When am I charged?

You're charged $20 the moment you complete signup. That's the first billing cycle. From then on, you're charged $20 on the same date every month — so if you signed up on the 14th, you're charged on the 14th until you cancel.

We use Stripe. The charge appears on your statement as "LADLE" with a support email in the descriptor. We do not use dynamic descriptors, per-user discount pop-ups, or hidden fees. What you see on the pricing page is what we charge, every month, until you stop us.

If your card fails, Stripe retries three times over the next week. During that window, LADLE stays fully active — no interruption to your chats. If all three retries fail, we email you and pause the subscription. There is no grace-period fee. You can update your card any time from Settings → Billing, and the subscription resumes on the next successful charge.

Your first month's $8 is earmarked into the meal fund and appears in the monthly fund report on the last calendar day of the month you signed up in. So if you signed up on August 14, your first ten reserved meals show up in the August 31 fund report. Our future hunger-relief partner is the partner we select — the fund pools toward the $50,000/year threshold that unlocks a formal partnership, at which point meals ship at $0.80 each with real partner reference numbers on each entry.

We don't charge you for the day of cancellation. If you cancel mid-cycle, you keep access until the next billing date, and no further charge is made.