Executive Summary
Immediate suspension of advanced privileges due to overdue payments disrupts expert workflows and drives avoidable churn. We propose a 30-day grace period during which users retain full access in exchange for “social currency” contributions (feedback, use-case scripts, bug reports). Graduated reminders will alert users to imminent deactivation while keeping them engaged and productive.
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Problem Statement
• Workflow interruption: ongoing research, scripts and processes are abruptly halted.
• Preventable churn: key experts migrate to free alternatives or resort to unauthorized tools.
• Support burden: reactivation requests overload support teams and tarnish the brand.
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Solution Description
1. 30-day automated grace period after invoice due date, maintaining all advanced features.
2. Social currency system: each relevant contribution (e.g. script, tutorial, bug report) earns points shown on an internal dashboard; each “currency unit” offsets part of the subscription fee.
3. Graduated notifications: automated alerts at 15, 5 and 1 day(s) before grace-period expiry, with direct links to payment or the contribution portal.
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Industry Examples
• Signeasy introduced a 14-day grace period and nudge banners; within 10 days, they recovered payments from 44% of accounts in grace .
• Mobile app stores (Apple App Store & Google Play) support configurable grace periods (up to 30 days) for in-app subscriptions, reflecting broad industry adoption of delayed cut-offs.
• Stripe’s Billing suite provides built-in dunning and payment retry workflows—allowing you to define grace periods, send reminders and automate smart retries to recover failed payments  .
• JetBrains offers a perpetual fallback license: after subscription cancellation, users retain access to the last paid build, demonstrating respect for prior payments.
• Open-source communities (e.g. Nextcloud, PostgreSQL) grant perpetual, cost-free access, financing via donations or sponsorships rather than punitive cut-offs.
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Benefits to OpenAI
• Expert retention: keeps high-value users active and engaged.
• Collaborative engagement: yields valuable content for docs, fine-tuning examples and case studies.
• Organic advocacy: expert users become ambassadors, showcasing OpenAI’s flexibility and community focus.
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Implementation Plan
• Phase 1 (Pilot — 3 months): enroll up to 100 high-usage accounts.
• Phase 2 (Scale-up): extend to enterprise and academic plans, with fine-tuned scoring thresholds.
• Required infrastructure: notification bot, social currency dashboard and standardized contribution forms.
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Risks & Mitigations
• Good-faith abuse: enforce a minimum monthly contribution requirement (e.g. 10 submissions).
• Administrative overhead: automate intake and validation of contributions.
• Perceived favoritism: publish selection criteria openly and invite applications for the pilot.
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Success Metrics
• ≥ 20 % reduction in churn.
• Monthly volume of social-currency points earned.
• Increase in positive mentions across developer forums and social media.
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Conclusion & Next Steps
Each day of feature suspension risks losing invaluable expertise. We recommend scheduling a 30-minute meeting with Product and Customer Success teams within the next two weeks to define pilot parameters and align on timeline.
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