Per-seat billing means your software bill is your headcount. One person, one seat, one line on the invoice. The total moves when the team does. That’s the whole idea, and it’s why a five-person firm can budget a year of software on the back of an envelope.
The money leaks somewhere else. Three separate things get treated as one thing. There’s the person who works here. There’s the seat that person occupies. There’s the billing period that seat is paid for. Those three come apart at the moment the team changes. The space between them is where a practice ends up paying every month for somebody who left in March. It’s an easy thing to fix once you can see it.
So this page is about the mechanics rather than the money. What a seat is. When it starts and stops costing you. Who’s allowed to change the number. Where the model fits a small firm badly. If the question you came with is what the number is, what an AI email client costs sets out the going rates across the category and how to price a firm for a year.
What counts as a seat
A seat is a person. One human being is one seat, however many devices, mailboxes, logins or roles they have.
Here’s the practical version. One person working on a laptop, a phone and a tablet is one seat, because that’s one person. Two people taking turns on one laptop is two seats, because that’s two people. The thing being billed is the human being. Every vendor selling this way has landed on some word for it. Seat, license, member, user, subscriber. Same thing.
Point’s terms put it as plainly as a contract can: “‘Authorized User’ or ‘User’ means an individual authorized by Customer to access or use the Services under Customer’s Account or workspace” (section 2, checked September 7, 2026). The word doing the work is individual.
One question is worth asking any vendor before you sign, and almost nobody asks it. Is the person the only thing being counted? A subscription can be metered on more than one thing at once. The seat is just the one that shows on the pricing page. Point’s terms define a “Service Unit” as “a usage unit identified in the Price List or Order, such as a User, connected inbox, connected calendar, message processed, automation action, storage unit, API call, or other unit”. Section 8.2 says Point “may measure usage using reasonable methodologies, including by counting Users, connected inboxes, connected calendars, connected accounts, messages processed, automation actions, AI processing events, notifications, API calls, indexed storage, file storage, or other Service Units” (checked September 7, 2026).
That’s standard drafting for a software contract rather than anything sinister, and it’s worth reading for what it tells you. A partner with two mailboxes connected can cost more than the seat count suggests. So can a firm running a heavy volume of automated work. Ask what the plan you’re buying actually meters. Ask before there’s an invoice to argue about.
Two more things are worth pinning down. Both trip people up.
A seat and a login are two different things. How somebody gets in sits apart from whether they’re counted, and at Point the way in is a link sent to an email address rather than a password. Signing in without a password is the whole of that subject. It matters here for one reason: the address is the account. A seat and an address travel together.
A seat and a mailbox are two different things as well. A shared address like info@ or billing@ is a queue several people work, rather than a person. Whether it needs a seat of its own has a different answer at every vendor. Ask while you’re still counting seats. The cost guide covers what to count before you buy.
What happens to the seat when the person leaves
Somebody hands in their notice. Three things have to end. In most firms one of them happens on its own, and the other two wait for a person to do them.
Their membership ends. They stop being a User of your workspace, and their access goes with it.
Their mailbox closes. That happens at Google or Microsoft rather than in the software you bought, and it’s the step that actually shuts the door. Signing in without a password explains why the mailbox and the membership have to end in the same week, and why either one alone leaves a way in.
The seat comes off the count. This one is nobody’s job. It happens in a different screen from the other two. It costs real money when it gets skipped.
Microsoft’s own documentation shows how separate those last two are. For a Microsoft 365 business subscription, “You can’t reduce the number of licenses for your subscription if all licenses are currently assigned to users. To reduce the number of licenses, first unassign one or more licenses from users, then remove the licenses from the subscription” (checked September 7, 2026). Unassigning a license and removing it are two acts. Do both. A firm that does the first and stops has cut off the person and still pays for the seat, indefinitely, with nothing on screen to suggest anything is wrong. Every vendor works roughly this way. Microsoft just says it out loud.
Which gives you the one habit this whole page is really recommending. Once a quarter, and always before a renewal, put the seat count on the invoice next to the list of people who work here. It takes two minutes. It’s the one thing that catches a seat that outlived its person. A per-seat product stays quiet about an idle seat, because from the vendor’s side an idle seat and a busy one look identical.
Adding a seat is instant, removing one waits
If you take one mechanic away from this page, take this one. It’s plain arithmetic rather than a trick played on customers. Subscriptions are paid in advance, and the rest follows from that.
Adding is immediate everywhere. A vendor taking more money is glad to start today. Microsoft says so directly: “The payment method associated with your subscription or billing profile is charged as soon as you buy more licenses for a subscription. The licenses are immediately available for you to assign to users” (checked September 7, 2026). Point’s terms say “Subscription fees are charged in advance unless the Order states otherwise” (section 9.2, checked September 7, 2026). The new person can start on Monday.
Removing is where the calendar takes over. The rules differ enormously by vendor and by the plan you’re on. Here are three real examples, all read off the vendor’s own documentation on September 7, 2026, at Google’s comparison of its two Workspace payment plans and Microsoft’s page on buying and removing licenses:
- Google Workspace, Flexible Plan. Add or remove user accounts at any time. “You pay only for the accounts that you have during a month.”
- Google Workspace, Annual/Fixed-Term Plan. Buy more licenses whenever the team grows. “You can reduce licenses only when renewing your plan at the end of the contract.” Leaving early costs you the rest of the term: “If you cancel your subscription before the renewal date, you’re charged for the remaining balance of your contract and no refunds are issued.” Google is clear about what you get in exchange. The Annual plan “offers the lowest per user per month price compared to the Flexible Plan.”
- Microsoft 365 business subscriptions. Under a Microsoft Customer Agreement billing account, “you can buy more licenses for your subscription at any time. However, you can only remove licenses from your subscription if it’s within seven days of buying or renewing your subscription.” Miss the window and “the change appears on the first invoice you receive after the subscription renewal date.”
Read those three together and the pattern shows. Up is instant. Down is instant, or annual, or a seven-day window you didn’t know was running.
Point sits at the ordinary end of that range. Fees are charged in advance. “Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid Subscription Period unless Point states otherwise or applicable law requires otherwise” (section 9.6). “Except as expressly stated in the Agreement or required by law, fees are non-refundable and non-creditable” (section 9.7). Paid subscriptions renew on their own. The terms say “Paid subscriptions renew automatically for the renewal period stated in the Order or checkout flow, or if none is stated, for a period equal to the expiring Subscription Period, unless Customer cancels before renewal” (section 9.4, all checked September 7, 2026).
One distinction inside all this costs small firms more than any other, so it gets its own sentence. Paying monthly isn’t the same as committing monthly. Microsoft’s cancellation page says it in one line: “If you have an annual subscription and are paying monthly, you’re charged each month for the remainder of your subscription term” (checked September 7, 2026). An annual term paid in twelve installments looks exactly like a monthly subscription on your card statement. It behaves like an annual one the moment you try to shrink it. Before you sign anything, get an answer to a single question in these words: if I remove a seat today, on what date does it stop being billed?
The trade here is a fair one, and it’s worth naming rather than resenting. Annual terms are cheaper because the vendor gets certainty. You pay for that with a floor that holds until renewal. Monthly terms cost more and bend. Which one is right depends on whether your headcount is more likely to rise or fall over the next year. The cost guide works through that arithmetic with real numbers.
Why your second invoice is bigger than your first
Two ordinary things confuse almost everybody the first time. Both are arithmetic rather than error, so the invoice in front of you is very likely right.
Proration. Somebody joins on the eighteenth. You’re charged for the part of the current period they’re actually there, so the first charge is a partial one. The next invoice carries their full seat, because by then they’ve been there the whole period. The only thing that changed is the number of days. Microsoft describes the mechanic exactly, for one of its billing account types. On a license change, “the previous charge for the original number of licenses is deducted on your next invoice. We add a prorated charge for the time period with the original number of licenses and add a charge for the new license count” (checked September 7, 2026). Three lines on one invoice, and one seat’s worth of change.
Tax. The number on your card is the number on the pricing page plus tax. Point’s terms are standard here. “Fees exclude taxes, duties, levies, and governmental charges unless stated otherwise. Customer is responsible for all applicable taxes other than taxes based on Point’s net income” (section 9.9, checked September 7, 2026). Whether a software subscription is taxable at all depends on which state you’re in. That’s a question for whoever handles your sales tax rather than something to work out from a vendor’s help page.
Here’s one reassurance in the other direction, because it’s the fear people bring to a subscription that renews on its own. A period you’ve already paid for keeps the price you paid. Point’s terms say “Prices for a paid Subscription Period are fixed for that Subscription Period unless the Order states otherwise” (section 9.3, checked September 7, 2026). Any change applies at renewal or to new orders. That’s the normal arrangement in this category, and it’s worth confirming in writing with any vendor you’re about to give a card to.
Can two people share one seat?
Some firms consider it. Two part-timers, one seat, half the cost. It’s a worse idea than it looks, and the reasons that matter sit outside the price.
Start with the commercial one anyway. It’s short. Point’s terms close the door on the version that involves people outside the firm: “Customer’s clients and other third parties may not access the Services under Customer’s subscription unless they are authorized Users or hold their own valid subscription” (section 4.1, checked September 7, 2026). Handing a client a seat to look through is a breach of contract rather than a saving.
The better arguments are operational.
A shared seat means a shared way in. The address is the account. Two people on one seat means two people reading one mailbox, and that mailbox is the key to the account. Everything in signing in without a password about role addresses applies here with more force, because now the account has a bill attached to it.
A shared seat erases the record. Point writes down every action taken on your behalf, in order, in plain language. The activity log behind every action turns “who approved that” into a question with an answer. Put two people behind one seat and every row in that log names the seat rather than the person. That’s the moment a record stops being evidence. For a firm handling client work, that’s the real cost of the saving.
A shared seat means one set of settings. Each kind of work sits at its own level. Point stays out of the work, or prepares something and waits, or handles it. The autonomy dial is the whole subject. A shared seat holds one position of that dial for two people. They have different judgment, different clients and different tolerance for being acted for. One position has to cover both, and it fits neither.
There’s an honest version of this, and it’s the one where nobody shares. A genuinely part-time person gets their own seat. Very few vendors sell a half seat, and that’s a real cost for a firm with a bookkeeper who comes in on Tuesdays. Price it rather than working around it.
When per-seat is the wrong shape for your firm
Per-seat billing is good at one thing above all, and that’s predictability. Your bill is headcount times a price. You can work it out a year ahead. Every month costs the same whoever had a busy week. For most small professional firms that’s worth more than a cheaper model on paper, because the thing that wrecks a small budget is variance rather than cost.
Three shapes fit it badly. They’re worth spotting in your own firm before you buy rather than after.
Seasonal teams. An accounting practice takes on three extra sets of hands from January through April. On an annual term those seats usually stay on the invoice all twelve months, so you buy a year of seat for four months of work. If your year has that shape, the plan terms matter more than the seat price, and getting your inbox ready before January is where the seasonal version of this planning belongs.
Very uneven use. Two people live in email all day and six open it twice a week. That’s the classic bad fit. Per-seat charges the same for both, so you pay the heavy-user price for the light users. If that’s genuinely the shape of your team, you’re buying a per-seat product at its worst angle. Something priced by usage or sold as a flat firm fee may serve you better. That’s a real answer, and it’s worth checking before you compare feature lists.
People who only need to look. An outside bookkeeper reads one report a month. A silent partner wants visibility and no work. Both still tend to cost what a full-time user costs, because read-only pricing is rare across the category. If your firm has two or three people in that position, count them and see what it does to the total before you treat them as free.
The shape per-seat fits well is the ordinary one. A stable team of two to twenty. Everybody in the inbox daily. Headcount changing once or twice a year. If that’s you, the model is doing what it’s meant to, and the only discipline it asks for is the quarterly count.
Who is allowed to change the number
In a small firm this usually goes unsaid, and it’s the last thing to say out loud before you finish here.
Point’s terms give it to Admins. “For Organization Customers, Admins may manage Users, connected accounts, workspace settings, data retention settings if offered, billing, plan selection, and other configuration. Customer is responsible for Admin actions and for determining which Users may access Customer Data” (section 3.3, checked September 7, 2026). Read the second sentence twice. An Admin adding four seats is the firm adding four seats, and the firm answers for it.
So one named person owns the invoice, and everybody knows who it is. In a two-partner firm that tends to be whoever’s card is on file. Nobody has ever said it out loud, and it works until the week it stops. When you stop having to ask who has it is about the same problem in the inbox. The fix is the same. Ambiguity is what costs you, rather than the work.
Two smaller things belong here.
The work stays when the seat goes. Removing a person’s seat removes their access. The firm’s mail, threads, tasks and history stay where they are. Point’s terms say “Customer retains all right, title, and interest in Customer Content” (section 13.2, checked September 7, 2026). The organization owns what was done in it, and it stays after the person who did it has gone.
The billing record outlives the seat by years. Point’s privacy policy keeps billing, tax and transaction records “As needed for tax, accounting, audit, and legal obligations, often up to seven years or longer if required” (checked September 7, 2026). That’s normal. It’s the same obligation your own practice is under. Removing a seat ends the billing and leaves the record of it behind. For most firms that’s a convenience rather than a concern, because the invoice history is still there when your accountant asks about it.
Running a second business is a separate question, because the seat, the people and the isolation all work differently once there are two organizations. Running two businesses from one login is where that belongs, and keeping one business isolated from another is what the separation actually consists of.
What a seat covers at Point
Point is sold the way the category is sold. A seat per person. Seats go on when somebody joins and come back down when the team gets smaller. The benefits page puts it in one line: “Grow your plan a seat at a time as the team grows, and step it back down just as easily.”
Point is in private beta, so there’s no published price list at the moment, and access comes through the waitlist rather than a checkout page. That’s a real answer to “what does it cost”, and a limited one. If you need a number to compare against today, what an AI email client costs has the published rates from across the category.
Here it is in the terms this page has been using. On the day a seat starts, that person connects the Gmail or Microsoft 365 account they already use. They set their own level for how much Point handles for them. On the day the seat ends, their access ends and their work stays with the firm. In between, the seat is a line on an invoice that sits there quietly, which is the whole reason the count drifts. Everything a seat covers, and there’s a good deal of it, is set out on benefits.
Common questions
What exactly counts as one seat?
One person. Devices, mailboxes and job titles sit outside the count. Somebody using a laptop and a phone occupies one seat, and two people sharing a laptop occupy two. Point’s terms define a User as “an individual authorized by Customer to access or use the Services under Customer’s Account or workspace” (section 2, checked September 7, 2026). It’s worth confirming separately whether a plan meters anything besides people, since a subscription can count connected mailboxes, messages processed or automation actions alongside the seat count.
If somebody leaves halfway through the month, do we get money back?
Usually not, and that’s the normal arrangement rather than a bad one. Point’s terms say fees are “non-refundable and non-creditable” except where stated or required by law (section 9.7). Cancellation “takes effect at the end of the current paid Subscription Period” (section 9.6, both checked September 7, 2026). Other vendors range from generous to strict on the same question. Google’s Flexible Plan bills only for “the accounts that you have during a month”, while its Annual/Fixed-Term Plan lets you “reduce licenses only when renewing your plan at the end of the contract” (checked September 7, 2026). The practical move is to ask on what date a removed seat stops being billed, and to remove it the same week the person goes.
Is monthly billing the same as a monthly commitment?
No, and this is the distinction that costs small firms the most. An annual contract paid in twelve installments looks identical to a month-to-month subscription on a card statement. Microsoft states the consequence plainly: “If you have an annual subscription and are paying monthly, you’re charged each month for the remainder of your subscription term” (checked September 7, 2026). Ask what the term is, rather than the payment frequency.
Can we buy fewer seats than we have people and take turns?
You can usually make it work technically, and it costs you more than it saves. Two people behind one seat means two people reading the mailbox that opens the account. It means one position of the autonomy dial covering two people’s judgment. It means an activity log that names a seat at the moment you need it to name a person. Point’s terms also rule out the version involving people outside the firm: “Customer’s clients and other third parties may not access the Services under Customer’s subscription unless they are authorized Users or hold their own valid subscription” (section 4.1, checked September 7, 2026).
Does a shared address like info@ need a seat of its own?
It depends on the vendor. This is one of the few counting questions where each vendor answers differently, so ask it directly before you sign. Ask early, because a shared queue can be a whole extra person’s worth of cost at one vendor and free at another. What an AI email client costs covers the seats a firm tends to forget when it prices a year.
What happens to somebody’s email and tasks when their seat is removed?
The access ends. The work stays with the firm. Point’s terms say “Customer retains all right, title, and interest in Customer Content” (section 13.2, checked September 7, 2026), so threads, tasks and history belong to the organization rather than to the person who happened to handle them. The record of the seat stays too, and the billing record specifically is kept for tax and audit purposes, “often up to seven years or longer if required”.
Can the price go up on a plan we have already paid for?
The period you’ve paid for keeps its price. Point’s terms say “Prices for a paid Subscription Period are fixed for that Subscription Period unless the Order states otherwise” (section 9.3, checked September 7, 2026), with any change applying at renewal or to new orders. Subscriptions renew on their own unless you cancel first (section 9.4), so the date to keep in your calendar is the renewal date.
What does a seat cost at Point?
There’s no published figure. Point is in private beta, pricing is per seat, and access comes through the waitlist rather than a checkout page. If you’re building a budget today, use the published rates in what an AI email client costs as your band, and confirm the actual number before you commit to anything.
The short version
Per-seat billing is your headcount, priced. It’s easy to budget and easy to leak from, and the leak is always in the same place. A seat sits on the invoice after the person is gone. Three facts keep that from happening. Adding a seat is instant and removing one waits. Paying monthly is a different thing from committing monthly. Unassigning somebody leaves the seat on the count until you remove it as well. Ask any vendor one question before you sign, in these words: if I remove a seat today, on what date does it stop being billed. Then put a quarterly reminder in the calendar to read the seat count on the invoice next to the list of people who work here. That habit is worth more than any negotiation over the price of a seat. Point is per-seat, with seats added and stepped back down as the team changes, and no published price during the private beta. What a seat covers is on benefits, and the waitlist is at Point.