Downgrade your plan.

Downgrading takes effect at the next billing cycle, not immediately. This is deliberate — if you paid for Max this month, you keep the Max cap for the days you paid for.

**How to downgrade:** Settings → Billing → Change plan → pick Base (or from Max 20x → Max 5x → Base as intermediate steps if you want). Confirm. You'll see the effective date on the confirmation screen — usually the 1st or the anniversary of your original signup date.

**What changes at the effective date:** - Usage cap drops to Base level. - Monthly price drops to $20 (or $200/yr on annual). - Meal donation drops to Base level (~10 meals/mo).

**What doesn't change:** - All your chats, Projects, files, and Voice Guides remain. There's no data cleanup at downgrade — everything stays exactly where it is. - Model access, features, and workspace controls are identical across all plans (only the usage cap differs).

**If you're downgrading because of throttling frustration on Base:** this is often a false economy. If Base's cap is a real constraint on your work, downgrading from Max will hit the same cap again immediately. Consider whether the ~$80/mo extra for Max 5x is worth the friction; often for people whose work fits Max, Base is genuinely too small.

**If you're downgrading because you tried Max and didn't need it:** great, that's exactly how the system should work. You paid $100 this month, and next month you're back to $20 — no penalty, no clawback of the Max month.

**Annual plans:** if you're on annual Max and downgrade to Base, you'll be credited the difference in prorated annual value against the remainder of your term. Base annual is $200/yr, Max 5x annual is $1,000/yr — if you downgrade 6 months into a Max annual, you get a $400 credit toward your next annual renewal (or refunded to your card if you cancel outright).

**Downgrading meal donations:** we don't refund the WFP donations from the Max period, because those meals are already funded through ShareTheMeal at the time of donation.