Your Ignition plan includes a set number of active clients, and going over that limit leads to overage charges. This article explains what counts as an active client and how overages work, then shows you how to review your active clients, end services that no longer need to be active, and decide when upgrading your plan is the more cost-effective option.
What is an Active Client?
An active client is any client in Ignition with:
An active proposal, or
One or more active services.
A service is considered active if it:
Is currently being billed,
Has not yet been billed, or
Is still within the minimum term of the original proposal.
Examples:
A monthly recurring service remains active until it is stopped or has an end date to the billing.
A service billed on completion remains active until the service is billed and the minimum term has ended.
Overage Charges
A client only counts toward your plan's quota once they have accepted a proposal that has been created through Ignition.
If your active client count exceeds the limit on your plan, you can either pay the additional per-client, per-month fee or upgrade to a higher plan. If you upgrade partway through a billing cycle, your subscription cost will be prorated for that month. Learn more about Ignition subscription plans here.
You can create as many proposals for a single client as you like and that client will only count toward your active client quota once.
Where to check your active client count
To see your current plan and how many active clients you have:
Click your account name in the bottom-left corner.
Select Subscription & Billing.
From here you can view your current plan, see your active client usage, and compare available plans.
Best Practices
1. Review your active clients regularly
A quick monthly review is the highest-impact habit for keeping your count under control. Because overages are based on the highest count reached during your billing period, doing this early in the cycle gives you time to act before the count is locked in.
Export your active services. This gives you a full list to work through in one place. See How to export active services for the steps.
Look for services that have finished. Focus on the billing schedule and expiry date to spot services that have completed billing or clients you no longer work with.
Check for billing outside Ignition. Go to Payments → Billing and look for outstanding manual bills. A common cause of an unexpectedly high count is clients who are billed outside Ignition but still have manual bills or services left in place.
2. End services that no longer need to be active
A client stays active while they have an active proposal or at least one active service. Once you end the relevant services, the client moves to inactive and no longer counts towards your plan.
End a single service
Go to the Services tab and click any active service.
Select More actions → End Service.
Confirm. This marks that service inactive and removes any future billings for it.
End all services for a client
Go to the Services tab.
Select End all services and confirm.
When all of a client's active services are ended, the client automatically becomes inactive, and the proposals linked to those services switch to a Completed status.
For more detail, see Ending services for a client and The Services Tab.
Note: Services that are billed on completion, and one-off instant bills, can keep a client active even after billing has finished, until you end the service. These are worth checking for specifically during your review.
3. Consider upgrading your plan
If you are consistently over your included active clients and paying overages every month, moving to a higher-tier plan can work out cheaper than paying overages indefinitely.
A simple way to decide is to compare your recurring monthly overage charge with the price difference between your current plan and the next plan up. If your overage is regularly close to or above that difference, upgrading is likely the more cost-effective choice. Higher-tier plans include a larger active client allowance.
To change your plan, go to Subscription & Billing, compare the available plans, and select the one that fits. Upgrades are prorated for your current billing cycle. If you are not sure which plan suits your usage, reach out to our support team and we can help you weigh it up.
FAQ
Why is a client still active when I have finished billing them?
Services that are billed on completion, or one-off instant bills, remain active until the service is ended, even once billing is complete. End the service from the Services tab to move the client to inactive.
If I reduce my active clients partway through the month, will my bill go down straight away?
Overages are based on the highest number of active clients reached during your billing period. Reducing your count after you have already peaked will not lower the current period's overage, but it will help the next period. This is why reviewing early in your cycle is worthwhile.
Do multiple proposals for the same client count more than once?
No. A client with multiple proposals or services still only counts once towards your active client total.