You are inside your free trial and have used the 10 published pages it includes. That is the same allowance the paid plan includes, but during the trial Atlas blocks the publish rather than moving you into a paid tier, and asks whether you want to upgrade. You can upgrade now to keep publishing, or wait until your trial ends and the plan starts. Nothing is lost either way.
In this article:
Why publishing stopped
The Atlas base plan includes 10 published pages per billing cycle. During your free trial you have that same allowance, but instead of moving you into a paid tier when you exceed it, Atlas stops the publish and asks first.
The reason is that going beyond the allowance costs money, and Atlas will not start charging you during a period you were told was free without asking.
The two states you may see
The modal is titled Trial page limit reached, and its message depends on your situation.
State | Message | Meaning |
At the cap |
| The allowance is spent |
Would exceed |
| Some allowance remains, but this publish is bigger than what is left |
The second one matters most for full store builds, where a single publish can add several pages at once. If you have three pages left and are publishing a store with five, the whole publish is blocked rather than partly completed.
💡 If you are close to the cap, publish your product pages individually rather than as a full store. Each single-page publish that fits within your remaining allowance will go through.
Option 1: Upgrade now
Select Upgrade now. The trade-off: Upgrade now to keep publishing. Billing starts today and your remaining trial days end.
⚠️ Upgrading ends your trial immediately. You lose the remaining free days and billing starts that day. If you have five trial days left and no urgent need to publish, waiting costs you nothing.
If the upgrade itself fails you will see Upgrade failed with "We couldn't start your upgrade. Please try again, or contact support if this keeps happening."
Option 2: Wait for the trial to end
Select Not now. Nothing is lost.
Your pages stay saved as drafts, and drafts cost nothing and never expire. When your trial converts to the paid plan, your usage counter resets for the new billing cycle, and you can publish them then.
What is not blocked
The cap mirrors the billing counter exactly, so anything that does not count as a billable page is not blocked either.
Never blocked | Why |
Republishing a page that already counted | It adds no new billable page, so republishing is never blocked, even at the cap |
A full store import that creates a brand new theme | Not counted |
Product-only and draft imports | Not counted |
Landing pages | They feed the same counter but are not gated here |
Saving anything as a draft | Drafts never count |
ℹ️ Landing pages are the notable exception. They contribute to your published pages count but are not blocked by this cap during the trial.
Development stores with no subscription, and enterprise shops billed outside Atlas, are never in a trial and are never capped.
What does not help
Deleting published pages. The usage record for a published page is permanent for that billing cycle. Deleting the page removes it from your dashboard but does not reduce the count, and you lose the page as well.
Deleting drafts. Drafts never counted, so deleting them frees nothing.
Creating another project. Projects organise your work. They have no effect on billing.
⚠️ Do not delete published pages hoping to publish something else instead. You will lose the page and gain nothing.
After your trial
On the paid plan there is no block. Publishing beyond 10 pages in a cycle moves you into the next pages tier, which is an extra monthly charge rather than a stop:
Published pages | Charge |
Up to 10 | Included |
Up to 15 | Plus $10 a month |
Up to 25 | Plus $20 a month |
Up to 50 | Plus $30 a month |
Full tables in Atlas usage rates and tiers.