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Seat-based pricing allows you to sell products where a billing manager purchases a specific number of seats and can assign them to team members. Each seat holder gets their own access to the product benefits, making it perfect for team subscriptions, perpetual licenses, and multi-user products.
Seat-based pricing is ideal for:
  • Team subscriptions where one billing manager pays for multiple users
  • Perpetual team licenses with one-time payment
  • Organizational licenses with per-seat pricing
  • Products with volume-based tiering (e.g., $10/seat for 1-4 seats, $9/seat for 5+)

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Feature Flag

Seat-based pricing is controlled by a feature flag at the organization level. You can enable this feature on the organization settings page.

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How it works

With seat-based pricing, a billing manager purchases a product (subscription or one-time) with a specific number of seats. They can then:
  1. Assign seats to team members via email or external customer ID
  2. Manage seats by resending invitations or revoking access
  3. Scale up by purchasing additional seats (or a new order for one-time products)
  4. Track usage by viewing which seats are claimed, pending, or available
Team members receive an invitation email with a claim link. Once they claim their seat, benefits are automatically granted.

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Subscriptions vs One-Time Purchases

Seat-based pricing works for both recurring subscriptions and one-time purchases:
FeatureSubscriptionsOne-Time Purchases
PaymentRecurring (monthly/yearly)Single payment
Seat DurationActive while subscribedPerpetual (never expire)
Adding SeatsModify subscriptionPurchase new order
BillingRenews automaticallyNo renewals
BenefitsWhile subscription activeForever after claim
Use subscriptions for ongoing team access. Use one-time purchases for perpetual team licenses.

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Creating a seat-based product

1

Create a new product

From your dashboard, navigate to Products and click Create Product.
2

Configure basic settings

Set your product name, description, and media as usual.
3

Select seat-based pricing

Under Pricing, select:
  • Product type: Subscription or One-time
  • Billing cycle (subscriptions only): Monthly or Yearly
  • Pricing type: Seat-based
4

Configure seat tiers

Define your pricing tiers based on seat quantity:
  • Min seats: Minimum number of seats required to purchase
  • Tiers: For each tier, set:
    • Max seats: Upper limit for this tier (leave empty for unlimited)
    • Price per seat: Amount charged per seat in this tier (in cents)
Example tiered pricing:
  • 1-4 seats: $10/seat per month
  • 5-9 seats: $9/seat per month
  • 10+ seats: $8/seat per month
5

Add benefits

Configure the benefits that seat holders will receive. These are only granted when a seat is claimed, not when purchased.
Unlike standard subscriptions, seat-based products do not grant benefits to the billing manager. Benefits are only granted to team members who claim their assigned seats.

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Purchasing seats

When a customer purchases a seat-based product, they specify how many seats they want during checkout. The total amount is calculated based on your tiered pricing. The checkout experience clearly shows:
  • Number of seats being purchased
  • Price per seat based on volume
  • Total amount
  • For subscriptions: recurring billing cycle
  • For one-time: perpetual access indication
Once payment is completed, the billing manager can immediately start assigning seats to their team.
For one-time purchases, each order is independent. If customers want more seats later, they purchase a new order with its own seat pool. All purchased seats remain perpetual.

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Managing seats

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Assigning seats

Billing managers can assign seats through:
  1. Customer Portal: Accessible via the customer portal with billing manager permissions
  2. API: Programmatically assign seats using the Customer Seats API
To assign a seat, provide:
  • Subscription ID (for subscriptions) or Order ID (for one-time purchases)
  • Email address (creates a new customer if needed)
  • External customer ID (optional, for syncing with your system)
  • Customer ID (if customer already exists in Polar)
  • Metadata (optional, up to 10 keys for custom data like role, department)
An invitation email is automatically sent to the recipient with a secure claim link (valid for 24 hours).

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Seat statuses

Each seat can have one of three statuses:
  • Pending: Seat assigned, invitation sent, awaiting claim
  • Claimed: Seat claimed by team member, benefits granted
  • Revoked: Seat revoked, benefits removed, can be reassigned

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Resending invitations

For pending seats, billing managers can resend the invitation email if it was lost or expired.

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Revoking seats

Billing managers can revoke a claimed seat at any time:
  1. Benefits are immediately removed from the seat holder
  2. The seat becomes available for reassignment
  3. The seat holder loses access to all product benefits
  4. The revoked seat can be assigned to a different team member
Revoking a seat does not issue a refund. The billing manager continues to pay for the total number of seats in their subscription.

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Claiming seats

When a team member receives a seat invitation:
  1. They click the claim link in the email
  2. A claim page displays the product details and organization info
  3. They click Claim Seat to accept
  4. Benefits are automatically granted
  5. They receive a customer session token for immediate portal access
  6. They can access their benefits through the customer portal
Claim links are single-use and expire after 24 hours for security. If expired, the billing manager can resend the invitation.

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Scaling seats

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Adding seats

For subscriptions: Billing managers can upgrade their subscription to add more seats:
  1. The new seat count is applied immediately
  2. Prorated charges are calculated for the current billing period
  3. Future renewals bill at the new seat count
  4. New seats can be assigned right away
If adding seats moves to a different pricing tier, the new per-seat rate applies to all seats, not just the additional ones. For one-time purchases: Billing managers purchase a new order with additional seats:
  1. Create a new checkout for the same product with desired seat quantity
  2. Once paid, a new independent order is created
  3. Each order has its own seat pool
  4. All seats remain perpetual across all orders

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Reducing seats

For subscriptions: To reduce seats, the billing manager should:
  1. Revoke seats until the desired count is reached
  2. Update the subscription to reflect the lower seat count
  3. The change takes effect at the next renewal
You cannot reduce subscription seats below the number of currently claimed seats. Revoke seats first before reducing the subscription seat count.
For one-time purchases: Seats cannot be reduced or refunded as they are perpetual. The billing manager can:
  1. Revoke unwanted seats to make them unassigned
  2. The seats remain available for future assignment
  3. No refund is issued for revoked seats

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API Integration

Seat-based pricing provides full API support for:
  • Creating seat-based products with tiered pricing
  • Checking out with seat quantities
  • Assigning seats programmatically
  • Listing seats and their statuses
  • Revoking seats
SDK Version RequirementTo use seat-based pricing features, ensure you have the latest version of the Polar SDK installed:
  • TypeScript/JavaScript: npm install @polar-sh/sdk@latest
  • Python: pip install --upgrade polar-sdk
Older SDK versions may not include seat-based pricing support.
See the Customer Seats API Reference for complete documentation.

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Example: Assign a seat (subscription)

await polar.customerSeats.assign({
  subscription_id: "sub_123",
  email: "engineer@company.com",
  metadata: {
    department: "Engineering",
    role: "Developer"
  }
});

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Example: Assign a seat (one-time purchase)

await polar.customerSeats.assign({
  order_id: "order_456",
  email: "engineer@company.com",
  metadata: {
    department: "Engineering",
    role: "Developer"
  }
});

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Example: List seats for subscription

const seats = await polar.customerSeats.list({
  subscription_id: "sub_123"
});

console.log(`Available: ${seats.available_seats}/${seats.total_seats}`);

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Example: List seats for order

const seats = await polar.customerSeats.list({
  order_id: "order_456"
});

console.log(`Available: ${seats.available_seats}/${seats.total_seats}`);

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Webhooks

Seat-based pricing triggers webhooks for both subscriptions and orders: Subscription events:
  • subscription.created - When seat-based subscription is purchased
  • subscription.updated - When seat count changes
  • subscription.canceled - When subscription is cancelled
Order events:
  • order.created - When seat-based one-time purchase is completed
  • order.updated - When order is updated
Seat and benefit events (both types):
  • benefit_grant.created - When a seat is claimed and benefits granted
  • benefit_grant.revoked - When a seat is revoked and benefits removed
For both subscriptions and one-time purchases, benefit_grant.created events are triggered per seat claim, not at purchase time.

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Best Practices

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Use tiered pricing strategically

Structure your tiers to incentivize volume:
  • Lower per-seat prices as quantity increases
  • Create tiers at natural team sizes (5, 10, 25, etc.)
  • Consider flat pricing for very large teams

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Leverage metadata

Use seat metadata to store:
  • Team member roles
  • Departments or cost centers

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Monitor seat utilization

Track how many purchased seats are actually claimed to identify:
  • Organizations that may need more seats
  • Unused capacity that could be reduced
  • Patterns in team adoption

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Communicate clearly

Ensure product pages clearly explain:
  • The billing manager will not get direct access
  • Seats must be assigned to team members
  • Pricing structure and volume discounts
  • Seat assignment and claiming process

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Limitations

  • Seats must be assigned individually (no bulk import via dashboard, use API instead)
  • Claim links expire after 24 hours
  • Billing manager does not receive product benefits
  • Maximum of 1,000 seats per subscription
  • Metadata limited to 10 keys and 1KB total size per seat
  • Usage-based pricing with shared emails: If you sell to multiple businesses and different businesses assign seats to the same email address (e.g., “john@gmail.com”), and usage-based pricing is enabled, separate meters should be created for each business to properly segregate usage. This is a rare scenario since employees from different businesses typically don’t share the same email address.