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Purpose

The Group Billing page allows administrators to manage shared credit billing for a specific website group. By enabling billing on a group, administrators can purchase and assign credits that are shared across all websites within that group. This solves the problem of micromanaging credits for individual websites by letting them draw from a shared group pool once their individual credits are depleted. The page also provides a view of the group’s credit usage, remaining balances, and group-specific invoice history.

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What’s on the page

  • Billing overview header: Displays the “Group credits” title alongside an info icon. Subtext explains that credits are shared across all websites in the group. If billing is not yet set up, this area prompts the user to enable it.
  • Websites in group: A small strip of logo avatars representing the websites assigned to the group, alongside a count of total websites. Hovering over a logo shows the website’s name or URL in a tooltip.
  • Action buttons: In the top right, buttons to “Manage subscription” (for certain custom-billed groups) and “Add credits” (or “Add more credits” if a balance exists).
  • Group credits remaining: A visual breakdown of credit balances split into two distinct areas:
    • Group credits: Credits assigned specifically to this group.
    • Organization credits: The broader, organization-wide credit pool that websites in this group can also draw from.
    • Credit buckets: Each section displays individual cards for different credit cadences (e.g., “Monthly credits”, “One-time credits”, “Quarterly credits”, or a fallback of “Recurring credits”).
    • Credit usage progress bars: A horizontal progress bar for each bucket, showing 0-100% used. The bar turns orange when 66% or more of the bucket is consumed. Below the bar, the exact “used” and “left” (or “over”) amounts are listed, alongside the next reset date if applicable.
  • Group invoices section: Displays “Outstanding invoices” (open, pending, or past due) and “Invoice history” (past paid, void, or uncollectible invoices). History is organized into collapsible sections by month.
  • How group credits work dialog: Opened via the info icon next to the “Group credits” title. It explains:
    • Credit priority: “Website credits are checked first. When depleted, usage falls back to group credits.”
    • Monthly credits: “Auto-renew at the start of each billing period. Unused monthly credits do not roll over.”
    • One-time credits: “Purchased once and consumed until depleted. They don’t renew.”

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What you can do here

  • Enable billing: If the group does not have billing enabled yet, clicking the “Enable billing” button sets up a billing profile so the group can hold shared credits and receive invoices.
  • Add credits / Add more credits: Opens a dialog to purchase credit packages.
    • One-time / Monthly tabs: Toggles between purchasing a one-time credit package or a recurring monthly package.
    • Quantity +/- steppers: Adjusts the number of credit packages to purchase (from 1 up to 50). The dialog updates the “Credits to add” and “Total cost” summary dynamically.
    • Cancel: Closes the dialog without making a purchase.
    • Add {N} credits: Confirms the purchase. For standard customers, this redirects to a Stripe checkout page. For customers on custom partner billing, this adds the credits directly and displays a success toast.
  • Manage subscription: Opens the external Stripe subscription portal in a new tab. This is only visible for specific partner groups on custom billing plans.
  • View organization billing: A link at the bottom of the “Organization credits” section that navigates to the main organization billing settings page.
  • View ‘How group credits work’: By clicking the info icon next to the heading.
  • Try again: If the invoice section encounters a loading error, clicking this button attempts to fetch the invoices again.

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Data shown

  • Group credits: The balance of credits purchased specifically for this website group.
  • Organization credits: The shared pool of credits available to the entire organization, which these group websites will use if their individual and group-level credits run out.
  • Websites: The specific tracked content websites currently assigned to this group.
  • Invoices: The billing history and outstanding charges billed directly to this group’s billing profile.

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Common workflows

  1. Enable billing for a new group
    1. An administrator opens the group’s billing page and sees the “Group billing not enabled” message.
    2. They click the “Enable billing” button.
    3. The system provisions a billing profile for the group, and the page updates to show the standard credit balances and invoice sections.
  2. Purchase additional credits
    1. Click the “Add credits” (or “Add more credits”) button in the top right.
    2. Select either the “One-time” or “Monthly” tab (if available).
    3. Use the + and - stepper buttons to choose how many credit packages to buy.
    4. Review the total credits and calculated cost at the bottom of the dialog.
    5. Click “Add {N} credits” to proceed to checkout or finalize the purchase.
  3. Review credit balances and invoices
    1. Navigate to the page to view the progress bars under “Group credits”.
    2. Scroll down to the “Organization credits” section to see the broader pool’s health.
    3. Check “Outstanding invoices” for any unpaid bills, or expand a month under “Invoice history” to download past receipts.
  4. Manage custom-billing subscription
    1. If the group is on a supported partner custom-billing plan, click “Manage subscription”.
    2. A secure, short-lived link is generated, and the Stripe subscription portal opens in a new tab for payment method management.

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Empty, loading, and error states

  • Empty:
    • If billing is not yet enabled for the group, a card reads “Group billing not enabled” with an explanation and an “Enable billing” button.
    • If there are no group-specific credits, the text “No credits assigned to this group yet” appears under the Group credits heading.
    • If there are no invoices, the sections display “No outstanding invoices” and “No invoice history yet”.
  • Loading: While fetching billing details, skeleton placeholders render for the credits header, bucket cards, and invoices. Screen readers announce “Loading credits” and “Loading invoices”.
  • Error: If the billing service experiences a transient failure or outage while loading invoices, an “Unable to load invoices” alert is shown alongside a “Try again” button.
  • Linked from: The specific Group settings/detail page, or the Organization groups management page.
  • Links to:
    • The main organization billing page (/settings/billing) via the “View organization billing” link.
    • External Stripe checkout flows for standard credit purchases.
    • External Stripe customer portal for managing custom subscriptions.
    • Redirects to the group overview page if the user lacks billing permissions, or the main dashboard if they have no access to the group at all.

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Common support questions

  • Why don’t I see the group billing page? To view and manage group billing, you must be a member of the organization with the “billing write” capability. If you lack this permission, navigating to the page will automatically redirect you back to the group overview.
  • How do group credits interact with website credits? Credit consumption follows a priority order. Athena first checks if the individual website has credits. If those are depleted, it falls back to the “Group credits” pool. If the group pool is also empty, it will finally draw from the shared “Organization credits” pool.
  • Why are my group and organization credits shown separately instead of as a total? Group credits and Organization credits are deliberately kept separate. Summing them together could misleadingly imply that the group “owns” the organization-wide money, when in reality, the organization pool is shared with websites outside the group as well.