Billing & Payment Terms

1. Plan Overview

The Service is offered through paid plans only. Every account must be on a plan for optimization to run. There are two self-serve plans, and both are billed the same way: a fixed monthly base fee, plus a flat percentage of the ad spend managed during the period.

Starter: $79/month base fee + 3% of managed ad spend. 1 ad account, 1 seat.

Growth: $199/month base fee + 3% of managed ad spend. 3 ad accounts, 3 seats. Includes Performance Max optimization and product-feed-aware Shopping optimization (Merchant Center connection required for product-feed features).

Agency: A custom contract, available through sales only. No price is published for it - the fees that apply are the ones written into that contract.

The spend percentage is 3% on both self-serve plans. It does not vary by plan and it does not fall as spend rises.

There are no AI usage fees. There is no per-campaign, per-keyword, per-optimization or per-search-term charge of any kind. The work the Service does within your plan is covered by the base fee and the spend percentage, plus the optional capacity add-ons in Section 1.2 - and by nothing else.

1.1 What a plan includes each month

Each plan carries a monthly allowance of the work the Service starts on its own initiative. Starter includes 1,000 credits a month and Growth 2,000. The work is priced in credits like this:

• A landing page built and published - 100 credits
• A strategy analysis run across the account - 60 credits
• An ad draft written - 20 credits

So a Starter month covers around ten landing pages, or fifty ad drafts, or any mix adding up to the same. The allowance resets when the billing month does and does not roll over.

Anything you ask for is done regardless of the balance. A request made in chat is never refused or queued for want of credits, and there is nothing to top up. What pauses when the allowance is used up is the work the Service had started without being asked - ads written on the account's own initiative wait for the next month. You are told in the dashboard when the balance is running low. A heavy month costs exactly what a quiet one does.

1.2 Optional capacity add-ons

Two things can be added beyond a plan's limits, each charged monthly on top of the base fee:

• An extra Google Ads account - $60/month per account beyond your plan's limit
• An extra seat - $60/month per seat beyond your plan's limit

These are the only charges that exist besides the base fee and the 3%. An add-on is created only by an action of yours, its price and its recurring nature are shown for confirmation before it takes effect, and it can be removed again by reducing the accounts or seats in use.

Moving to a smaller plan can create one. If you reduce your plan while more accounts are connected than the smaller plan allows, the accounts above the limit become paid add-ons rather than being disconnected - so nothing of yours stops working without warning. The dashboard shows exactly what the new monthly total will be, itemised, before the change is confirmed.

All paid plans include 24/7 autonomous AI optimization - campaigns are activated, paused, scaled, and restructured automatically. Full access to Alex AI autonomous chat, AI marketing material creation, budget scaling, keyword management, negative keyword automation, waste elimination, winner scaling, CPA optimization, performance reporting, and savings tracking. Feature availability beyond this baseline varies by plan as described above and on the pricing page.

Every plan is billed on a monthly cycle. There is no yearly, annual, or multi-month billing option. Any references to weekly or yearly billing elsewhere are outdated and superseded by this document and the Terms of Service.

2. What Counts as Managed Ad Spend

“Managed ad spend” is the money that actually left the Google Ads accounts connected to your account during a billing period. It is what was spent - not what was budgeted, and not the capacity you authorized.

Counted:

• Spend from every campaign type: Search, Shopping, Display, Video, Performance Max, and others
• Spend in every connected Google Ads account, including client accounts managed through Bidhelm
• Spend from campaigns you have excluded from direct automation
• Paused campaigns - what a campaign spent counts even if it is paused afterwards. Pausing does not undo spend that has already left the account. What a campaign never spent is never billed, whatever its status at the end of the period.

Not counted:

• Budgets, bid caps, and any other authorized capacity that was not spent - an unspent budget is never billed
• Google Ads accounts not connected to Bidhelm
• Accounts disconnected before the billing period began

Spend figures are pulled from the Google Ads API after the billing period closes. Google's API-reported figures are the authoritative reference for any dispute. We strongly recommend setting Google Ads budget caps in your Google Ads account. Bidhelm is not responsible for unexpected spend increases, and fees are calculated on actual spend regardless of cause.

3. Billing Cycle

Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial. A payment method is required to start the trial, and nothing is charged while it runs.

The first billing period begins when the trial ends, and the cycle repeats monthly from that day.

A period is billed after it closes, never in advance of the spend it covers. A 2-day settle window is allowed after the period ends before spend is read, so that Google's reported figures are final rather than provisional. At the close of each period:

1. Total managed ad spend is read from the Google Ads API, after the settle window
2. The base fee and the 3% spend fee are calculated on that figure
3. Your payment method on file is charged

The record of every charge, and the breakdown behind it, is in your dashboard under Billing. Notifications from the Service itself are in-app only - no billing email is sent by Bidhelm. The receipt or invoice for each charge is issued by the payment provider, which acts as Merchant of Record, and is emailed by them to the address on the payment method.

Upgrading takes effect immediately. The change is pro-rated and invoiced at the point of upgrade rather than held to the end of the period.

4. Payment Methods

All payments are processed by our third-party payment provider, a fully regulated payment institution that also acts as Merchant of Record for your transactions. Bidhelm does not store full card numbers. By adding a payment method, you authorize our payment provider on behalf of Bidhelm to charge your payment method on a recurring basis for as long as your plan is active. Update your payment method anytime under Billing in your dashboard.

5. Failed Payments

If a recurring charge fails, access is not withdrawn at once. What changes depends on how long the balance stays outstanding, counted from the first failed attempt:

• Through day 7 - nothing changes. The Service runs exactly as before while the charge is retried.
• Days 8 to 14 - the account is still watched and protected: waste is still blocked and existing optimizations stand. New spend is paused - nothing that would raise what the account spends is applied.
• Day 15 onward - the account becomes read-only. Nothing is changed in your Google Ads account.

Updating your payment method restores the account at any point in that sequence. You are notified of a failed payment in the dashboard.

None of this cancels your subscription - you must cancel explicitly in your dashboard, and you remain liable for all outstanding amounts. Bidhelm is not responsible for the specific timing or number of retry attempts made by the payment provider, which are governed by that provider's policies.

6. Pause & Cancellation

6.1 Pausing

Where the dashboard exposes a pause option for your plan, you may pause at any time. When paused:

• Alex AI stops all automated optimization changes immediately
• The base fee and the spend percentage continue to apply for any spend that occurred before the pause took effect in the current billing period
• Your account data and campaign history are fully retained
• Resume at any time - no new subscription required

6.2 Cancellation

Cancel at any time from Billing in your dashboard. That opens the payment provider's portal, where the cancellation is made - nobody has to be emailed and no reason has to be given.

Cancelling ends the plan at the end of the period already paid for. It is not a same-day stop, and the period you are in is not refunded.

• The Service keeps running until that date, which means optimization continues and the 3% keeps accruing on spend up to it. To stop the changes sooner, switch the action categories to require approval in your settings, or revoke Google Ads access at myaccount.google.com/permissions - either takes effect at once.
• One final invoice arrives after the period closes, covering the base fee and the 3% of spend managed up to the cancellation date. Because a period is always billed after it closes (Section 3), this invoice lands after your access has ended. It is the last one.
• No charge is made for any period beginning after that date.
• Campaign history retained for 30 days, then may be permanently deleted

A worked example. A plan cancelled on 14 September, on a cycle that runs the 1st to the 30th: access and optimization continue to 30 September; a final invoice is issued around 2 October for the September base fee plus 3% of the spend managed between 1 and 14 September; nothing is charged for October.

Cancellation does not disconnect your Google Ads account. To revoke Bidhelm's access entirely, do so at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

7. Refund Policy

All fees are non-refundable, except where applicable law requires otherwise. If the law of the country you live in gives you a refund or cancellation right that cannot be signed away, that right is unaffected - see Section 1 of the Terms of Service.

We do not issue refunds for: the current or any prior billing period, periods of non-use, dissatisfaction with optimization outcomes or campaign performance, partial billing periods, or periods of Service unavailability.

Limited exception: We may, at our sole discretion, issue account credits (not cash) for verified complete Service outages exceeding 72 consecutive hours solely attributable to Bidhelm's own infrastructure. This is purely discretionary and sets no precedent.

8. Disputed Charges

If you believe a charge is incorrect, email billing@bidhelm.com within 30 days with your account email, the charge date, and the reason. We respond within 5 business days. To resolve issues quickly, please contact us before contacting your bank. In spend disputes, Google's API-reported data is the reference; we provide a full breakdown on request.

9. Price Changes

Bidhelm may change any fee - the monthly base fee, the spend percentage, or an add-on price - by publishing the new figure on this page and in your dashboard. For anyone already subscribed, a change that increases what they pay takes effect only after the notice period below.

An increase to what an existing subscriber pays is notified in the dashboard at least 14 days before it takes effect, and the notice stays until it has been seen. Notice is given in the product rather than by email, because the Service sends no lifecycle email. The 14 days are there so that cancelling before the increase applies is always possible, and cancelling takes effect as described in Section 6.2.

This applies to the base fee, the spend percentage, and the add-on prices in Section 1.2 alike. New prices for new customers can change at any time without notice to anyone. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated pricing. If you do not accept it, your remedy is to cancel.

10. Taxes

All taxes, levies, and duties applicable to your use of the Service are managed and collected by our payment provider, which acts as Merchant of Record for your transactions. The payment provider is responsible for calculating, collecting, and remitting applicable taxes including VAT, GST, and sales tax based on your billing location. Tax amounts, where applicable, will be itemized on the invoice issued by the payment provider.

Billing questions: billing@bidhelm.com · Dashboard: app.bidhelm.com · Response within 2 business days.

Earlier terms stay published so that a charge made under them can be checked against the terms that applied at the time. Version 1.0 governed charges up toAugust 9, 2026 and was superseded on that date; it remains readable at the previous version.