What does "Active" subscription status mean?

Active is the default healthy state for a monthly subscription in Valid Email Checker. It means the plan is set to renew on schedule, the last charge cleared (or is the initial subscription charge), and no payment problem has been detected. Most users sit in Active forever and never need to think about state transitions.

What Active guarantees

• Your monthly credit allocation is sitting in the monthly bucket and counts down as you verify.
• The renewal cron will attempt your scheduled charge on the next billing date.
• Bulk uploads, the dashboard verifier, and the API all draw against monthly credits first, then PAYG.
• Auto-refill (if enabled) tops up your PAYG balance independently of the subscription cycle.
• Any scheduled downgrade you set up sits dormant until the next renewal — it does not change your status.

What can move you out of Active

Three things flip a subscription out of Active. Each lands you in a different status, with a different recovery path.

• Clicking Cancel Subscription sets cancel_at_period_end = true. The status stays Active in the database, but the badge changes to "Ending Soon" until the period ends. After that, it transitions to Cancelled.
• A failed renewal charge transitions you to Past Due with a 7-day grace window and a pending invoice waiting.
• A manual pause by VEC support (rare, usually for chargeback investigation or extended absence) transitions you to Paused.

Cancellation-pending vs true Active

A subtle thing worth knowing — the database keeps status = active even when you have cancelled. The flag cancel_at_period_end = true is what tells VEC not to charge you on the next renewal. The Subscription tab surfaces this nuance with an Ending Soon banner, and the next-billing-date row reads "Ends on [date]" rather than "Renews on [date]". Until that date arrives, you keep verifying normally against the same monthly credit bucket.

How long Active lasts in normal use

Indefinitely. As long as the card charges keep clearing every 30 days, your subscription stays Active forever. The 99%+ accurate verification engine, the API, the bulk tools — all of it runs the same whether you have been Active for a week or three years. Valid Email Checker does not auto-cycle, auto-suspend, or auto-upgrade based on usage.