You picked the tool that made sense at the time. It was manageable, the price was reasonable, and it handled what you needed. But something shifted — the store grew, the workload changed, or the tool just started falling short — and now you are running your shop around the platform's limits instead of the other way around. You know it is not working. You also know what it would take to leave: the weeks of rebuilding, the records you might lose, the risk that something breaks mid-transition when you cannot afford the distraction.

That is the trap, and it is not imaginary. The switching cost is real. What this guide looks at is a narrower question: what specific things about the way Daviah is built reduce the stakes of that decision — and where it does not reduce them at all.

What Daviah does not answer here — say this plainly first

This guide covers two things only: what happens to your contract and your records if you leave. It does not answer whether Daviah can grow with your store as it gets larger. No fact about the platform speaks to scalability, capacity limits, or how the tool handles a business at ten times its current size.

It also does not answer how difficult it would be to move away from Daviah to something else one day. The block editor and the free plan's build tools say nothing about migration complexity or switching cost in either direction. If your worry is whether a platform becomes an obstacle as your business grows, this guide can only tell you about the exit terms — not about the ceiling.

No contract to stay in

Both paid plans — Website at $29.99 a month and Website + Members at $79.99 a month — run month to month. There is no annual contract you have to sign to get started, and no penalty for leaving. If paying yearly is easier on the budget, that option costs less: Website comes to $300 a year, Website + Members to $819.99. But the commitment is yours to make; nothing requires it.

That means the decision to stay is made every month, not once at the beginning when you knew the least about whether the tool would suit you. You are not locked in by a contract you signed before you had run a full season on the platform.

What happens to your records when you stop paying

If you let the subscription lapse — whether you cancel deliberately or a payment fails — your records stay readable. Your staff records, your payment history, your exports: they do not disappear. The CSV exports for members, dues, payments and officers continue to work. Your site and office come back as soon as you pay again.

That is a different position from platforms where lapsing means locked records or a scramble to export everything before a deadline. Here the data waits. You can look at it, export it and make decisions about where to take it without a clock running against you.

If a payment fails, nothing stops immediately

When a subscription payment fails, nothing is withheld for ten days. You get three email warnings before anything changes. That window exists so a card expiry or a bank hiccup does not cut you off from your own records mid-week while customers are at the counter.

It is not a substitute for sorting out the payment, but it does mean a failed billing cycle is not an emergency on top of whatever else is already happening in the shop.

Starting costs nothing and requires almost nothing

Signing up is free and asks for no card number, no phone number and no domain — just a name, an email address and a password. On the free plan you can build and save the whole site, view it through a private link, and take as long as you need before deciding whether to publish. Nothing expires.

That means you can look at whether the platform actually fits your store before any money changes hands. The decision to pay comes after you have seen the product working, not before.

What these terms add up to — and what they do not

Month-to-month billing, records that stay readable when you lapse, a ten-day grace period on failed payments, and a free start with no card required: taken together, these reduce the cost of being wrong. If the platform does not suit you, leaving is not a disaster. Your records are not held hostage.

What they do not do is answer the deeper half of the lock-in problem. Whether Daviah can keep up as your store gets bigger, and how hard it would be to move everything across to another platform if you needed to, are questions this guide cannot answer. Those are real concerns, and you should weigh them separately from the contract terms.

Questions

Do I have to sign an annual contract to use Daviah?

No. Both paid plans run month to month. Paying yearly is cheaper — Website comes to $300 a year and Website + Members to $819.99 — but no annual commitment is required to get started or to keep going.

What happens to my staff records and order history if I stop paying?

They stay readable. Your CSV exports for members, dues, payments and officers continue to work while your subscription is lapsed. Your site and office come back as soon as you pay again. Records are not deleted or locked behind a deadline.

If my card fails, how long do I have before the office goes dark?

Ten days. Nothing is withheld for ten days after a failed payment, and you receive three email warnings before anything changes. It gives you time to sort out a billing issue without losing access in the middle of a trading day.

Can I look at the platform before I pay anything?

Yes. Signing up is free and requires no card number. On the free plan you can build the whole site, view it through a private link, and take as long as you need. Nothing expires.

Does Daviah scale with my store as it grows?

This guide cannot answer that. No fact about the platform speaks to capacity limits or how it performs as a business grows. If scalability is your main concern, these contract terms are only part of the picture.

How difficult is it to move away from Daviah if I need to?

Your records stay readable when lapsed and your CSV exports keep working, so you can take your data with you. But how complex a full migration away from Daviah would be is not something this guide can answer — no fact addresses that directly.

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