Pricing and billing

Pricing in ProteinIQ is workspace-based. A workspace has one active plan, one credit balance, one member list, and one billing state.

Plans

ProteinIQ currently offers four plans.

Free and Plus are Academic plans. Pro and Enterprise include Commercial license rights for commercial work.

Lite is a legacy plan and is no longer available for new subscriptions. Existing Lite subscribers keep their current price, credits, features, renewal, seat, and billing-period options while the subscription remains active. After canceling Lite or upgrading to another plan, Lite cannot be purchased again.

Choosing a plan

The plan choice depends on license needs, credit volume, and whether the workspace needs shared billing.

• Free: Trial and occasional jobs with the free-plan daily submission limit; on the free plan, that cap is 3 jobs per day.
• Plus: Regular academic workflows with no daily job cap and a larger monthly credit allowance
• Pro: Commercial work or higher-volume paid compute for an individual workspace
• Enterprise: Shared seats, shared credits, invoice billing, purchase orders, vendor setup, custom workflows, integrations, or security review

Commercial-use results require Pro or Enterprise plan rights. If you are unsure whether a project is academic or commercial, check the license terms before choosing a plan.

Workspace billing model

Plans apply to a workspace, not to a personal account globally. When you change workspaces, you also change the active plan, credit balance, seats, and billing permissions.

This model keeps research groups, labs, and organizations separate. It also means that upgrading one workspace does not upgrade every workspace you belong to.

Billing periods

Plus and Pro can use monthly or annual billing. Active legacy Lite subscribers can also keep or change their Lite billing period.

• Monthly billing: Charges monthly and grants the monthly credit allowance for that billing period
• Annual billing: Charges the year up front and grants the annualized credit allowance at the start of the annual term
• Free workspaces: Receive one promotional credit grant instead of recurring subscription credits

Annual plan prices are displayed as monthly equivalents, but the annual term is billed up front.

For annual billing, ProteinIQ grants the annualized credit allowance at the start of the yearly term. For example, Plus includes 2,000 credits per month, so annual Plus grants 24,000 credits for the annual period.

Plan changes

ProteinIQ classifies subscription changes by comparing the current plan amount, billing interval, and seat quantity with the target plan.

• Upgrades: Higher-priced changes apply immediately
• Downgrades: Lower-priced changes are scheduled for the end of the current billing period
• No-change updates: Equivalent changes do not create a new billing transition

Switching from monthly to annual billing usually applies immediately. Switching from annual to monthly is treated as a downgrade-style change when the annual plan value is higher.

If the selected plan and billing period already match the current subscription, the plan action is disabled as Current plan.

Plan changes start from Settings > Plan.

1. Click Upgrade for an active subscription, or View plans when the workspace does not have a paid subscription
2. Choose the plan and billing period
3. Choose the seat count when the selected plan supports seats
4. Review Total due today
5. Confirm the change

New paid subscriptions use Stripe Checkout Elements inside ProteinIQ. Card details are collected and processed by Stripe rather than passing through ProteinIQ servers. Existing subscriptions show a prorated preview before confirmation. Immediate changes settle the prorated difference that day using the payment method on file.

Downgrades and cancellations do not retroactively refund the current term.

Lite is not available as a downgrade target. A scheduled Lite change created before Lite became a legacy plan remains in place, but no new return to Lite can be scheduled.

Refund policy

Credit refunds and subscription-fee refunds follow separate policies. A job credit refund restores workspace compute balance. It does not reverse a subscription or card payment.

Subscription fees are non-refundable once paid credits from that subscription have been consumed.

First-time subscribers can request a full subscription-fee refund only when all of these conditions are met:

• First subscription: The request concerns the first paid ProteinIQ subscription or credit purchase
• No paid usage: No paid credits from that purchase have been consumed
• Written request: The request is sent to support@proteiniq.io within 7 days of the initial purchase

Renewals, later subscriptions, completed jobs, user error, dissatisfaction with scientific or algorithmic results, platform outages, or a change of mind after using the service are not covered by this first-time exception, except where required by law or expressly approved by ProteinIQ.

Running out of credits

Fixed-price jobs require enough workspace credits for their full cost. Time-based jobs require enough for the initial authorization and every later renewal. Tools that cost 0 credits can still run when no paid credits remain.

If you need more paid compute, move to a higher plan or a larger seat count.

See How jobs use credits for authorization, settlement, and job credit refunds.

Seats

A seat is one occupied member slot in a workspace. Active members and pending invitations both count against the seat limit.

Self-serve Plus and Pro subscriptions start with 1 seat and support up to 10 seats. Active legacy Lite subscriptions retain their existing seat-change options. The subscription quantity, price, and included credits scale with the purchased seat count. Enterprise workspaces can use custom seat allocations.

Seat reductions are blocked when the requested limit would be lower than current occupied seats.

When a seat reduction is blocked, remove members or cancel pending invitations first, then retry the plan change.

Enterprise billing

Enterprise is the right choice for shared workspace billing, shared credits, invoice billing, procurement support, custom commercial agreements, and security review.

Enterprise differs from self-serve billing in three ways:

• Checkout path: Enterprise uses the sales contact flow instead of self-serve Stripe checkout
• Workspace model: Enterprise can cover shared workspace seats and shared credits
• Billing process: Enterprise can support invoice billing, purchase orders, vendor setup, and custom terms

Use Contact sales from the Enterprise plan card or the contact page when you need Enterprise billing.

Billing surfaces

Use these app areas to understand billing state:

• Pricing page: Plan comparison and signup path
• Usage: Current credit balance and job-level usage history
• Settings > Plan: Compare plans and change the plan, billing interval, or seat count
• Settings > Billing: Active subscription summary, payment method, invoices, cancellation state, and scheduled changes

Only owners and admins can manage billing.