David B.
Deceptive UX designed to trick users into paying
Unsure whether I had an active subscription so I checked my account to confirm that I indeed have a "basic" free account. However I was charged for an additional 3 months and when queried it turned out an "essentials" subscription was hidden in a separate workspace, almost impossible to find, that I did not set up. I've raised this with the company, pointed out how deceptive the UX is, as well as the fact that my account has been inactive for those three months and they have refused to do anything. There is no reason whatsoever for creating separate workspaces without telling you and hiding your subscription status in there, beyond making it hard to cancel. Would strongly, strongly advise people against using a company who engages in such sneaky practices, who in their email back to me recognise how confusing this is but refuse to do the right thing and refund the charges.
Response from async.comNov 21, 2025
Hi David, We’re really sorry to hear about your experience and appreciate you taking the time to share this feedback. We want to clarify that every workspace is created and managed by users only, and each one has its own separate subscription. When a new workspace is created, it always starts on our Basic (free) plan. A subscription can only become paid if the user manually enters their payment method and confirms the upgrade, which is something we cannot do on a user’s behalf. Team Workspaces exist so groups can collaborate on shared projects, but again, they must be created intentionally by the user. From a privacy and security standpoint, it is not possible for us to create or modify workspaces - we don’t have access to do that. We understand that navigating multiple workspaces can be confusing, and we are genuinely sorry that this led to frustration for you. Our team is actively reviewing ways to make subscription statuses more transparent across all workspaces. Thank you again for your feedback. Your experience helps us improve. -The Podcastle Team