What happens when my site is read-only or paused?
A failed payment gives 14 days read-only, a cancelled plan 90. What stops, what keeps working, and how a payment brings everything back.
Nothing in VeloCMS gets switched off the day a payment goes wrong. A site moves down a short ladder, and every step back up is a payment away. Here's what each step means for you and for your readers.
The three states
- Active. Everything works.
- Read-only. The site stays online for readers, but publishing and editing are paused. A banner in your admin explains why, and after a cancellation it shows the date the site will be paused if you do nothing.
- Paused. When the read-only window ends without a payment, visitors see a 'This site is paused' notice over a blurred copy of your site, search engines are asked to skip it, and your dashboard shows only the payment screen.
How long does read-only last?
- A payment fails, for example a declined card or a failed first charge on day 15: 14 days. The email names the exact end date, and a Stripe retry doesn't move it.
- You cancel, or your subscription ends: 90 days from the day it ends.
If a payment failure comes first, the site gets the 14 days, and Stripe closing the subscription later doesn't stretch it to 90.
What stops while a site is read-only
- Publishing and editing posts and pages, and changes to settings, themes, plugins and your team.
- Uploading images and files.
- Importing members from a CSV.
- Scheduled posts. They wait, still marked as scheduled, and go live soon after your site is active again.
- Scheduled newsletters and newsletter automations. A scheduled newsletter that is more than 24 hours past its send time when you come back isn't sent automatically, so check it and send or reschedule it yourself.
- Appointment reminder emails.
What keeps working
- Your public site. Readers can still read everything, and your custom domain keeps resolving.
- Your admin dashboard, in read-only form, including Admin → Billing so you can pay or change plan.
- Admin → Settings → Data Export, so you can take a full copy (see "How do I export all my site data?").
- Deleting your site. Erasure isn't an edit, so you can delete a read-only site without paying again (see "Deleting your account and data (GDPR right to erasure)").
What changes when the site is paused
Nothing is deleted. Visitors see the paused notice instead of your pages, at the same address they always used, and search engines are asked not to index the site. The dashboard is locked behind the payment screen, which is also why export and delete are out of reach at that point. Reactivate first, or email [email protected] if all you want is your data erased.
How do I get everything back?
Pay. While the site is read-only, open Admin → Billing. Once it's paused, the payment screen is the first thing you see. Resume the subscription or pick a plan, and full access returns on your next request. Your content, settings, members and domain are exactly as you left them. If a card failed, updating it in Admin → Billing is enough: the read-only window ends when the payment goes through.
Read-only can also mean a deletion is pending. In that case you don't need a payment: cancel the deletion instead (see "Deleting your account and data (GDPR right to erasure)").