Free vs Starter envelope math

Inkpacket’s envelope arithmetic is easy to misread if you assume a paid lane always buys more volume. It does not. Free allows 5 packets a month. Starter is 20 envelopes — more than Free — plus 3 published Web Forms versus Free’s 1. Growth is 100. Agency is 500. The number that stops a send is the monthly cap, not the price on the card.

The cap itself is the Free plan 5-packet cap. The lane chooser is choosing a plan: Free vs paid lanes. This guide is the subtraction: why 20 can be the honest Starter number, what you actually get instead of volume, and why checkout staying closed means you never spend a 20-envelope month unless someone later unlocks charging.

Pricing lists the same ladder. Desk help is Docs. The FAQ says paid does not always mean more envelopes. Ask Inkpacket for envelope arithmetic to open this article.

The two numbers that matter

Every live send shares one monthly envelope counter: desk send, each unique bulk-send row, each Web Form fill, and POST /api/v1/packets/:id/send. Create without send does not spend it. A reminder, resend, correct, or void does not mint a second envelope. One envelope with several signers is still one envelope.

• Free: 5 packets a month, 1 published Web Form, 1 published seat (planning).
• Starter: 20 envelopes, 3 published Web Forms, 3 published seats (planning).
• Growth: 100 envelopes, 10 published Web Forms, 10 published seats (planning).
• Agency: 500 envelopes, 25 published Web Forms, 50 published seats (planning).

Starter’s 20 is not a typo and not a temporary discount. Extra published forms are what Starter grants. If you need a second and third public slug and you send fewer than twenty envelopes a month, the math can still favor that lane — once checkout is real. Until then the workspace stays on Free’s 5.

What Starter is not

• Starter lists more envelopes than Free (20 versus 5).
• Not a seat-cap unlock. Invite does not refuse when a workspace is full.
• Not a feature lock. The same desk runs on Free.
• Not a waiver of HTTP 402 ENVELOPE_LIMIT. The cap still fires; it just fires at 20 if that plan were live.

Starter lists more envelopes than Free

Only one published Web Form lives on Free. A second publish returns HTTP 402 and names the plan limit. Disable a form you no longer need, or wait for a paid lane that actually charges. Starter’s three published forms are the reason that lane exists. They are not extran envelopes. Publish a Web Form from a template and More on Web Forms are that gate.

If your month is a 40-row bulk job plus a handful of one-offs, neither Free’s 5 nor Starter’s 20 fits. Preview the unique-address count before you start the job — bulk send CSV column mapping. Lists burn the cap faster on any lane. Do not pick Starter because a list felt “professional.”

The counter does not fork

There is not a desk bucket and an API bucket. A Web Form fill is a sent envelope. An API send is a sent envelope. Free at 5 packets a month is the live cap those paths share today. Hitting it returns HTTP 402 ENVELOPE_LIMIT. Send opens again at the start of the next UTC month. Access-code 429 is a PIN lockout, not this cap. Each API token allows 120 requests per minute per token. Over that limit, /api/v1 returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header. Inkpacket does not send X-RateLimit headers.

The month is UTC, not your local calendar

Send opens again at the start of the next UTC month. A late-evening send on the last local day may already be next month on the counter — or still this month. Do not clone an envelope at 11:50 p.m. hoping the 402 will vanish. Wait, or stay on the envelopes you already have. Void, correct, and resend still run on those ids.

Checkout is not open

Billing is published, not charging. Listed prices are proposals. Checkout and the customer portal are not open. Workspaces start on Free and stay on Free until charging is unlocked. Opening Billing does not move you to Starter. Collecting a payment on an envelope does not either — that request is a different state. Payments honesty is the charge that is not a charge.

Plan the month around 5 real sends. Do not plan it around a 20-envelope lane you cannot check out. If someone later turns charging on, Starter lists 20 envelopes — more than Free’s 5 — and two extra public forms.

Caps and what is not open yet

Free allows 5 packets a month. Free at 5 packets a month is the live cap desk send, bulk rows, Web Form fills, and API send share. Hitting it returns HTTP 402 ENVELOPE_LIMIT. Starter is 20 envelopes — more than Free — plus 3 published Web Forms. Seat counts are planning numbers; invite does not refuse when a workspace is full.

Billing is published, not charging. Checkout is not open. Text-message (SMS) is coming soon. Drive missing: Drive not configured. Stripe off: Payments not live. Those flags do not rewrite 5 into 20. The FAQ and Features use the same ladder.

Do the subtraction on paper before you promise a paid lane. Stay on Free while checkout is not open. Then file what you actually sent — not what a brochure implied. Open a workspace on Free — see published pricing — and send one envelope so the 5 is a number you have watched, not a guess.