Online subscriptions

Subscribing online is handled by Polar, which is the merchant of record: it takes the payment, handles VAT, and appears as the seller on your invoice.

Plans

Both are available monthly or yearly, and licensing is per Azure DevOps organisation, not per user. Everyone in the organisation is covered.

Activating

You are emailed a licence key after checkout. Paste it into Organisation settings → Charter → License and select Activate. The licence applies immediately to everyone in the organisation, and tabs already open pick it up on their next refresh.

One subscription, one organisation

A subscription activates against a single Azure DevOps organisation. The first activation binds it; pasting the same key into a second organisation is refused with a message saying so.

This is not a trap — it is self-service. To move a subscription to a different organisation, sign in to the Polar customer portal, open your purchase, and deactivate the existing activation. The key can then be activated somewhere else. Rotating the key does not release an activation; deactivation is the step that does.

You sign in with the email address you paid with — there is no password. The portal is also where you update your card, download invoices and cancel.

Going over the Standard limit

If an organisation on Standard exceeds 20 projects, Charter drops to view-only and tells you why. It does not lock you out, and it does not silently stop applying changes.

If a subscription lapses

A cancelled or expired subscription is refused at the next check and Charter returns to view-only. Configuration already applied is untouched.

If Charter cannot reach Polar at all, it keeps working on the strength of the last successful check for up to seven days rather than penalising you for a network problem. Past that it stops vouching for a subscription it cannot see, and viewing stays available.

Having trouble? See activation problems.