# Email plans, usage, and caps

> Understand Beam-managed email entitlements without exposing infrastructure pricing.

## Beam-managed billing
Beam owns provider billing. Each workspace has a configurable included monthly outbound allowance, hard cap, optional overage policy, and pause state. Agencies may configure a resale markup within platform policy. Existing SMS and blue-messaging allocations do not change.

## Stripe billing truth
A direct client chooses an Email plan in Beam Billing and completes Beam's secure Stripe checkout. The plan does not unlock outbound email merely because a browser returns from checkout: Beam waits for Stripe's signed invoice.paid event, then activates the matching email entitlement. A payment failure, cancellation, or inactive email subscription pauses outbound email only. Inbound mail, the unified inbox, notes, and audit trail remain available; SMS/MMS and blue messaging are not paused or detached by an email payment event.
Super Admin publishes immutable Stripe prices from the platform Pricing Manager. Publishing a new price never silently migrates an existing subscriber. Until a plan is deliberately published and checkout is enabled, the client UI makes no charge and shows that activation is unavailable.

## Simple launch plans

| Plan | Monthly | Included outbound | Safety cap | Optional overage | 
| Email Starter | $12 | 2,000 | 2,500 | $4 / 1,000 | 
| Email Growth | $35 | 10,000 | 12,500 | $4 / 1,000 | 
| Email Scale | $89 | 30,000 | 40,000 | $3 / 1,000 | 
Overage is off until deliberately enabled. When it is off, Beam pauses new outbound email at the safety cap while inbound replies and the existing inbox remain available. Allowance does not roll over.

## What consumes allowance
One actual transport-accepted outbound email attempt consumes one unit. Beam reserves a unit while the attempt is in flight to prevent concurrent sends from exceeding the cap. Acceptance or an uncertain transport result keeps that unit. Failed reservations, cancellations, retries, duplicate requests, and repeated provider events do not consume another unit.

## Who can change it
Super Admin can configure every allowance, cap, overage, provider-cost, markup, base-price, and pause value. Agencies can configure permitted client resale controls. Clients see their plan, usage, cap, overage state, and pause state read-only. Agency-managed client collection is not presumed: Beam records the client commitment, while any Stripe Connect or invoicing workflow must be deliberately enabled and verified for that agency.
Cost-covering, not provider resaleThese are Beam-managed service plans. Provider plan names, account limits, credentials, and infrastructure pricing stay platform-side. Super Admin can revise the catalog when real portfolio cost changes without changing email send code.