What Happens When You Downgrade or Cancel
Last updated: 2026-05-12
When your paid plan ends — whether you cancel, your trial expires, or a payment fails — your account moves to the Free plan. We disable features that exceed Free-plan limits, but we preserve your settings so you can pick up exactly where you left off after upgrading again.
How a Downgrade Is Triggered
A downgrade to Free can happen in several ways:
| Trigger | What happens | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| You cancel | You choose to cancel in Billing & Plan | Active until the end of the billing period, then downgraded |
| Trial expires | Your trial reaches its end date | A 3-day grace period starts, then downgrade |
| Payment fails | Your card is declined or expires | A 7-day grace period starts, then downgrade |
| Dispute lost | A chargeback is resolved against you | Immediate downgrade |
| Admin action | Support manually ends a trial | Immediate downgrade |
During a grace period you still have full access to premium features. We send reminder emails so you can update your payment method or upgrade before anything changes.
What Gets Disabled
We never delete your data during a downgrade. Instead, we system-disable resources and settings that exceed Free-plan limits. Disabled items are hidden from public view but remain in your dashboard.
Status Pages
The Free plan includes 1 status page. If you have more:
- Excess pages are disabled (marked with a “Disabled” badge in your dashboard).
- Disabled pages return a “Temporarily Unavailable” message to visitors.
- The disabled page’s URL, slug, and content are preserved.
If you saved a downgrade preference (see below), we keep the page you selected and disable the rest. Otherwise, we keep the oldest page and disable newer ones.
Monitors
The Free plan includes 2 monitors per page. If a page has more:
- Excess monitors are system-disabled.
- Disabled monitors stop checking but keep their configuration, history, and alert rules.
- We keep the oldest monitors active and disable the newest ones.
Access Control & Private Pages
Private status pages and all access-control features are disabled on downgrade:
- The page becomes public (the access gate is removed).
- Password protection is turned off.
- Azure AD, Google Workspace, and Generic OIDC SSO are turned off.
- IP allowlist and email magic links are turned off.
- Allowed email domains are cleared from the gate.
Important: Your SSO credentials (tenant IDs, client secrets, allowlists) are preserved in the background. When you upgrade again and re-enable private mode, everything is still configured — you don’t have to set it up from scratch.
Appearance & Branding
Premium branding features are turned off:
- Custom CSS is cleared from the rendered page (your CSS text is preserved in settings and restored on upgrade).
- Logo uploads are hidden from the public page (file URLs remain in settings).
- White label (hiding the “Powered by” badge) is turned off.
- Custom domain is deactivated (domain and DNS records remain in your settings for re-verification).
Automation & Analytics
- Auto-incidents, auto-notify, and auto-resolve are turned off.
- Response-time graphs and daily pills are hidden.
- Web analytics (Google Analytics) is turned off.
- Public incident archiving is turned off.
- Component-dependency banners are hidden.
What Stays Exactly the Same
Some things are not affected by a downgrade at all:
- Your incidents and maintenance history — all historical data remains visible (subject to Free-plan retention windows).
- Your components and groups — structure is preserved.
- Subscriber lists — contacts stay in the database.
- Team memberships — existing team links remain, but you can’t create new teams if over the Free limit.
- Notification channels and rules — configuration is preserved.
- API keys — existing keys remain valid (but you can’t create new ones on Free).
- Status page snapshots and runbooks — preserved.
Downgrade Preferences (Manual Cancellation)
When you cancel from a paid plan, we offer a downgrade wizard that lets you choose:
- Which status page to keep active (if you have more than the Free limit).
- Which monitors to keep active (if you have more than the Free limit).
If you don’t make a selection, we default to keeping the oldest resources active.
The wizard appears after you click Cancel Subscription in Billing & Plan. You can change your mind and re-select until the downgrade actually takes effect.
Re-Enabling After Upgrade
When you upgrade again:
- System-disabled status pages are automatically re-enabled (up to your new plan’s limit).
- System-disabled monitors are automatically re-enabled (up to your new plan’s limit).
- Gated settings are restored based on your new plan:
- Private mode, SSO, IP allowlist, and magic links re-enable automatically.
- Custom CSS, logos, white label, and custom domains re-appear.
- Automation and analytics toggles return to their previous values.
If you had more resources than even your new plan allows (for example, downgrading from Business to Starter), only the amount allowed by the new plan is re-enabled. The rest stay disabled until you delete excess resources or upgrade further.
If you want to review the saved-vs-current diff for a status page before bringing settings back, see Status Page Settings Snapshots.
Trial Expiry vs. Cancellation
| Trial Expiry | Cancellation | |
|---|---|---|
| Notice | Email 7 days, 3 days, and 1 day before expiry | No extra notice (you initiate it) |
| Grace period | 3 days after expiry | Until end of current billing period |
| Payment | None | Already paid through end of period |
| Data | Preserved | Preserved |
| Re-activation | Start a new trial or subscribe any time | Subscribe any time |
FAQ
Q: Will my visitors see a “downgraded” message?
A: Disabled status pages show “Temporarily Unavailable” to the public. Your active Free-plan page continues working normally.
Q: Do I lose my custom domain?
A: No. The custom domain is deactivated (visitors see the platform subdomain instead), but the domain record and verification status remain in your settings. After upgrading, you can re-activate it without re-verifying DNS.
Q: What happens to my password-protected or SSO-gated page?
A: The gate is removed and the page becomes public. Your password hash and SSO credentials are preserved in the background. Re-enabling private mode after upgrade restores the gate instantly.
Q: Can I export data before a downgrade?
A: Yes. See Exporting Your Data.
Q: What if I accidentally let my trial expire?
A: You can start a new trial or upgrade at any time. All settings and disabled resources will be restored automatically.
Q: Do I need to reconfigure everything after upgrading?
A: No. We snapshot your settings before any downgrade and restore them on upgrade. The only thing you may need to do is re-verify a custom domain if DNS changed while it was inactive.