I have a free community and want to upgrade to Starter but it doesn’t offer that option. What is going on? I refuse to start a Pro trial and should not be required to activate the Pro features. I simply want starter. Why is this setup this way? Why can’t I just upgrade to the plan I actually want? …

Unfortunately you will have to wait for staff to clarify, I’m not sure if this was ever announced anywhere but it seems like theyre in the middle of A/B testing it.

We have deprioritized Starter on the pricing page, but it should still be available as an option to upgrade to from the Free plan. Where are you clicking? (It will show Pro or Business if you are clicking on a plugin that comes with one of those plans, for example)

Thanks for the reply. If this is A/B testing they have 1 result - I’d sooner chew glass than start a Pro subscription :sweat_smile:

I’ve tried the Upgrade button on the Dashboard as well as the Upgrade hyperlink on the Account Settings page. The only option available is Pro - same dialog from both places.

I’d also like to mention that the pricing page also has nowhere to purchase the Starter plan either - it wasn’t just deprioritized, it has effectively been disabled entirely in my case, whether starting a new community or trying to upgrade my existing community.

Actually, I may have found what is causing the issue in your case. Try again now and I think it should work.

Thanks for your assistance Dave. I assume this was unintentional - but I nearly pulled the trigger on starting my own infrastructure to self-host instead. I really don’t need that kind of overhead for a very small community that is just starting out. I felt betrayed and angry that the system was try…

I tried again with a refresh as well as logout and login, but still only have the Pro option dialog when clicking Upgrade.

Hmm… OK, we’ll have to take a closer look. Hang tight and we’ll do that when the week starts and sort it out with you.

No starter upgrade option

Support

mcwumbly (Dave McClure) May 16, 2026, 11:18pm 11

OK, I think you should still see Starter there when clicking the Upgrade button. We’ll take a closer look on Monday.

Topic		Replies	Views
Changes to pricing structure and what features are in the free plan? Support email , price-sensitive , free-plan , hosting	5	305	July 3, 2026
Introducing the new Starter Plan! Blog	3	643	July 9, 2026
You're invited to try the Discourse Free plan beta! Announcements free-plan	40	2453	August 24, 2026
Announcing ProDiscourse Hosting Marketplace	19	4385	December 21, 2015
What will happen with my community web address if I upgrade, e.g. from Starter to Pro? Support	10	280	September 17, 2025

No starter upgrade option

Related topics