Billing, balance & plans

Client risk assessments, firm-wide risk assessments and core MLRO tools are free for every firm, including pay as you go. So are SAR preparation, beneficial-owner PDFs, check/audit PDFs and per-client or per-company compliance packs. The firm-level inspection pack, full annual MLRO report, bulk re-scoring and news feed are included on every plan from £59 a month. Pay as you go can preview the annual report with its own data, with a watermark on every page and a -preview.pdf filename. Anything already generated stays readable and downloadable.

How Certivus charges your firm and how to keep your wallet topped up for verifications.

Where to find it

• Sidebar → Billing: plan, card, invoices, history.
• Sidebar → Balance: current balance, top-up, per-check pricing.
• Sidebar → Pricing: published rates for each verification type.

How it works

Certivus has two cost streams:

1. Pay-as-you-go checks: buy checks at the catalogue price. Your firm's own check records are included. They are kept for five years after each client relationship ends, then queued for deletion unless a legal hold applies.
2. Subscription: adds a monthly allowance of included checks, free ongoing monitoring and, on Professional and Scale, more team seats. Starter is £59/month with 20 checks and 2 seats; Professional is £199/month with 75 checks and 10 seats; Scale is £499/month with 200 checks and unlimited seats. Without a plan, your firm has 2 seats. Annual billing gives two months free (£590, £1,990 and £4,990 a year). Ongoing monitoring is included on every plan. Templates are included on Professional and above.

Every check counts as one verification against your plan's monthly allowance: a person or a company is one each, so a company with three directors is four. Monitoring does not use the allowance, because it is included. Checks beyond the allowance are charged at the pay-as-you-go catalogue price. Unused checks do not carry over to the next month. White-label branding and API access require Custom (Enterprise), contact sales. New firms receive 2 free checks (£11.98 of credit, at £5.99 per check).

Pricing for each check type is at Pricing and is also shown in the confirmation dialog before you start any check, so users see the cost before committing.

When your balance runs out

If a user tries to start a check and the wallet is empty, the action is blocked with a top-up prompt instead of running a half-complete check. Existing in-flight checks finish, then monitoring re-screens pause until you top up.

Set a low-balance alert at Settings → Notifications → Billing so the Owner gets emailed when balance drops below your chosen threshold.

How you can pay

Top up with a card, or by bank. What you see at the payment page depends on what your bank supports, and the choice is made for you from your card country, so there is nothing to configure.

• Card, including Apple Pay and Google Pay where your device offers them.
• Pay by Bank, which sends you to your own banking app to approve the payment.
• Direct Debit, which is also what automatic top-ups use once a mandate is in place.

After you pay: why the balance may not move straight away

When you finish on the payment page you come back to Certivus and see Payment submitted. That is deliberate wording. At that moment the payment has been sent, not confirmed, and Certivus has not added any credit yet.

• Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay: usually confirmed within a few seconds. Refresh the Balance page and it is there.
• Pay by Bank, Direct Debit, bank transfer: these can take a few working days to clear. Your balance updates on the day the money actually arrives, not the day you approved it.

Credit is only ever added when your bank confirms the payment. That is why the screen does not say your account has been topped up before it has, even though it would be nicer to read.

If a payment has not appeared after a few working days, contact support with the date and amount. Do not pay again: a second payment creates a second charge, and the first one is almost always still in flight.

Automatic top-ups

Set a threshold at Settings → Notifications → Billing and Certivus keeps the wallet above it for you.

If you have saved a card or set up a Direct Debit, the top-up is taken automatically and you are told afterwards. If you have not, you get an email with a payment link instead, so nothing is ever charged without a payment method you have already authorised.

Occasionally your bank asks you to confirm a card payment even when you are not there. When that happens the automatic top-up cannot complete on its own and you will get the email link instead.

Invoices and VAT

All invoices live on Billing → Invoices as PDF, with your firm's VAT number on each one (if supplied in Settings → Firm). UK VAT is added automatically for UK-registered firms.

Charges and resends

A check is charged when the invite is sent, not when the client starts. Checks are not refundable. Resends are free; resending an expired case extends it by seven days instead of creating a new paid check.

Related

• First-run wizard: initial plan setup
• Settings: change card / billing address