--- title: "Coupons and onboarding codes" url: https://storagestudio.us/wiki/coupons-and-codes category: "Licensing & payments" tags: ["licence", "coupons", "onboarding code", "checkout"] summary: "A coupon gives you a discount at checkout; Storage Studio checks it before you pay and only carries a confirmed code to checkout. An onboarding code comes from a seller, is registered on our website, and activates Storage Studio with no payment." updated: 2026-10-05T16:45:49.000Z --- # Coupons and onboarding codes A coupon gives you a discount at checkout; Storage Studio checks it before you pay and only carries a confirmed code to checkout. An onboarding code comes from a seller, is registered on our website, and activates Storage Studio with no payment. Storage Studio accepts two kinds of code. A **coupon** gives you a discount when you buy at our secure checkout. An **onboarding code** comes from a seller — for example on a card you bought in a shop — and is itself your licence: there's nothing to pay. ## Using a coupon Type the coupon wherever you see a coupon box — **Have a coupon code? Enter it, then pick a plan below** on the plan screen, **Coupon code (optional)** in **Preferences → License**, or **Have a coupon code?** on the window shown when your trial has ended — then choose a plan. On the plan screen, Storage Studio checks the code as you type and tells you honestly what it found: | What you see | What it means | |---|---| | **Checking…** | Asking our servers. | | A green tick, the discount's name and "applied below" | The code is real and will be used at checkout. | | A green tick with a plan name and "plan only" | The code works, but only on that plan. | | An orange note | The code isn't valid. The note says why, in our servers' words. | | "Couldn't check that code" | No connection, or no answer. It is never shown as a tick. | From the plan screen, only a code that has been confirmed travels with you to checkout, and the cards show the discounted price as a preview. From the other coupon boxes, the code goes to checkout as you typed it. Either way checkout has the final word: a valid code is applied there, and one that isn't valid is simply ignored, so you'd see the full price. The exact figure is always the one at checkout. On our website, you can also type a code in the pricing section of the home page. If what you typed is really an onboarding code, the site takes you to the right page; if it's an app activation key, it tells you to paste it into the app instead. ### How long a coupon's discount lasts Each coupon is set up one of three ways, and it can't be changed afterwards: - **First payment only** — your first payment is discounted; renewals of a Monthly or Annual plan are charged the full price. - **Every payment** — renewals are discounted too, for as long as the subscription runs. - **For a number of months** — payments in that many months are discounted, then the full price applies. Your invoices show the discount on each payment it applied to — see [Billing & invoices](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/billing-and-invoices). Not sure which kind you have? Ask whoever gave you the code, or our support. ### The minimum payment After any discount, a payment is either **free** or **at least one US dollar** — never a few cents, which can't actually be charged and would turn up later as a confusing balance. So a coupon can't bring a price somewhere in between: - If a code would do that for **every** plan it covers, the coupon box says so in an orange note — the code can't be used because it would bring the price under the minimum payment — and the code isn't used. - If it would do that for **only some** plans, it still works for the others; for those few plans checkout shows the full price. ## Onboarding codes An onboarding code is a 25-character code from a seller. It activates Storage Studio without a payment from you. ```mermaid %% caption: Using an onboarding code from a seller flowchart TD A[Code from the card you bought] --> B[Register it on our website] B --> C[Your licence is emailed to you] C --> D[In the app: I have a licence or onboarding code] D --> E[Enter the same email and the code, then Activate] E --> F[Storage Studio is activated] ``` *Flowchart — Using an onboarding code from a seller. Outline:* - Code from the card you bought - leads to Register it on our website - Register it on our website - leads to Your licence is emailed to you - Your licence is emailed to you - leads to In the app: I have a licence or onboarding code - In the app: I have a licence or onboarding code - leads to Enter the same email and the code, then Activate - Enter the same email and the code, then Activate - leads to Storage Studio is activated 1. On our website's redemption page, **Activate your Storage Studio license**, enter **Your code** and **Your email**, plus the seller's details from your receipt where you have them — their invoice number, email and GST number, and a photo or PDF of the receipt if you like. Choose **Get my license**. 2. We email your licence to that address with instructions. 3. In Storage Studio, choose **I have a licence or onboarding code** (or open **Preferences → License**), enter the same email and the code, and choose **Activate**. ### If your seller still needs to confirm Some codes are confirmed by the seller after you activate. If so, you'll see a calm note that your seller needs to confirm within a set number of days, and that Storage Studio works now. If the seller doesn't confirm in time, you'll see **License on hold — contact your seller**. Nothing is taken away: everything you've already moved keeps working and nothing is deleted. Only new moves and offloads are paused until your seller restores it, and Storage Studio picks up again by itself as soon as they do. See also: [Buying a licence](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/buying-a-licence), [Activating your licence](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/activating-your-licence), [The License pane](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/the-license-pane). ## What links here - [Activating your licence](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/activating-your-licence) - [Buying a licence](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/buying-a-licence) - [Extending your trial](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/extending-your-trial) - [Redeeming a code](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/redeeming-a-code) - [When a trial or licence ends](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/when-your-licence-ends)