🔍 What This Article Covers
If your trial is about to expire and you want to pay upfront to activate the STARTER plan — but the billing page is still enforcing trial restrictions or not showing an upgrade option — this article explains why that happens and what steps you can take right now.
⚙️ Why This Happens
Search Atlas trials are governed by eligibility rules that control when a plan transition can be self-served. In some cases, the billing page does not yet surface a direct upgrade path while a trial is still technically active, even if only one day remains. This means the system may continue to apply trial-level restrictions — including blocking access to add-ons like citations — until the trial officially ends or until the transition is handled manually.
This is a known limitation. Our engineering team has shipped improvements to the trial-to-paid conversion flow, but if you are hitting this issue right now, the fastest and most reliable fix is to contact support so an agent can manually activate your STARTER plan immediately.
✅ Self-Serve Step to Try First
- Go to your Billing settings. Navigate to Account Menu → Billing → Plans & Top-ups in your Search Atlas account. Look for a Change Plan button. If it is available, click it, select the STARTER plan, and complete checkout with your payment method on file.
- Refresh and retry after a few minutes. Occasionally the billing page reflects a cached trial state. Log out, clear your browser cache, log back in, and attempt the upgrade again from Account Menu → Billing → Plans & Top-ups.
🙋 If the Billing Page Does Not Let You Upgrade — Contact Support for Manual Activation
If the billing page does not surface an upgrade option or the upgrade does not complete successfully, a support agent can manually activate your STARTER plan in under a few minutes. This is the primary resolution for this issue. Here is how to reach them:
- Do not wait for the trial to expire on its own. If you need access to paid features — such as purchasing citations — before your trial ends, reach out to support as soon as possible.
- Contact our support team directly. Reach out through any available support channel and let them know you need your STARTER plan manually activated before your trial ends.
- Have your payment details ready. The agent will need to verify the payment method on file (for example, the last 4 digits of your card) and will then manually trigger the transition from your trial to the paid STARTER plan on the backend.