🔍 Why You May See an Unrecognized Annual Charge
If a charge for your Search Atlas annual plan appeared on your bank or credit card statement but is not visible in your account billing history, this is most likely caused by one of the following known billing issues:
- Duplicate Stripe account creation: In some cases, an upgrade to an annual plan created a second Stripe billing profile. Charges processed under this duplicate account do not appear in your in-app billing history.
- Subscription re-billing at an old monthly boundary: Customers who switched from a monthly plan to an annual special-offer plan may have been re-billed the full annual amount at the original monthly renewal date instead of the correct new date.
- Residual charges from a previous plan: After a plan change, a lingering charge from your prior subscription tier was occasionally processed before the old plan was fully cancelled in our system.
All of these root causes have been identified and resolved at the engineering level. If you have been affected, our support team can verify your account and process a correction promptly.
✅ Steps to Resolve the Charge
- Locate the charge details. Find the exact charge amount, the date it was processed, and the last four digits of the card that was billed. You can find this on your bank statement, credit card portal, or the payment receipt sent to your email by our payment processor (Stripe).
- Check your in-app billing history. Log in to Search Atlas and navigate to your account settings to review your billing history. If the charge does not appear there, this confirms it may have been processed under a duplicate billing profile.
- Note your account details. Before contacting support, have the following ready: your registered email address, the charge amount, the charge date, and any transaction or receipt ID shown on the Stripe receipt.
- Contact our support team immediately. Our team can look up charges across all billing profiles linked to your account, confirm whether the charge was processed in error, and initiate a refund where applicable. If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.
⏱️ What To Expect After Contacting Support
Once our team verifies your account and confirms the erroneous charge, here is what happens next:
- Verification: Our team will cross-reference your Stripe billing records to identify the duplicate or incorrect charge.
- Refund initiation: If a billing error is confirmed, a full or partial refund will be issued to the original payment method. Refunds typically appear within 5–10 business days, depending on your bank or card issuer.
- Account correction: Any duplicate Stripe accounts or misaligned subscription records will be resolved so future billing is accurate.
- Confirmation: You will receive a Stripe receipt confirming the refund once it has been processed.
⚠️ Important Notes
- Do not initiate a chargeback with your bank before contacting us. Chargebacks can freeze your account and delay resolution. Our team can resolve verified billing errors faster through direct refund.
- Stripe receipts for charges are sent automatically to the email address on file. If you received a receipt for a charge you do not recognise, save it — this helps our team locate the transaction quickly.
- If you are on a plan that includes team members or child accounts, note that child-account cancellations have in some cases triggered unexpected base-plan charges. Our team is aware of this and will check for it during your case review.
💡 How To Prevent This in the Future
- After any plan upgrade or change, check your billing history within 48 hours to confirm the correct amount was charged.
- Ensure only one payment method is active on your account at a time to avoid processing under multiple billing profiles.
- Save Stripe receipts sent to your email as a reference for every transaction.