# Account locking
This document explains the account locking feature from a technical perspective. Account locking happens when users have outgrown their accounts, and despite e-mail and dashboard alerts, don't upgrade after a grace period.

## Usage alert and grace period
The `Plausible.Workers.CheckUsage` daily background job alerts users they have reached their subscription limits. This runs for outgrown users one day after their last billing date.

When users reach the number of sites limit, or use >110% of their pageview limit for 2 consecutive billing cycles, the background job sends them an e-mail alert. The e-mail suggests a suitable subscription plan based on usage. For enterprise users, only an internal e-mail is sent to `enterprise@plausible.io`.

The user is given 7 days to upgrade their account after the alert, and this is called grace period. The background starts this grace period by adding a `users.grace_period` JSON to the user record:

```json
// SELECT grace_period FROM users LIMIT 1

{
  "id": "1aa855bd-022d-4dfc-b572-6853442c3f19",
  "is_over": true,
  "end_date": "2022-03-09",
  "allowance_required": 100,
  "manual_lock": false
}
```


During this period, the following alert pops up on the dashboard for both standard and enterprise users:

![](https://files.gitbook.com/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FN4GLWMwCrTuTcf31kYE9%2Fuploads%2FmsLk4CdSHKzU8TbfvaPq%2FPasted%20image%2020220909120933.png?alt=media&token=76f247a1-28cf-4d88-a0fa-06547268aee9)

If the user upgrades to a suitable plan, the grace period is removed (check `Plausible.Billing.subscription_updated/1`), otherwise [Account locking](#Account\ locking) follows. For enterprise users, the grace period has a manual lock flag set to true, meaning enterprise accounts can only be locked/unlocked through the internal CRM.

## Account locking
The grace period is checked daily by the `Plausible.Workers.LockSites` background job.

For users that expired their grace period, `sites.locked` is is set to `true`, restricting access to dashboards. This does not stop event ingestion, so users can have their stats up to date when they finally upgrade.

![](https://files.gitbook.com/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FN4GLWMwCrTuTcf31kYE9%2Fuploads%2FAplurtG7UsGXMskZOlUO%2FPasted%20image%2020220909122622.png?alt=media&token=5c8156d7-d4a7-4c99-8bac-2f1e9b7d4cae)