Seat-Based Pricing

Sell team products where one billing manager pays for a pool of seats and assigns them to team members.

Seat-based pricing is for products sold to teams. One person (the billing manager) buys a number of seats and assigns them to individuals by email. Each seat holder gets their own access to the product’s benefits — the billing manager gets none.

Works for both subscriptions (recurring billing per seat) and one-time purchases (perpetual seat access, no renewal).

How it works

1. Billing manager checks out and selects the number of seats
2. After payment, they assign seats via the customer portal or API
3. Each assigned person receives an invitation email with a 24-hour claim link
4. Claim link is single-use — once clicked, benefits are granted immediately
5. Billing manager can revoke seats, resend expired invitations, and add more seats

Create a seat-based product

In Catalog → Products → New product:

1. Set the billing cycle: Subscription (monthly/yearly) or One-time
2. Under Pricing type, select Seat-based
3. Set pricing tiers:
   • Min seats — the minimum a customer must purchase
   • Tiers — each tier has a max seat count and a per-seat price

Example tier setup:

Seats	Price per seat
1–4	$10/seat/month
5–9	$9/seat/month
10+	$8/seat/month

When a customer moves between tiers (e.g., from 4 seats to 5), the new per-seat rate applies to all seats, not just the additional ones.

Benefits are only granted when a seat is claimed — not when the billing manager purchases. The billing manager has no direct access to product benefits.

Seat statuses

Status	Meaning
pending	Assigned, invitation sent, awaiting claim
claimed	Team member accepted — benefits active
revoked	Access removed, seat available for reassignment

Assign a seat

Via the customer portal (billing manager) or the API:

TypeScript (subscription)

await spaire.customerSeats.assign({
  subscriptionId: '<subscription_id>',
  email: '[e-mail]',
  metadata: {
    department: 'Engineering',
    role: 'Developer',
  },
})

Optional fields: externalCustomerId, customerId, metadata (up to 10 keys, 1 KB total).

Claim links expire after 24 hours. Resend from the portal or API if they expire.

Scale seats (subscriptions)

Add seats:

1. Update the subscription seat count
2. Proration is calculated immediately for the current billing period
3. New seats can be assigned right away

Remove seats:

1. Revoke enough claimed seats to reach the target count
2. Update the subscription to the lower seat count
3. Reduction takes effect at the next renewal

You can’t reduce the seat count below the number of currently claimed seats. Revoke seats first.

One-time purchases

Each order is an independent seat pool. To add more seats, purchase a new order — seats from multiple orders can coexist. All seats are perpetual and never expire. Seats can be revoked (access removed) but not refunded.

Webhooks

Event	When
subscription.created	Seat-based subscription purchased
subscription.updated	Seat count changed
order.created	Seat-based one-time purchase completed
benefit_grant.created	Seat claimed — benefits granted
benefit_grant.revoked	Seat revoked — benefits removed

benefit_grant.created fires per seat claim, not at purchase time. Use this event to provision access in your application.

Limits

• Maximum 1,000 seats per subscription
• Seat metadata: up to 10 keys, 1 KB total
• Claim links expire after 24 hours
• Seats must be assigned individually (use the API for bulk assignment)

What’s next

Usage-Based Billing

Combine seat-based pricing with usage meters for hybrid billing.

Webhooks

Listen to benefit grant events to provision access in your app.