monthly, beginning on the day you opened the account. For example, if you started on October 10th, your send limit will be replenished on November 10th.

If you go over your send limit, we'll simply pause sending and queue up those surveys until your plan replenishes. Then we send them out for you. 

Delighted won't surprise you and bill for the extra sends (like a bank charging for overdrafts). Albeit, if you regularly max out your sends, it may be time to rethink your tier selection. 

To view your send limits for the current billing cycle: 

1
Select "Plans and Billing" from the Accounts menu.
2
Take a look at the gauge tracking surveys Sends to this point in the billing cycle, as well as displaying the remaining Sends.
3
You can also see how many days are left until your plan is replenished.

 

Throttling helps regulate sends

Throttling gives you control over how often your respondents are surveyed! Throttling ensures that the same person (as identified by their email address or phone number), isn’t shown a Delighted survey more than once within a set time. This helps avoid over-sampling and survey fatigue and helps you reduce costs by not sending out surveys that may simply annoy recipients.

To adjust the throttle period:

1
Open the Projects menu.
2
Click on the "Gear" icon to the right of the project name.
3
Adjust the Survey throttling dropdown to the desired time period. Your options are:
  • 1 week 
  • 2 weeks 
  • 1 month (the default setting)
  • 3 months 
  • 6 months 
  • 1 year 
4
Click "Save changes."

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Reviewing and updating your payment

Billing requires either a credit card (the most common option), or regular invoicing (often used by larger organizations). 

Admins with credit card billing can easily view their payment history on the Plans and Billing page. Admins with invoiced accounts are not left in the dark either. They receive emailed invoices that make it easy to track budgets and forward payment info to Accounts Payable. 

To view your billing: 

1

Head to the Accounts menu.    

2
Choose "Plans and Billing."
3
View the "Payment method" section, where the last 4 digits of your credit card number is displayed.
Note: If you’re paying with an invoice, you’ll see "Your account is being invoiced." 
4
In the Payment History section, link to receipts for every payment you’ve made.

To update your credit card:

1
Click “Change” under payment method.
2
Edit or enter the card number, date, and CVC code .
3
Select “Update card.”

Credit card expiring soon

You’ll be notified as you log in if your credit card is about to expire.

If you choose UPDATE CREDIT CARD you can immediately revise your card’s info.

After you update, you’ll get a pleasant little note saying that everything is okay. (You can now take a well-earned coffee break.)

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Annotating and printing receipts

To see credit card charges, simply view your receipts on the Delighted platform.

To view and print receipts:

1
Click "Account".
2
Choose "Plans and Billing".
3
Click on any recent receipt found in the Payment History section.
4
Click "Print" for a paper copy of the receipt.

5
Click "Return to billing" to return to the Plans and Billing page.

You can also add information to your receipts, such as adding notes requested by your Finance team.

To add a note: 

1

Click "Edit" in the receipts section of the Plans and Billing page.

2
Add your note.
3
Pick "Save Changes."

  • When you add a note, that information will continue to appear in all upcoming receipts, month after month, until you change the note again. 
  • In this same spot, you can change the recipient by entering a new email address.

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Upgrading (or downgrading) your tier

Like reappraising an auto insurance policy, it’s worth reviewing your tier’s drivers to avoid hitting limits at crunchtime. You’ll get a warning if you hit a limit. Actually, it’s more like a stop sign. For example, if you attempt to add a 6th Project when your plan allows just 5, you’ll get a show stopper!

At this point, you have three possible plays: 

  • Stand pat: Leave things where they are
  • Do a little pruning: Deleting obsolete projects—and adding new ones in their wake—is always a cost-effective play. (For ways to cut obsolete Projects, Users, Trends, and Alerts read Admin Extras: Pruning your Projects.)
  • Upgrade: Upgrades take effect immediately. Any prorated amount from time remaining on your existing plan will be applied before you’re charged again. (Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period.) 

To upgrade (or downgrade) your tier, choose Plans and Billing from the Account menu. 

Invoiced accounts

If your account is being invoiced, you’ll likely see, “Contact us to upgrade” or open up a chat with us about your plan!” Click the Contact button to connect with Customer Concierge.

Credit card accounts

If you have a plan tied to a credit card, you can upgrade (or downgrade) yourself by: 

1
Opening the "Plans and billing" page.
2
Viewing your current plan's features.

As you view your current tier's available features, some options may be grayed out. This means that the feature is unavailable based on your current plan. Clicking on any of the options will display a description of the feature if you wish to learn more about it.

3
Select "Change your plan" to view your available self-serve options. (It's as easy as that!)

Downgrading an account

Note: If you are attempting to downgrade after enabling certain Premium or Premium Plus features, an unavailable button will open an explanation of the features preventing you from migrating down to that tier. For example, you can’t move to a free plan if you currently have Premium integrations set up. 

Bottom line: If you are currently using features that are unavailable at that tier, you may need to delete a few feature(s) before moving forward. (See Admin Extras: Pruning your projects for ideas on how to quickly delete obsolete Projects, Users, Trends, and Alerts, or ask Customer Concierge for help in cutting back. 

Likewise, if you have a higher-tiered plan, there are likely many features and integrations you don’t need. Experiment. Give some of these underutilized features a go and see if they make a difference!

Canceling your account (Oh my!)

To cancel your account, jump to the Plans and Billing page. Click “Cancel your account” to close the account and prevent future billing. 

If you’re game, in lieu of a cancellation, we'll seek a new solution for you! Don't forget about our Free plan, which allows up to 1,000 survey sends per month for a single project. This plan provides the core features needed to continue a CX or XM program. (We really hate to see you go!) 

Always feel free to reach out to Concierge if you have questions about billing or cancellations.

If you do leave Delighted, even temporarily, be sure to export your critical data in a CSV or Excel file first!

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Module 4 practice quiz

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Show Notes № 4

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Quiz answers

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