When Do I Pay? How Billing Starts

The short answer: not during signup, and never without seeing the amount first. This article explains exactly when billing starts so there are no surprises.

Selecting a service never charges you

Choosing services in the onboarding wizard — or expressing interest in one later from your portal — does not bill you. Selected services enter pending setup, which is a to-do list for our team, not a charge to you. The agreement step says "nothing due today" and means it.

How billing actually starts

1. We contact you. After your campaign activates, a member of the PolitiFast team reaches out about each service you selected.
2. We set it up and agree on scope. For quoted services, you see the price before anything is committed.
3. Invoices appear in Billing. When there is something to pay, an invoice shows up in your campaign's Billing & Invoices section and in your account-wide list at /portal/invoices. You can open any invoice, download a PDF, and pay by card through Stripe with Pay Now. Card payments may include a processing surcharge, always shown before you pay.

You see every amount before it is billed, and every invoice sits in your portal for review before it is paid.

What's priced up front and what's quoted

Some prices are published because they are the same for everyone:

• Text messages — 5¢ per message sent.
• Mailer design — a $150 flat fee, including two revision rounds.

Everything else — website builds, the Brand Package, consulting retainers, ad budgets, per-piece mail rates — depends on your race and your goals, so your PolitiFast team quotes it during setup and shows you the number before you commit. Where a service has published pricing, you will find it in that service's own help article.

Canceling

You are not locked in for the length of the campaign. After your first month with any service, you can cancel it with 30 days written notice.