Buy a Vault before you have a tour

The short answer

You can buy a Vault before you have a tour. The Vault waits, empty, and you either create a new tour in it or put one of your tours in it later. Pick the size by how many panoramas the tour will have: Vault hosting lists the sizes. You can look at the sizes and prices without an account. You need one to pay, and if you have none you make it on the way, on a page between the prices and Stripe.

Buy it

1. Click Vaults in the top bar. The page shows the prices and a helper that suggests a size.
2. Click Buy a Vault, or Add to Vault on the card of the size you want. The buying page opens with the size and the term of the card you clicked. You do not need to be signed in to see it.
3. Under How many panoramas?, pick a size. The smallest holds 10, the biggest 250.
4. Under How do you want to pay?, pick Pay once and a length (1, 3 or 5 years), or a rolling Vault that renews by itself: see Pay once, or pay by the year.
5. Under Which tour will it host?, leave I'll choose later (an empty Vault). If you have no tour at all, the page does not ask: it says Your Vault starts empty.
6. If you are signed in, read the note about canceling above the Terms box: it says who can cancel within 14 days (see Cancel a Vault and get your money back). Then tick that you have read and accept the Terms, and click the button that reads Pay and the total. You pay on Stripe's page, where VAT is added if it is charged on your payment: see VAT, invoices and refunds.
7. If you are not signed in, click Continue instead and make your account, as the next part says.

Paying needs a confirmed email address. If an amber bar at the top gives you a date (or, when it is near, a day and time) to confirm by, paying works until then; otherwise the buying page says Check your email where the Pay button would be, and you pay once you have clicked the link: see Sign up and confirm your email.

If you have no account yet

Continue opens a page headed Create your account. Your Vault stays in view on the right, and Edit takes you back to change it. Type your Name, Email and Password (the Show button reveals what you typed), or click Continue with Google, Continue with Microsoft or Continue with Facebook. If you already have an account, click Log in and you come back to your Vault once you are signed in.

What happens next depends on how the site is set, and the page says which:

• You confirm your email first. The button reads Create account. The page then says Check your email. Click the link in the email, in the same browser or on another device, and your Vault is waiting on the buying page, as you left it, for the Terms and the payment. The page you left open notices the confirmation when you come back to it. A sign-in with Google needs no email: Google already vouches for the address.
• You pay first. The Terms box is on this page and the button reads Create account and pay and the total. Stripe opens at once. The confirmation email follows, and you have a day or so (the page names the hours) to click it; an amber bar counts down. Until you do, the account is held like any unconfirmed account once the time is up, and the Vault keeps running.

You can buy several Vaults in one payment with Add another Vault, for example one for each branch of a business. A Vault that renews by itself is paid for on its own.

Use the Vault

When the payment is for one Vault, its page opens with Your Vault is ready. Put one of your tours in it, or create a new tour for it. For several Vaults, My Vaults opens with Your Vaults are ready.

• Create a new tour in it. Click Or create a new tour in this Vault. The Create Tour page says This tour goes in and the Vault's name, and the new tour is hosted from the start.
• Put a tour you already have in it. Pick the tour in the list on the Vault's page and click Put it in this Vault. A tour that has more panoramas than the Vault holds is listed as too big for it.
• Do it from the tour. Open the tour, click Publish, then Hosting. The card lists your empty Vaults that fit under You have an empty Vault that fits. Only the owner of the tour can do this.

The tour is published as soon as it is in the Vault. It is on Explore only if you had already listed it there.

While the Vault is empty

The term starts the day you pay, not the day you put a tour in. If the Vault still has no tour after three days, you see a banner, and we mail you about the third and the fourteenth day, so the Vault is not paid for in vain.

Troubleshooting

I made an account while buying and the page started again. What you chose is kept in the browser you made the account in. If you confirm your email in the same browser, the buying page opens with your Vault as you left it. If you open the link on another device, the page you left open notices it when you come back to it; if you closed that page, click Vaults and choose again.

The Pay button is not there. You are signed in, but your email address is not confirmed, so the page shows Check your email where Pay would be. Click the link in the email, or Send me a new link.

I bought the wrong size. While the Vault runs you can make it bigger: see Make a Vault longer or bigger. A Vault is not made smaller, so if you change your mind altogether, see Cancel a Vault and get your money back.

The tour I want to put in is not listed. It is not in the list when it is in another Vault already or is not yours. A tour with more panoramas than this Vault holds is listed as too big for it and cannot be picked.