Billing

How the subscription is priced, what the billing page shows, who owns the railroad's account, and how to hand ownership on.

Click Billing under Admin in the sidebar. RailCompliant is priced per locomotive: a flat base subscription plus a charge for each active locomotive on your roster.

Users are unlimited and free. Putting every volunteer, machinist, and contract inspector on the roster — and giving accounts to the ones who need to sign in — never changes the bill. Adding a locomotive does.

Your trial

Signing up starts a 14-day trial. Starting it requires a card on the secure checkout page, but the card is not charged until the trial ends. RailCompliant emails a confirmation as soon as checkout goes through, with your trial end date, and a reminder a few days before the trial ends. When the trial converts to a paid subscription you are told that too.

The billing page

Billing is open to your railroad's administrators. Subscription shows the current Status, when the trial ends, when the current period ends, and the number of Active locomotives (billed).

Pricing shows the base fee, the per-locomotive charge, and an estimate for your current fleet size. The exact quantity is billed each period, so adding or removing a locomotive is reflected on the next invoice without anyone adjusting a seat count.

Manage holds the actions, and appears only for the owner:

• Start subscription & add payment method — opens the hosted checkout to enter a card.
• Manage billing & payment method — opens the payment portal to update the card, view invoices, or cancel.
• Cancel subscription — cancels at the end of the current period. Access continues until then.

Other administrators see a note naming the owner and their email, to contact about any change. A Summary card on the right repeats the status, locomotive count, estimate, and renewal date at a glance.

The owner

Every railroad has one owner: to begin with, the person who signed it up. Ownership is a role on the owner's own login, not a separate account. The owner:

• is always an administrator — their role cannot be lowered and their access cannot be revoked at their own railroad;
• is the only person who can start, change, or cancel the subscription;
• receives the billing notices — trial ending, payment problems, cancellation.

The Ownership card on the billing page shows who the owner is.

Transferring ownership

Ownership can move to anyone on the team with an app account — crew, shop, or office. The owner does it from the Ownership card:

1. Choose the member under Transfer ownership to. Only people with an active account at your railroad are listed; to hand ownership to someone new, first give them an account from Crew → their name → App account.
2. Enter Your password to confirm it is you.
3. Tick the confirmation that they will control billing and can cancel the subscription.
4. Click Transfer ownership.

The new owner becomes an administrator if they were not one already. The previous owner keeps their login and their role. Both are emailed — ownership notices are always sent and cannot be switched off.

Receipts from the payment processor go to the billing email on file. After a transfer, the new owner can change it under Manage billing & payment method.

When a payment fails

If a payment fails, the subscription moves to a past-due state and the owner is notified. Access continues while the card is retried — a failed charge does not lock a railroad out of its compliance records in the middle of an inspection season. Update the card from Manage billing & payment method to clear it.

If the subscription is cancelled, or a trial lapses without a subscription behind it, the railroad's access is paused. Administrators are taken to the billing page to resolve it. General members see a page explaining that access is paused, that nothing has been lost, and who the owner is. Your records are not deleted; they are waiting. Anyone who also works for another railroad can still switch to it from the railroad menu.

Changing what you are billed for

To change which locomotives you are billed for, work the fleet list rather than the billing page: see Locomotives. A locomotive you no longer own should come off the roster; the count follows automatically.

If something about an invoice or a charge does not look right, open a ticket from Help & support.