Seat-Based Pricing

Sell team products with assignable seats and tiered pricing

Seat-based pricing allows you to sell products where a billing manager purchases a specific number of seats and can assign them to team members. Each seat holder gets their own access to the product benefits, making it perfect for team subscriptions, perpetual licenses, and multi-user products.

Seat-based pricing is ideal for:

• Team subscriptions where one billing manager pays for multiple users
• Perpetual team licenses with one-time payment
• Organizational licenses with per-seat pricing
• Products with flat, graduated, or volume-discounted seat pricing

Feature Flag

Seat-based pricing is currently in beta. Enable it under Settings → General → Features.

How it works

With seat-based pricing, a billing manager purchases a product (subscription or one-time) with a specific number of seats. They can then:

1. Assign seats to team members via email or external customer ID
2. Manage seats by resending invitations or revoking access
3. Scale up by purchasing additional seats (or a new order for one-time products)
4. Track usage by viewing which seats are claimed, pending, or available

Team members receive an invitation email with a claim link. Once they claim their seat, benefits are automatically granted.

Subscriptions vs One-Time Purchases

Feature	Subscriptions	One-Time Purchases
Payment	Recurring (monthly/yearly)	Single payment
Seat Duration	Active while subscribed	Perpetual (never expire)
Adding Seats	Modify subscription	Purchase new order
Benefits	While subscription active	Forever after claim

Use subscriptions for ongoing team access. Use one-time purchases for perpetual team licenses.

Creating a seat-based product

1. Create a new product

   From your dashboard, navigate to Products and click Create Product.

2. Configure basic settings

   Set your product name, description, and media as usual.

3. Select seat-based pricing

   Under Pricing, select:

   • Product type: Subscription or One-time
   • Billing cycle (subscriptions only): Monthly or Yearly
   • Pricing type: Seat-based
4. Choose a tiering model

   Under Tiering model, select how seats are priced:

   Model	Description
   Fixed price per seat	Every seat costs the same flat rate. Simple and predictable.
   Graduated	Seats are priced per tier range independently — seats in tier 1 cost one rate, seats in tier 2 cost another. Total price is the sum across all tiers.
   Volume discounts	The per-seat price is determined by the total seats purchased, and that rate applies to all seats. Crossing a tier threshold lowers the price for everyone.

   Fixed price per seat is the default and the simplest option — just enter a single price per seat.

   For Graduated and Volume discounts, define tiers using a threshold (the seat count at which a new rate begins) and a price per seat for that range.

   Example with tiers at 1–10 seats: $10/seat and 11+ seats:$8/seat:

   • Graduated: 14 seats = 10 × $10 + 4 ×$8 = $132 — each range is billed at its own rate
   • Volume discounts: 14 seats = 14 × $8 =$112 — all seats use the lowest matching rate
5. Add benefits

   Configure the benefits that seat holders will receive. These are only granted when a seat is claimed, not when purchased.

Unlike standard subscriptions, seat-based products do not grant benefits to the billing manager. Benefits are only granted to team members who claim their assigned seats. The billing manager can assign a seat to themselves if they also want to receive benefits — this counts toward the purchased seat total.

Managing seats

After purchase, the billing manager can assign and manage seats from the Customer Portal or via the API.

Seat statuses

• Pending: Seat assigned, invitation sent, awaiting claim
• Claimed: Seat claimed by team member, benefits granted
• Revoked: Seat revoked, benefits removed, can be reassigned

Key actions

• Assign seats by email, external customer ID, or existing Polar customer ID
• Resend invitations for pending seats if the link expired (valid for 24 hours)
• Revoke seats to remove benefits and free the seat for reassignment
• Reduce seat count to lower the number of seats on the subscription (triggers a prorated credit)

Revoking a seat and reducing the seat count are different actions:

• Revoking a seat removes a specific user’s access and frees that seat for reassignment. It does not reduce the number of seats on the subscription, and the billing manager continues to pay for the same total.
• Reducing the seat count changes the subscription quantity itself, which results in a prorated credit for the remainder of the billing period.

To stop paying for an unused seat, you must reduce the seat count — not just revoke the assignment.

Proration and billing adjustments

When the seat count on a subscription changes mid-billing cycle, charges are prorated automatically:

• Adding seats: The billing manager is charged immediately for the new seats, prorated for the remainder of the current billing period. The full per-seat price applies from the next billing cycle onward.
• Reducing seat count: A prorated credit is applied for the removed seats, covering the unused portion of the current billing period.

Proration ensures billing managers only pay for seats during the time they are active. Encourage customers to adjust their seat count rather than leaving unused seats idle.

Limitations

• Seats must be assigned individually (no bulk import via dashboard, use API instead)
• Claim links expire after 24 hours
• Billing manager does not receive product benefits
• Maximum of 1,000 seats per subscription
• Metadata limited to 10 keys and 1KB total size per seat

Next steps

For implementation details including API integration, webhook handling, and code examples, see the Implementing Seat-Based Pricing guide.