> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://acoservice.gitbook.io/acoservice-documentation/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://acoservice.gitbook.io/acoservice-documentation/running-your-aco/preview-and-publish.md).

# Preview and publish

Your ACO is private until you publish it — and publishing is reversible.

Every ACO has two states: **draft** and **live**. New ones start as drafts.

## Draft

A draft is a complete, working site that only you can see.

* It lives at its **real address** — not a staging URL
* Your branding, colours and content are all applied
* You see a **"Draft — only you can see this"** banner at the top of every page
* Everyone else gets a plain "this site isn't live yet" page

That last point matters more than it sounds. The withheld page carries **none of your branding** — not your name, colours, logo or tagline. A half-built site should not leak what you are about to launch, or that you are launching at all.

{% hint style="info" %}
**Preview is the real thing, not a mock-up.** You are looking at your actual site on its actual address. There is no separate preview mode that behaves differently from production, because a preview that differs from production is a preview that lies.
{% endhint %}

### Who can see a draft

Only its own admins, and ACO Service staff. Not other owners, not signed-in strangers, not someone who administers a *different* ACO. Being an admin somewhere else grants nothing here.

## Publishing

Two things must be true:

1. **Your ACO is set up** — at minimum branding and a working bot
2. **You have an active subscription** — see [Subscription](/acoservice-documentation/running-your-aco/subscription.md)

Either order. Subscribe first and build later, or build everything and subscribe at the end. Nothing in the console will stop you making progress because you have not paid.

Press **Publish** in the console and the site is public immediately.

### If publishing is refused

| What you see                             | What it means                                                                                     |
| ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **"Subscribe to publish your ACO"**      | No active subscription. Building stays free; publishing does not.                                 |
| **"Your plan allows N live ACOs"**       | You are at your plan's limit. Upgrade, or unpublish another first.                                |
| **"Connect your Discord account first"** | The link is missing — see [Signing in](/acoservice-documentation/running-your-aco/signing-in.md). |

## Unpublishing

**Publish is reversible.** Press **Unpublish** and the site goes private again immediately, back to exactly the draft state it was in.

Unpublishing does **not**:

* Delete anything
* Stop your bot
* Remove your members, tabs, invoices or history
* Release your address for someone else

It only makes the site private. Everything else keeps running, so you can pull a broken launch back, fix it, and publish again.

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Unpublishing a live site disconnects visitors mid-session.** Anyone browsing gets the "not live yet" page on their next click. That is why the console asks you to confirm it, and does not ask when you publish.
{% endhint %}

## What happens to a live site if your subscription lapses

**It stays up.** A lapsed subscription stops you publishing *more*, but it does not take a running site down on its own.

You also keep service in two situations people expect to lose it:

* **A failed payment.** Your card bouncing does not pull your site down while the payment is being retried. You will see a warning in the console and should fix the card, but nothing goes dark on the first failed charge.
* **After cancelling.** If you cancel mid-month you keep everything until the period you paid for ends. Cancelling does not take back time you have already bought.


---

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