Account suspension

Paid plans

When a paid plan payment fails, your account enters a process that may include suspension, downgrade, and inactive content delivery. Here is more detail on what each phase involves.

Phase 1: Payment failure notification

If you are on a paid plan, we will notify you as soon as we see that your payment failed for your subscription. Notifications sent via email and displayed in the web app will include steps to help you fix the issue before any disruption to your Contentful account.

Phase 2: Pre-suspension 

If you are on a paid plan, this 7-day pre-suspension phase means all other tabs and features in the Organization settings & subscriptions will be read-only except for Subscription & Billing. Organization owners and admins will be redirected to this tab to update the payment method before the account enters the final suspension and downgrade phase.

Phase 3: Suspension, downgrade, content delivery inactive

If your payment fails and is not settled during the 7-day pre-suspension phase, you are downgraded to the free plan and suspended, limiting your access to free plan benefits.

What happens

• Once downgraded, your included space license is removed, all spaces are archived, and content delivery is inactive.

• The Content Management API (CMA) will remain active, and you can still export your content here.

To recover, pay the outstanding balance to restore and start using the free plan with limited access. You can upgrade when ready.

How to pay the outstanding balance

To restore your account and access your paid plan:

• Update your credit card in the Billing tab on the Subscription page.

• Make sure the card has sufficient funds to cover the unpaid amount.

⚠️ If your account has already been downgraded and content delivery has stopped, you will no longer be able to update the card from the Billing tab. You will need to contact our support team to manually resolve the outstanding balance.

Free plan

When a free plan exceeds its usage limits, the organization enters a process that includes warnings, space archive, and eventually license cancellation (if no remediation occurs).

Phase 1: Overage warning notification

We will notify via email and web app banners when you have exceeded your entitlements or monthly API usage limits.

Phase 2: Space archived

If your overage is not reduced, we will archive your space and notify you via email and web app banner. Content delivery remains active for 30 days after your space is archived. After this period, it will be deactivated. 

You can unarchive your space. To view your usage, navigate to the Usage page under Organization settings. 

Phase 3:  License cancellation

If overage is not reduced, we will archive your space and cancel your space license. Content delivery remains active for 30 days after your space is archived. 

After this period, your space license will be deactivated. You can request your space license back by contacting support, after which you can unarchive your space and correct usage.

Phase 4:  Permanent space license cancellation

If overage is not reduced, we will permanently archive your space and cancel your space license, and it cannot be provided back. Content delivery remains active for 30 days after your space is archived. 

After this period, it will be deactivated. The Content Management API (CMA) will remain active, and you can still export your content here.

Summary

Paid plans

Free plan