Appearance
How Billing Works
LecturePanda bills two things: an annual subscription for the platform, and participants to cover registrations and the modules learners start. This page answers the questions that come up most about both.
Two different things get called "credits"
On this page, a participant is a unit of billing — what one registration costs you, plus one for each extra module a learner starts. Everywhere else in LecturePanda, a credit is the CE credit a learner earns and claims. They're unrelated: what you buy here has nothing to do with the credits you award. For those, see the Credits reference.
What does LecturePanda charge for?
Two line items, and nothing else is metered:
| What | How it works |
|---|---|
| Annual subscription | A yearly fee for your account, renewing on its own each year |
| Participants | Bought in batches into a shared bank; each registration draws one, and so does each module a learner starts beyond their first |
What isn't charged for is worth stating too. Building ten courses costs the same as building one. Adding colleagues as admins costs nothing and has no user limit. Quizzes, certificates, video tracking, integrations, and reporting aren't separate line items or upgrade tiers.
So your bill moves with one thing — how many people take your training, and how much of it they take — on top of a subscription you can plan a year at a time.
What does the annual subscription cover?
The platform itself: your account, your courses, and every feature in it. It's charged once a year rather than per course, per admin, or per seat.
New accounts start on a trial, and you activate a paid Pro subscription when you're ready — from the Subscription & Billing page in Organization Settings, which shows the annual price before you confirm and generates an invoice you can pay by card.
Enterprise and Affiliate plans
Some accounts run on Enterprise or Affiliate plans that we manage directly. If that's you, the subscription card shows your status read-only and there's nothing to renew yourself — get in touch for any changes.
When does the subscription renew?
Annually, on its own.
- With a saved payment method, your default card is charged at renewal and you get a confirmation email with the invoice attached.
- Without one, a renewal invoice is emailed to you to pay from the link in it.
You'll get a reminder about 30 days before renewal either way, and you can turn auto-renewal off (and back on) yourself from the subscription card at any point in the billing period — turning it off leaves the subscription running to the end of the period you've paid for.
The full set of subscription statuses, and what to do if a renewal payment fails, is in the Subscription & Billing reference.
Is the bank shared across my courses?
Yes. Your participants sit in a single pool that every course draws from. They're not assigned to a specific course, video, or event — you buy a batch, and any registration on any of your content draws from the same bank.
You never have to decide in advance how to split your bank between courses, and a course that outperforms your expectations doesn't need its own top-up.
What counts as a participant?
Two things draw from the bank:
- A registration — one participant, deducted the moment someone registers. Nothing about their progress changes that; if they sign up and never open the course, it's still used.
- Each further module a learner starts — one participant each. A registration includes the learner's first module. Every additional module they start on that course uses one more.
A course with a single module costs exactly one participant per registration, as it always has. There is no Start button on such a course, and nothing more is ever drawn. If you don't use modules, nothing on this page has changed for you.
A worked example
A spring conference is one course with four modules: Friday Keynote, Friday Workshops, Saturday Sessions and an on-demand Recordings module.
| What the learner does | Participants used | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Registers | 1 | 1 |
| Presses Start This Part on Friday Keynote — their first | 0 (included) | 1 |
| Starts Friday Workshops | 1 | 2 |
| Re-opens Friday Keynote the next day | 0 | 2 |
| Starts Saturday Sessions | 1 | 3 |
| Never touches Recordings | 0 | 3 |
That learner cost three participants. A learner who registered and only attended the keynote cost one. A learner who started all four cost four — the same as four separate single-module courses would have.
What starts a module, and what doesn't
- Only a deliberate start counts: the learner pressing Start This Part (your modules are called parts on the learner's side), or your staff checking them in to a module they hadn't started — the scan at the door is their start. See Running a Live Event.
- Emails never start a module. The links in day-before, starting-soon, "now open" and reminder emails open the course page at that part, and stop there.
- Re-opening a started module is free, however many times.
- Completion doesn't matter. A started module is used whether or not the learner finishes it, the same as a registration.
- Modules are optional, so a learner who only wants two of your five modules only uses two participants.
If the bank is empty
New registrations are blocked, as before. A learner who is already registered can still open every module they've started, and can still make their first start. Starting a further module is refused, and they see:
Part Start Blocked — All registrations purchased by the organizer of this lecture have been used. Starting another part is not allowed. Please contact the organizer.
Nothing is recorded for the refused attempt. Top up the bank and they can start straight away. Low-balance alerts and auto-refill (below) are how you avoid this mid-event.
Sizing your bank for a course with modules
Estimate registrations × the number of modules a typical learner will actually start, not the number you built. For a conference where most people attend both days, that's close to registrations × 2.
Do free and comped registrations use one?
Yes — every registration draws from the bank, whatever the learner paid, and so do the further modules those learners start:
- Paid registrations
- Member-discounted registrations
- Free registrations through a receipt code
- Comped registrations (faculty, sponsors, scholarship recipients)
- Your own test registrations
Budget for your free registrations
"Free to the learner" still uses a participant. If you plan to give 50 members free access alongside 200 paid registrations, size your bank for 250 — not 200.
Can I test a course without spending my bank?
Yes — just tell us first. Get in touch before you open registration and we'll make sure your test runs don't come out of the bank you bought for learners.
One part of testing is already free: when you're logged in and register yourself — using an email address on your own LecturePanda account — the modules you start on that test registration don't draw from the bank. The test registration itself still uses one participant.
Viewing a real learner's course is not a test
If you open a real learner's course page from the Registrants list (the eye button) and press Start This Part for them, that is their start, and it counts like any other.
Do participants expire?
Unused participants lapse 12 months from the date of the order that created them. Each purchase is its own batch with its own expiration date.
That's the usual explanation when a balance drops without any new registrations: check your recent order dates. If the drop lines up with the 12-month anniversary of a batch, that batch expired rather than being consumed.
Two habits keep it a non-issue: watch the low-balance alerts, and buy in batches sized to your real annual volume rather than stockpiling.
How many should I buy to start?
Start small. Pricing is volume-based, but the per-learner rate is nearly flat across the range most organizations buy in, so a large first purchase saves very little — and since participants expire, buying against unproven demand risks waste.
A small first batch gets your course live and replaces the guess with real registration data. Topping up takes a minute, and auto-refill can handle it for you after that.
Current pricing for any quantity is shown on the order screen in Organization Settings → Invoices.
How do I buy more?
Yourself, at any time:
- Go to Organization Settings → Invoices
- Create a new order for the quantity you want
- Pay by credit card directly from that screen
Quantities are purchased in multiples of 50.
Seeing more orders than you expected?
Duplicate orders usually mean the order screen was submitted twice — not that your card was charged twice. Check the status of each order in the Invoices list before assuming a double charge: unpaid orders can simply be deleted, leaving the one you intend to pay.
Can it top up automatically?
Two settings on the Subscription & Billing page keep you from running out mid-launch:
- Low participant threshold — alerts you when the bank drops below this number.
- Auto-refill — purchases a set quantity automatically when the bank falls below that threshold. It needs a saved default payment method.
Full setup steps are in the Subscription & Billing reference.
What happens if I remove a registration?
A participant is spent when someone registers, and it stays with that registration — including if the learner is later moved to a different course. The same goes for participants used by the modules they started: nothing is returned.
So removing a registration is about access and records rather than billing; see Managing Registrations. Size your bank on registrations and module starts taken, not on registrations still active.
Is this the same as the payments my learners make?
No — those are separate, and they don't pass through us.
Registration fees your learners pay go directly into your own payment processor account; LecturePanda never holds the funds and takes no cut. Your bank is what you pay us for hosting the training. Learners are never charged for starting a module — the price they pay is per registration. See Registration Payments & Receipts for the learner-facing side.