Where tier limits appear across the product
Your tier is not something you have to remember. Onflow Ads shows it where it matters: on status strips, in quota counters, on locked controls, and in the message you get when an action would exceed what your plan covers.
This page is a tour of all of them, so nothing surprises you — and it ends with the four things you can buy one-off instead of upgrading.
The four ways a tier shows up
| Kind | What it looks like | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Status display | A strip, pill or chip naming the tier you are on, often with what it saves you | The status pill on the pricing page; the plan strip above the Boost catalogue |
| Quota counter | A number that goes down as you use the allowance | Remaining AI actions; withdrawal requests left this month; placements used this month |
| Locked control | A visible control marked as not available on your account; tapping it raises the plan card below | The drip-feed switch on Boost; targeting fields in the Subscriber Exchange; a locked button row in the post composer |
| Limit message | A refusal that names your plan, the exact number, and usually the next rung and its number | "That order is $X, above the $Y per-order limit on the [tier] plan." |
A fifth, softer form is the plan card: a notification that slides in at the top of the screen with a short explanation and a See plans button that opens the pricing page. It appears when you hit a limit or tap a locked control. The same card never repeats within a few seconds, and a card that simply accompanies a page (rather than something you just tried) shows once per visit. Pages never print upgrade offers inline; the card is the only place a plan is pitched.
Wherever a feature is gated, the product tells you the exact rung that unlocks it — "Lookalike targeting is part of Master." rather than a disabled switch with no explanation. That naming comes from the same table the pricing page reads, so it cannot drift from what you would be sold.
Your account-wide status
| Where | What it shows |
|---|---|
| The pricing page (onflowads.com/pricing) | The status pill: your tier and badge, Active until the end date or Lifetime, any legacy price lock, your wallet balance, and a Top up link. There is no days-remaining count |
| The pricing page, signed in | Your own tier's card reads Renew (or Current plan on a lifetime membership); lower tiers are disabled with the note about mid-term downgrades |
| Your tier badge | 🔹 Lite, 🔸 Plus, 💠 Elite, 👑 Master, ⭐ Ultimate, shown across the platform |
| Premium styling on bot messages | From Plus upward the messages the Telegram bot sends you — booking cards, notices, reminders — carry premium styling: animated premium emoji and coloured inline buttons. The bot has no screens or menus of its own, and the website has no premium skin at any rung. This is not the same thing as the coloured buttons on an ad, which Plus also unlocks and which you pick in the website composer |
Boost
Status. The Boost store shows a plan strip above the catalogue with your tier name and, where you have one, a "[N]% off every boost" tag plus any volume rate-break you have earned. On Free the strip instead offers "Unlock member rates →".
Locked controls.
- Drip-feed shows a Members only link when your tier does not include it.
- CSV order exports answer "CSV export is a member feature." on Free.
- The developer API pages say only that the API is, or is not, available on your account. Your key allowance and requests-per-minute are shown under Boost → Developer API. Opening it without access raises the plan card.
Limit messages.
| Situation | Message |
|---|---|
| Order above your ceiling | "That order is $X, above the $Y per-order limit on the [tier] plan. [Next tier] raises it to $Z." |
| Too many orders in flight | "You already have N orders in progress, which is the limit for the [tier] plan. [Next tier] allows M." |
| Auto-Boost cap | "You're at your [tier] limit of N active Auto-Boost subscriptions. [Next tier] allows M." |
| Mass order too long | The window states how many rows your plan accepts, and pasting more answers "That is N orders — your plan allows M." |
The status-refresh cooldown — how often you may manually re-check an order's progress — also follows your tier, from 60 seconds on Free down to 3 seconds at the top.
Paid Promotions (the marketplace)
Status. The marketplace pages carry no upgrade chip. A limit you reach, or a locked control you tap, raises the plan card instead.
Limit messages as an owner.
| Situation | Message |
|---|---|
| Listing cap on a paid tier | "Your [tier] plan covers N channels. Upgrade to list more." |
| Listing cap on Free | "Free accounts can list up to N channels. Upgrade to list more." |
| Featured days used up | "You've used all N featured day(s) your plan includes this month." — or "Your plan doesn't include featured days." |
| Spotlight cooldown | "Your plan allows one spotlight per channel every N days." |
| Too many spotlights at once | Names how many you have running and how many your plan allows at a time |
| Proof Certificates | "You've issued all N Placement Proof Certificates your plan includes" |
Limit messages as an advertiser.
| Situation | Message |
|---|---|
| Monthly placements | "Monthly ad placement limit reached. Your [tier] plan covers up to N placements per month — upgrade for more." |
| Cart over the cap | "This order needs N placements, but your [tier] plan covers M per month and you've used K. Remove [number] to check out." The plan card appears alongside it. |
| Saved ad templates | "Your plan keeps N saved templates. Delete one to add another, or upgrade for more." — and, on a template past the allowance after a downgrade, "This template is locked on your current plan — it unlocks on Tier." |
| Media per creative | "Your plan attaches up to N items to an ad post." |
| Channel bundles | "Your plan doesn't include multi-channel bundles." |
| Disputes | The acknowledgement adds "Your plan's resolution target is N hours." when your tier has one |
| Delivery insurance | An automatic refund notes "You didn't need to raise a dispute — your plan covers this." |
Locked feature pages. The Channel finder shows a lock screen when your tier does not include it: "Not available on this account", the heading and an explanation, and the plan card slides in. When it is available it also tells you "Your plan spans up to N channels" while you build, and warns if a basket would exceed your monthly placement allowance.
Subscriber Exchange
Locked controls. Targeting fields you cannot use yet are labelled with the tier that unlocks them, for example "Lookalike targeting is part of [tier]." or "Custom matcher weights are part of [tier]."
Limit messages.
| Situation | Message |
|---|---|
| Enrolling channels | "Your plan covers N enrolled channels." |
| Too many live ads | "Your plan runs N ads at a time. Cancel one to submit another." |
| Credit-bought extra placements | "Your plan allows up to N extra drops per cycle." — or, on Free, "Extra drops are part of a paid plan. Hosting ads earns the credits that pay for them." |
| Targeting you do not have | "[Feature] targeting is part of [tier]. Your ad will still run — it just reaches the whole eligible pool instead of the slice you picked." |
That last one is worth reading twice: a locked targeting option never blocks your ad. It runs untargeted rather than not at all.
Plan cards. Locked targeting options are marked "not available on this account". Submitting an ad that reaches for one raises the plan card, quantifying what it would have done for this ad and naming the rung that adds it. A similar card can appear on an ad's diagnostic when reach is the problem.
Quota-style displays. The exchange page shows your included cadence ("Your plan's included cadence — no extra charge"), how many extra placements you could still buy with credits, and your grace allowance: "Your plan forgives N accidental early removals".
Cross-Promotion
Limit message. Starting more campaigns than your plan includes in a calendar month answers:
"You've used all N cross-promotion initiations your [tier] plan includes this month. [Next tier] raises that to M a month."
The response also carries how many you have used, your cap, and the rung that would raise it, so the page can show a counter alongside. Joining somebody else's campaign is never capped by tier.
Email nudge. Hitting the monthly cap can also trigger a one-per-month email titled "You've hit your monthly campaign limit — [next tier] lifts it".
Other tier-driven values you will see on the Cross-Promotion pages: your add-on discount, the boost-credit reward per clean completion, whether campaign insurance is included, and whether Blitz is available.
Monthly initiations are the only volume limit Cross-Promotion applies. Nothing caps how many campaigns run at the same time, at any rung.
AI
Quota counters. The AI panel in each composer shows your remaining allowance before you generate. Running out gives "You have reached your AI limit." for text, or "You have reached your image limit." for images.
Plan cards.
- "You've used today's N AI text actions. [Next tier] gives you M a day — or wait for the reset at 00:00 UTC."
- "AI images are a [tier] feature", with "AI image generation is part of [tier] — unlock N AI images a month and design this ad's visual right here."
- At the top of the ladder: "You're on the top AI tier — your allowance resets at 00:00 UTC."
Locked panel. When image generation is not part of your plan, the composer's image tab reads "AI images are not available on this account." instead of the generator, and the plan card slides in.
The AI meter is the only place on the platform where your reliability score changes the number, not just the plan. An account under review gets no AI at all; a low score is clamped to the Free text allowance with images off; a score in the 4.0–4.9 band gets half the text allowance with images off; a high score gets extra text headroom. The counter in the AI panel is always right, and the pricing table is the plan allowance before that adjustment. See AI quotas and limits.
The post composer
Every ad you compose — in the exchange, in the marketplace and in cross-promotion — uses the same editor, and it enforces three ladder keys plus one add-on. A fourth key, the attribution line, is not enforced in the editor at all: it is applied when the ad is delivered, and it reads the host channel owner's plan rather than yours.
| Situation | What you see |
|---|---|
| On Free, opening the buttons row | One locked Inline buttons row; its Locked button raises a notice naming Lite |
| Rows above your cap | Locked rows, each with a Locked button whose notice names the plan that opens it (Plus, Elite, Master for buttons two, three and four) |
| Too many buttons submitted | "Your plan allows up to N button(s) per post." |
| Below Plus, the button colour picker | Nothing at all. The swatch row is simply not drawn, and a colour on a creative you re-save is dropped without a message |
| From Plus up, the button colour picker | A labelled swatch row beside each unlocked button — Colour, then Default, Blue, Green and Red |
| A private Telegram link on Free | "Private Telegram links are not available on this account." |
| A non-Telegram link without the add-on | "External links need the External Links add-on ($1)." plus an Enable external links — $1 button in the link dialog |
| A malformed URL | "That link doesn't look valid. Use a full https:// URL." |
| The character counter stopping short | 33 characters are held back for the attribution line so it always fits. In Paid Promotions they are given back when the listing's owner is Plus or above |
Everywhere else on the platform a gated control tells you the rung that would open it. The colour swatches do not: below Plus they are not rendered, so there is nothing on screen to name Plus, and an un-entitled colour is discarded on save rather than refused. If you are on Free or Lite and wondering where the colour picker went, that is the answer.
Full detail, including the trap that the add-on is scoped to one tier: Post buttons and links.
Wallet and withdrawals
The withdrawal form is where the ladder is most directly visible in money terms:
- Your tier's withdrawal fee appears in the breakdown, and the form shows what you actually receive after it.
- Your withdrawal requests per month allowance and how many you have used are tracked; the form shows how many remain.
- Exceeding them answers: "You've used all N withdrawal requests this month on the [tier] plan. [Next tier] allows more. Your balance stays spendable, and the limit resets next month." — or, on Free's single request, "You've used this month's withdrawal request on the Free plan. Lite allows more. …"
Withdrawals are available on every tier, Free included — the tier changes the fee and the number of requests, not the right to cash out. Every withdrawal passes the same manual review, and non-withdrawable credit stays in-platform regardless of tier.
The deposit fee on a top-up is the other side of it, shown in the breakdown before you pay. It is added on top of the amount you choose, so you are credited the full amount you type at every rung.
Buying past a limit without upgrading
A rung is not the only way past a wall. Three things are sold one-off, and all three work at any tier:
| What | Price | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign analytics pass | $5 per campaign | Unlocks the whole export set for one marketplace campaign — CSV, the branded PDF and the raw per-sample data — even on Free. Buying it twice for the same campaign charges nothing | The campaign's analytics page |
| Exchange delivery upgrades | Shown at submission | Extra placements and higher priority for one exchange ad. Refunded in full if the ad is declined | The exchange ad submission flow |
| External Links add-on | $1 | Non-Telegram URLs in post bodies and button URLs. Recorded against the tier you bought it on | The link dialog in any post composer |
Those three exist because a ladder limit is in your way. The cross-promotion allowance — monthly initiations — has no one-off purchase: the next rung is the only way past it. A Paid Promotions checkout can also carry an extra that has nothing to do with your plan: "Pinned for the whole campaign", which keeps the ad pinned in the channel from the moment it goes live until the run ends. It is platform-priced, the same on every listing: the buyer pays $6.00 per pinned placement and the channel owner receives $4.00 of it. The channel owner decides whether to offer it, not what it costs. Every tier can buy it, no tier gets it free, and a listing that does not offer it cannot be talked into it — the booking is refused rather than quietly downgraded. See Pricing and offers.
If the only thing you need is one campaign's raw numbers, the $5 pass beats a $349 rung. If you need it every month, the rung wins. The passes exist so that a single deadline never forces a tier decision.
Each of these grants and charges in one step: if your wallet cannot cover it the grant rolls back with the charge, so you are never left paying for an unlock you did not get, or holding an unlock you did not pay for. A short wallet answers "Top up your wallet to unlock this campaign's exports." on the analytics pass, and the equivalent on the others.
What to do when you hit a limit
- Read the message. It names your plan, the exact number, and usually the next rung and its number.
- Decide whether it is a one-off. Many caps reset — monthly placements, cross-promotion initiations, featured days, Proof Certificates, withdrawal requests and the AI monthly window all reset with the calendar month; the AI day window resets at 00:00 UTC.
- Free up room where you can. Cancel a finished exchange ad, delete an unused saved template, trim a cart, wait for live Boost orders to complete.
- Or buy past it once — see the table above.
- Or upgrade. Follow the link in the message, or go to onflowads.com/pricing. New limits apply immediately.
Frequently asked
Does hitting a limit lose my work?
No. A limit stops the action; it does not discard what you were doing, and nothing is charged when an action is refused for a plan limit.
Do limits reset, and when?
Monthly allowances — placements, campaign initiations, featured days, proof certificates, withdrawal requests, the AI month window — reset with the calendar month. The AI day window resets at 00:00 UTC. Concurrency caps such as live Boost orders and active exchange ads free up as items finish. Exchange placement cycles run 30 days. Cross-promotion has no concurrency cap at all.
If I upgrade, do the higher limits apply straight away?
Yes. Entitlements are read live from your account on every request, so the moment a purchase completes every product uses the new numbers — on the website and in the Telegram bot.
If my plan expires, what happens to things I created above the Free limits?
Nothing is deleted. Each product applies its own rules for creating more. See Downgrading and letting a plan lapse.
A number in the product differs from this guide.
The product is authoritative — it reads your account's live entitlements, and the AI allowances in particular are reshaped by reliability and retunable by an operator. The pricing page is the authoritative published comparison.
Related
- Comparing the tiers — every number the product is enforcing.
- Post buttons and links — the composer ladder and its add-on.
- Marketplace entry gates — the floors that decide whether a channel can enter at all.
- Upgrading your tier — when clearing the wall is worth the forfeit.