GroupCal Plans and Subscriptions

GroupCal offers a range of plans to cater to diverse user needs, ensuring that everyone can find a suitable option to enhance their scheduling and collaboration experience. While the basic plan provides extensive functionality at no cost, there are advanced features and enhanced capabilities available through the paid plans. In this article, we will delve into the details of each plan, highlighting the unique benefits and privileges they offer. Additionally, we will explore the subscription mechanism, guiding you through the process of upgrading to a paid plan and managing your subscription effectively. 

Only Calendar owners should consider a paid plan

The active plan is associated with the user who made the purchase. It is applied to every calendar where the user is the owner. Therefore members and admins of a calendar can use the app for free, and only the owner of the calendar they are part of should subscribe to a paid plan, and only in case one of the paid features is required.

Available plans

GroupCal offers four distinct plans:

• Basic: Ideal for individuals who want to share calendars with family and friends and other groups without the need to manage permissions, advanced calendars management and large audiences. This plan is free and serves as the entry point for new GroupCal users.
• Pro: Tailored for professionals, individuals, and teams who need advanced features and enhanced collaboration tools, including permissions management, color customization, and member management.
• Business: Designed for small businesses requiring advanced business-grade features. In addition to all the features of the Pro Plan, the Business Plan offers more sophisticated permissions management and priority support.
• Business+: Specifically crafted for communities, influencers, larger businesses, and brands that require advanced calendar management, sharing capabilities, and business-grade features.

Which features are included in which plan? 

Notes:

• ✔️ = Feature available
• ❌ = Feature not available
• (1) – This feature allows users to sign in to the app with a landline number. This is often required by businesses that want their sign-in details to be associated with a business number.
• (2) While embedding a calendar on your website is a free feature, displaying events from multiple GroupCal calendars, together in one unified calendar view, is a paid feature.

Where is the active plan indicated?

The active plan is indicated in the Account section of the GroupCal app as well as on the Purchase screen. When you have an active plan, it will be displayed in the Account section, confirming your subscription status. If you are currently on a free trial, or if your active plan is about to expire, the expiration status will also be indicated. 

Business plan that will expire in one month

Pro plan with a trial that will expire in 7 days

Purchase screen indication for the existing plan

The purchase screen

How to open the purchase screen?

The purchase screen can be opened from two places:

• Accounts section: The Accounts section on the main screen shows your active plan. Clicking on it will open the purchase screen
• Accessing a Paid Feature: 
  • Features that require an upgrade are marked in the app with a special icon.
    
  • While using GroupCal, if you try to access such a feature or functionality, the app will open the Purchase screen, and will indicate the required plan.

Starting a trial

• At any point you can start a free trial of 7 days.
  
• Starting a trial doesn’t require entering credit card details.
  
• During the trial period, you can switch between plans, with no cost.
  
  
• During the trial period, the expiration date is indicated on both the Account section and on the purchase screen.
  
  
• At the end of the 7 days trial, it will expire, and you will be downgraded to the basic plan. 

Purchasing a plan

At any point during the free trial, or even after the trial expires, you can purchase a paid plan. 

Canceling an active plan

Once on an active plan, you can always cancel it. You will then still have an active plan until the term of the plan you already paid for expired. The expiration time is indicated in the app. For example, you purchase a monthly plan on the first day of the month. It automatically renews every subsequent first of the month. Then, after 10 days you cancel it. You will still have access to your plan and be able to use its features for the remaining days until the end of the month. Then on the 1st day of the following month you will be downgraded to the basic plan.

Moving between plans

At any time, you can switch between plans. GroupCal will charge you for the pro rata amount.

What happens when a calendar uses features which requires a higher plan?

There might be cases where a calendar uses features which are not included in the existing plan its owner has. That can happen when the owner used to have a paid plan, and then applied to the calendar one or more of the paid features supported by the paid plan. Then, in case the owner canceled the subscription, the calendar is left with the paid features, but with an owner that doesn’t have the required plan.When this happens, the calendar will be marked as blocked – a lock icon is added to the calendar photo and the calendar will be listed with a gray background. It’s events will still be visible, but GroupCal will block its members from making any change:

• The owner of the calendar:
  Once trying to access any feature of the calendar, the owner will see a message explaining about the reason for the calendar being blocked. GroupCal will then offer two alternatives:
  • Upgrade to the required plan for the features being used on the calendar
  • Downgrade the calendar – this will remove all paid features from the calendar so it then adheres the plan currently active.
• The members of the calendar will receive a message about the calendar being blocked only once they try to make changes to the calendar.