# FAQ — Horcrux Search current Horcrux answers about Bangladesh commerce, plans, storefronts, checkout, delivery, teams, data and support. ## Questions and answers ### Fit #### What is Horcrux? Horcrux is a Bangladesh-first commerce platform for running a branded storefront, catalog, stock, orders and fulfilment workflow in one place. #### Who is Horcrux for? It is for businesses selling products online in Bangladesh, especially merchants who need a reliable storefront and COD-first operating workflow rather than a collection of disconnected tools. #### Do I need technical skills to use Horcrux? No special framework or coding knowledge is required for the merchant workspace. You manage the store through the platform; Horcrux keeps custom source and developer tooling outside the current public product. #### Can I use Horcrux to sell outside Bangladesh? Not currently. Accounts and store configuration can exist outside the Phase 1 commerce market, but selling, checkout, payments, shipping and orders are currently supported only for Bangladesh. #### What do I get when I create a store? You start with a Starter store: a built-in storefront, catalog and inventory workflow, orders, COD checkout, controlled branding and the published Starter limits. The store still needs its own setup before it can accept orders. ### Start here #### How do I start a Horcrux store? Create and verify an account, enter a store name and accept the current platform agreement. Verified accounts can create Starter without platform approval; the current entry flow takes you into the store setup. #### Do I need an invitation or approval to create my first store? No for a Starter store: a verified account can create one without a platform access grant. Staff membership is different: joining someone else's store remains invitation-based and exact-email. #### What information do I need to get started? The entry step needs a verified account, a store name and acceptance of the current platform agreement. Store readiness then depends on the business, contact, policy, delivery and catalog details shown in the workspace. #### When can my store accept its first order? After the store has an active commerce path, a usable catalog, checkout-ready delivery configuration and the required public/store settings. Horcrux rechecks those conditions at checkout; creating a store alone does not promise that every setup step is complete. #### Is Horcrux available in Bangla? Horcrux-provided interface and system copy are currently English-only. Merchants can enter Bangla or other Unicode text in their own storefront content; Horcrux does not provide a translated interface or language switcher. ### Plans & billing #### What plans are currently available? Starter is free. Essential is ৳3,690 per month. They are the two active public plans; older Grow and Scale identifiers are not current plan offers. #### What is included in Starter? Starter includes 10 active products, 100 successfully placed non-test orders per tenant-anchored monthly usage period, 3 active members including the Primary Owner, 1 eligible courier connection, the Starter theme only, no fixed trial expiry, a 0% Horcrux transaction fee and no processed-sales-value cap. #### How many free Starter stores can one owner or business have? Each Primary Owner/business may have one active, transacting free Starter store. Paid stores and memberships in another merchant's store do not consume that allowance, and recreation, transfer, downgrade, reactivation or plan cycling cannot multiply it. #### How much media storage does Starter include? Starter retains exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes (1 GB decimal) of merchant media. At capacity, only quota-increasing uploads are blocked; existing media, records, checkout and exports remain available. #### How many image uploads does Starter include? Starter permits 100 successful original-image uploads or replacements per monthly period, plus a one-time 100-upload first-period bonus: 200 in the genuine first period, then 100 with no rollover. The bonus is once per owner: a store created by an owner who already used it does not get it again. Deletion does not refund usage, and a replacement counts as a new operation. #### Does Starter have an order growth buffer? The first eligible business to reach the normal 100-order limit receives a one-time buffer of up to 50 extra orders in that same period. The buffer is not a recurring 150-order plan, unused orders expire at period end and later periods return to 100. The buffer is once per owner: closing a store and creating a new one does not grant it again. #### What is included in Essential? Essential is ৳3,690/month with unlimited active products, orders per period and processed value, up to 15 staff members, four courier-connection entitlements, all released built-in themes, custom roles entitlement and 0% Horcrux transaction fees. Provider and release gates still apply. #### What does unlimited mean on Essential? It removes the configured platform cap for active products, orders per period and processed value. It does not mean unlimited staff, courier providers, stores, payment providers, third-party charges or infrastructure volume. #### Does Horcrux charge a transaction fee? No. Both current plans have a 0% Horcrux transaction fee. Payment-provider, courier, delivery, bank, tax and other third-party costs are separate and are not made zero by that statement. #### Is billing monthly or annual? The current catalog is monthly. No annual plan or annual discount policy is publicly offered. #### How do I upgrade from Starter to Essential? An eligible billing member starts the upgrade from the store's billing surface. Horcrux creates one payable manual-transfer invoice and applies Essential only after the payment is verified; selecting a plan by itself does not create paid access. #### What happens if an Essential payment is late? Essential has a 15-day renewal grace period and reminder states. Nonpayment does not automatically disable checkout under the current contract; billing, commerce and any later restriction remain separate states. Check the store's current billing surface for the authoritative state. #### Can I cancel, downgrade or get a refund for unused time? Use the current billing flow for cancellation or a compatible downgrade. Horcrux does not promise an automatic refund or unused-time credit. A downgrade preserves records and applies the required working-set checks; the exact current state is shown in Billing. ### Storefront & brand #### Can I publish a storefront without building a theme? Yes. Horcrux provides a built-in storefront baseline with products, collections, pages, checkout and controlled brand/content/media settings. A general no-code page builder is not part of the current product. #### What can I customize? You can manage the store's controlled brand kit, including logo assets, semantic colors, content, images, contact details and policy pages. The same canonical brand kit is used across built-in themes. #### How many themes are available? Starter includes one built-in theme, the Starter theme. Essential includes every built-in theme released so far. Planned themes are not offered until they are released. #### Can I upload a custom storefront or custom code? Not yet. Custom storefronts belong to the Essential plan, but uploading one is not available today. Horcrux also has no code editor or theme marketplace. #### Can I connect my own domain? Yes, Horcrux supports one custom primary public hostname with DNS and SSL validation, while the Horcrux hostname remains the safe fallback/canonical path. Whether a particular domain is active depends on that store's current validation state. #### Can my storefront content be written in Bangla? Yes. Merchant-authored content can contain Bangla and other Unicode text. Horcrux's own storefront chrome and system copy remain English-only. ### Catalog & orders #### Can I manage products, variants and collections? Yes. The merchant workspace supports products, variants, SKUs, pricing, media, collections, tags, search and one inventory location. #### What happens when I reach Starter's 10 active-product limit? Starter allows up to 10 explicitly active products. Additional products can remain drafts, but they cannot become active until capacity is available or the store changes plan. #### Does Horcrux track inventory? Yes. The current model supports one inventory location, stock adjustments and reservation/commit/release controls intended to prevent overselling. Multiple inventory locations are later scope. #### Can I import a product CSV? Yes, the bounded product CSV tool can preview and confirm an all-or-nothing catalog import. It is a product migration tool with limits and does not import an entire foreign store's orders, customers, theme code, payment or courier state. #### Where do placed orders appear? Placed orders appear in the store's own merchant dashboard, with their payment, stock and delivery details. Shoppers can check an order with the public order lookup and do not need an account to check out. #### Does Horcrux require shopper accounts? No. Shoppers check out as guests. Horcrux can keep a customer record for the store from order and contact details, but shopper accounts, wishlists and loyalty programmes are not offered today. #### Does Horcrux provide a returns portal? Not currently as a shopper self-service portal. Merchant-operated returns and exchanges are later scope; refund preparation and provider handoff must not be described as automatic provider-authoritative refunds. ### Checkout & delivery #### Can I run a store with cash on delivery only? Yes. In Bangladesh a store can take cash on delivery without any online payment provider, once the store's checkout setup is complete. #### Can shoppers pay online? Yes, if the merchant connects and verifies their own SSLCommerz account. It works in BDT only, and the payment methods shown depend on that account. Not every store has online payment turned on. #### Does Horcrux hold money from my sales? No. For optional online checkout, the payment account belongs to the merchant and settlement goes directly to that merchant. Horcrux does not custody or pool shopper funds. #### How is delivery priced at checkout? Merchants configure flat BDT delivery rates for Bangladesh district/upazila zones. Horcrux does not require a shopper-facing live courier quote; the merchant chooses fulfilment after the order is placed. #### Which courier providers are available? Horcrux does not promise a live Pathao, Steadfast or RedX connection for every store. Courier connections open store by store, and only after they pass release checks. #### How many courier connections do my plan limits include? Starter has an entitlement for one courier connection and Essential has an entitlement for four. Those are plan capacities, not proof that that many providers are released, supported in every market or free of provider fees. #### Can one order be split into multiple shipments? Not in the current launch boundary. A launch order is one complete parcel with at most one active courier shipment; split and partial fulfilment are later scope. #### Can an order be cancelled or refunded? Shoppers can cancel before merchant confirmation, and authorized staff can cancel before courier transit when the order state allows it. Online refund handling prepares the exact transaction for the merchant's official provider workflow; Horcrux does not promise automatic provider-authoritative refunds. ### Teams & access #### Can I give staff different permissions? Yes. The current presets are Owner, Admin, Catalog Manager, Order Manager and Analyst. They are store-scoped, and Essential also has the entitlement for merchant-defined Custom roles. #### How many staff members can I add? Starter supports up to 3 staff members, including the Primary Owner. Essential supports up to 15. Each person uses an individual account; shared team logins are not the model. #### How do staff invitations work? A permitted staff member sends an invitation to an exact email address. The recipient must accept explicitly with the verified matching account; invitations expire after seven days and resend or role changes rotate the link. #### Can one account work with more than one store? Yes, where the account has eligible membership or creates another permitted store. Each store remains its own tenant with separate membership, plan, billing and commerce state. #### How do merchants sign in? With their email, using a one-time code or a sign-in link. Google sign-in and passkeys are not available to everyone yet, and phone sign-in is not offered. #### Can support bypass identity checks if I lose access? No. Support cannot create a session, change a login email, link a provider or take over an account. Account recovery must use an available verified recovery method; store staff retain only their own authorized access. ### Data & moving #### Can I export my store data? Yes. Authorized staff can request a time-limited downloadable archive containing supported merchant records and original media, subject to the relevant export permission. #### What is included in an export? Supported catalog, inventory, customer, order, fulfilment, settlement, store-setting and billing records plus original merchant media are portable. Authentication secrets, provider credentials/tokens and internal platform-only data are excluded. #### Can I restore an exported archive into Horcrux? No. Merchant export is for portability, not a merchant restore, merge or overwrite feature. Internal disaster recovery is operated separately by Horcrux. #### Can Horcrux migrate my Shopify, WooCommerce or other store? There is no general full-platform migration promise. The current bounded tool can import product CSV data; it does not promise to migrate orders, customers, history, theme code, domains, payment credentials or courier state from another platform. #### Does Horcrux have an API, API keys or webhooks? Not as a merchant product. Horcrux currently offers no merchant API keys, third-party webhook product or developer portal. Internal endpoints and SDK code are not a public API promise. #### Does Horcrux connect to Meta, Shops or Instagram commerce? Not yet. Some groundwork exists but is switched off. Meta checkout, Shops, Instagram Shopping and automatic import of social-media orders are not available. #### Will Horcrux guarantee Google rankings or sales? No. Published storefronts have technical discovery surfaces such as metadata, canonical URLs, structured data, robots handling and a sitemap. Those do not guarantee indexing, ranking, rich results, traffic, conversion or sales. ### Support & boundaries #### How do I contact Horcrux support? Starter includes basic, non-priority email help for setup blockers and product problems through horcrux@dropoutstudio.co. It excludes done-for-you setup, customization, scheduled calls, dedicated onboarding or account management, guaranteed response or resolution times and 24/7 staffing; critical incidents are triaged by severity. #### Do you promise 24/7 support or a response time? No public 24/7 staffing, named account manager, guaranteed response time or guaranteed resolution time is promised. Starter support is basic and non-priority; critical incidents are triaged by severity. #### How does Horcrux protect expensive operations? Expensive optional operations use scoped abuse and cost protections, bounded retries and deduplication. These controls are not billing caps and do not reduce ordinary selling, checkout, security, transactional notices or exports. #### What happens if a Starter store is inactive? A Starter storefront may enter a reversible inactivity pause after 180 consecutive days without meaningful authenticated, store-specific activity or a new order, only after at least 30 days' advance notice and after unresolved commerce obligations are clear. Activity resets the clock; records, media, dashboard, exports and required after-sales access remain available. #### How are future Starter policy changes reviewed? New stores follow the Starter terms on this page from the day they are created. Affected existing merchants receive at least 30 days' notice before new restrictive commercial rules, with versioned notice and effective dates. Production notice and migration completion are not claimed here. A future 90-day review will assess genuine production usage; it has not been completed and does not automatically change prices or limits. #### Who helps when a payment or courier provider has an outage? Horcrux helps with the parts it runs. A provider's uptime, approval, fees and payouts are outside Horcrux's control, and a provider connection or plan allowance does not protect against outages. #### Where can I see what Horcrux is building? Use the public Updates page for curated requests, current builds and verified releases. A request, label, count or date is not a delivery promise or estimate. #### Who is responsible for products, taxes and customer terms? Horcrux provides commerce software; the merchant remains responsible for lawful products, its customer-facing terms, tax and business obligations, and agreements with payment or delivery providers. Read the current Terms, Privacy Notice and DPA for the binding language. #### What should I not assume Horcrux offers? Do not assume global checkout, every named courier, automatic refunds, full foreign-store migration, merchant restore, a public API, a no-code theme editor, split fulfilment, Meta commerce, phone sign-in or guaranteed SEO outcomes. The FAQ and current Updates page show what is available, optional, not available yet and planned for later. ## Canonical sources [Horcrux public knowledge index](https://horcrux.app/llms.txt) [Horcrux machine-readable manifest](https://horcrux.app/.well-known/horcrux.json)