--- title: "What Practor costs and how you pay for it" summary: "The practice is free. You pay per claim, per message and for Ava, from a balance or a card." source: https://practor.app/en-za/help/account-and-billing/what-practor-costs published: 2026-09-14T06:45:13.798Z updated: 2026-09-29T07:14:59.210Z category: "Account and billing" --- Running your practice on Practor is free. There is no plan to choose, no tier to outgrow and no charge per practitioner, so you can add everyone who works there without it costing you anything. You pay only for the things that cost us money each time you use them. ## What costs nothing Scheduling and online booking, the waitlist, patient records, encounters and templates, invoicing, reporting, the patient portal, and messages inside Practor. Every practitioner, receptionist and billing person you add is free, and so is the first 10 GB of documents. You do not need a card on file to set the practice up, import your patients or start seeing people. ## What you pay for You are billed per unit, from the first one, at the rates shown under **Settings → Usage**. Those rates are also on [the pricing page](https://practor.app/pricing). - **Claims** you submit to a medical scheme. You pay per approved claim. A rejection costs nothing, and neither does correcting one and sending it again. - **Benefit checks** against a scheme before a visit. - **Patient messages** sent by WhatsApp or SMS. Messages inside Practor and emails are free. - **Ava**, both writing up consultations and the minutes you spend talking to her. Ava is measured in credits, worked out from what the transcription and the model actually used on that visit, so a long first assessment costs more than a short follow-up. - **Storage** above the included 10 GB. Most practices never reach it. ![Settings, Usage: the month's spend broken down by line, each with its rate](https://res.cloudinary.com/drmnydbcs/image/upload/c_limit,w_1600/f_auto,q_auto:good/v1/help/costs/usage.png?_a=BAMAOGDh0#848x788 "Every rate you are charged at, and what you have spent against it.") ## How you pay Two ways, and you can use either. 1. **Top up a balance.** Open **Settings → Usage** and use the Add buttons next to your balance. Usage draws the balance down before it touches a card. 2. **Put a card on file.** Usage accrues and we charge the card when the accrued amount is worth a transaction, or after seven days, whichever comes first. You get a few small charges through the month rather than one large one at the end. A new practice is charged at a lower amount until it has paid twice, so your first charge is small and early. Only an owner or an admin can see or change any of this. ## Cap what you spend Under **Settings → Usage**, set **Pause metered actions above** to a monthly amount. The choices are **no limit** or one of three amounts. You can raise it or set it back to no limit whenever you want. The cap covers everything metered, claims and benefit checks included. It's checked before anything else, so it stops the two that otherwise keep running past an empty balance. Set it high enough to leave your claims alone. The same page shows what you have spent this month, broken down by line and by practitioner, so you can see where it went. ![The monthly spend cap, open, offering no limit or one of three amounts](https://res.cloudinary.com/drmnydbcs/image/upload/c_limit,w_1600/f_auto,q_auto:good/v1/help/costs/spend-limit.png?_a=BAMAOGDh0#1440x900 "Metered actions stop at the amount you pick.") ## If your balance runs out Ava and outbound patient messages stop until you top up or add a card. Claims and benefit checks keep working past zero, on a float. A practice that cannot submit a claim has a cash-flow problem, and blocking the thing that gets you paid would make it worse. The float has a ceiling, so it buys you days rather than months. Once what you owe on claims reaches it, they stop too. **Your records, your diary, your invoices and your patients' access to their own information are never switched off for a billing reason.** Not when a card is declined, not when a balance is empty, and not when an account is suspended. ## If a payment fails We retry it over the next few days and email you each time. While it is unresolved, metered actions are paused and everything else carries on. Update the card under **Settings → Usage → Payment methods** and it picks up again. ## Society and promotional codes If you belong to a society we have a programme with, enter the code under **Settings → Usage → Partner or promo code**. It takes a percentage off every metered rate from then on. Promotional codes go in the same box. ## Ava Front Desk The one thing with a monthly price. It answers your practice line, books appointments against your real diary and takes a new patient's details, and it comes with a number of call minutes each month, then a per-minute rate after that. It is switched on per practice, so [ask us](https://dashboard.practor.app/support/new) if you want it. You can cancel it whenever you like. It stays on until the end of the period you have paid for. ## If you stop using Practor You can export patient records, encounter notes and billing data at any time, including afterwards. Clinical records have retention rules that outlive any account, so we do not delete them the day you leave. [Contact support](https://dashboard.practor.app/support/new) and we will walk you through an export.