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 volume-based tiering (e.g., $10/seat for 1-4 seats, $9/seat for 5+)
Feature Flag
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:- Assign seats to team members via email or external customer ID
- Manage seats by resending invitations or revoking access
- Scale up by purchasing additional seats (or a new order for one-time products)
- Track usage by viewing which seats are claimed, pending, or available
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 |
Creating a seat-based product
Select seat-based pricing
Under Pricing, select:
- Product type: Subscription or One-time
- Billing cycle (subscriptions only): Monthly or Yearly
- Pricing type: Seat-based
Configure seat tiers
Define your pricing tiers based on seat quantity:
- Min seats: Minimum number of seats required to purchase
- Tiers: For each tier, set:
- Max seats: Upper limit for this tier (leave empty for unlimited)
- Price per seat: Amount charged per seat in this tier (in cents)
- 1-4 seats: $10/seat per month
- 5-9 seats: $9/seat per month
- 10+ seats: $8/seat per month
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
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