Changing your seat count safely
Adding seats is a one-field change. Reducing them has an order of operations, and Roadmap Flow will refuse the change if you get it wrong — deliberately, so nobody loses access without you deciding it.
Use this when
- You are hiring and the pool is nearly full.
- Renewal is coming and you are paying for seats nobody holds.
- People have left and you want the bill to reflect it.
- A seat reduction was refused and you want to know what to do next.
What you need before starting
- Company owner or billing admin. A company admin cannot change seats.
- The current numbers: Purchased and Assigned, both on Seats and billing.
- For a reduction, a decision about which people are being released, and their agreement if that is how your organization works.
Step-by-step flow
To add seats:
- Open Seats and billing.
- Type the new, higher number in Licensed seats.
- Click Update seats. It goes to Stripe with normal proration and takes effect immediately.
To reduce seats — release first, then reduce:
- Open People.
- For each person to release, choose one of:
- Suspend — they keep their record, lose access, and the seat is released straight away. Right for leave and for people you may reinstate.
- Set Licensed seat to Not assigned — they stay a member with no seat. Right for someone who now only needs to be a viewer.
- Remove — ends their membership, releases exactly one seat, drops every team membership. Their own roadmap files are not touched.
- Go back to Seats and billing and confirm Assigned has dropped.
- Type the lower number and click Update seats. The minimum on a Team subscription is five.
If the reduction is refused: you asked for fewer seats than you have licensed people. Roadmap Flow tells you how many must be released and lists the most recently added licensed people as the obvious candidates. Release that many and try again.
If you cannot release them today, click Schedule for next renewal in that dialog. Read what it does: it records your intention in the audit log and gives you the renewal date. It does not queue anything with Stripe. Put that date in your calendar, release the seats before it, and apply the reduction yourself.
What good looks like
- Purchased is equal to Assigned, or a small deliberate margin above it.
- No suspended people are still holding seats — suspension already released them.
- Viewers are unlicensed and therefore free.
- The audit log shows a release, then a reduction, in that order.
Common traps
- Reducing first. It will be refused, which is the product doing its job.
- Reading "Schedule for next renewal" as automatic. It is a recorded reminder.
- Trying to go below five seats.
- Reducing seats and expecting a refund. Stripe prorates according to your subscription terms; the Stripe portal is where that story is told.
- Removing someone in the hope of deleting their roadmaps. Removal ends company membership. Their files are on their computer and stay there.
- Unlicensing the company owner. Roadmap Flow refuses — transfer ownership first.