Help
How BillSplain works, and how to get the most out of it. Looking for quick answers instead? Check the FAQ.
Your Business Profile
How is my business profile built?
You give us your business name, website, and zip code. Our AI agent reads your site and builds a profile — industry, services, regulatory topics, and relevant agencies — for you to review before monitoring starts.
During signup we scan your website and use AI to identify your industry, sub-industry, services, and the regulatory topics and government agencies most relevant to your business. Your business name is always exactly what you typed. Once you're signed up, you can edit your industry, services, business summary, and monitored states any time from your Profile page.
Bills, Matches & Analysis
What is a "match"?
A match is a bill our system has flagged as relevant to your industry — before anything has been written specifically about your business.
Every day we score new and updated federal and state bills against your profile's industry, services, agencies, and topics, and show a HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW impact badge with a match score. This scoring is automatic and doesn't cost a credit — it's an industry-level signal, not a personalized read. For that, use Analyze Impact.
What does "Analyze Impact" do?
It generates a personalized breakdown of exactly how one bill affects your business — a plain-English summary, three pros, three cons, and a relevance score, written specifically for your profile.
Click Analyze Impact on any bill and our AI reads the full bill text alongside your business profile. This costs 1 credit and is saved permanently, so you won't be charged again to revisit that bill.
Credits
What are credits and how are they used?
Credits pay for personalized impact analyses — 1 credit per analysis. Viewing matches, bills, and your profile is always free.
Free accounts get 5 credits a month; unused credits don't roll over. Pro accounts get 25 credits a month, rolling over up to a cap of 50. Enterprise accounts get 100 credits a month, rolling over up to a cap of 200. If a Pro or Enterprise account runs out, analyses continue on metered overage ($0.35/analysis on Pro, $0.25/analysis on Enterprise); Free accounts wait until the next monthly reset. Turning on monitoring for a bill doesn't use a credit.
Alerts
What alerts will I get, and when?
You'll be emailed when a bill you're monitoring changes status, when a tracked representative votes on it, and in a weekly digest of everything that matched.
We check daily for status changes and rep votes and notify you the same day something happens on a bill you're monitoring. Real-time status and vote alerts are included on paid plans; Free accounts get the weekly digest of everything that matched that week. You'll also get an email if a payment fails or your account moves into overage. Alerts are delivered by email and SMS; manage your notification preferences in Settings.
Monitoring & Coverage
How does monitoring a bill work?
Turn on monitoring for any bill from its detail page to get notified when its status changes.
Monitoring is separate from matching: a match happens automatically for every bill relevant to your profile, but monitoring is something you turn on for the specific bills you want to track closely — for example, when it moves through committee or comes up for a vote.
How do I change which states I monitor?
Monitored states control which state legislatures we watch for your profile. Change them any time from your Profile page.
Federal bills are always included, regardless of your state. We cover all 50 state legislatures, and we're turning them on in sequence — a state you add shows as “coming soon” on your Profile page until its coverage goes live, and you'll be notified when it does.
Still stuck?
If this page didn't answer your question, email us and a human will get back to you. Billing, profile changes, a bug you've hit, or anything account-specific.
Email support