An entitlement can cover a particular article collection, feature or time period. A payment record and an access permission are related records, but one does not prove that the other is correctly configured. (Ghost paid tiers documentation ↗ · Ghost protected content and access)
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Tracing access after an upgrade
Conditional example: if the plan grants Premium access through May 31 after an upgrade on May 10, test that account against a Premium article on May 11 and again after June 1. A successful payment is a billing event; opening the article tests whether the product actually granted the access permission.
Entitlement is the access actually granted
Cancellation may stop the next renewal while leaving access in place until the paid period ends. Test the date on which access should expire under your offer instead of automatically treating every cancellation as immediate loss of access.
Compare billing status with the actual reader experience
A billing tool can record a paid invoice while the website still denies access. Inspect the subscription and then try the specific article with the account that should qualify. This tells you which system needs investigation before anyone retries a charge or changes a tier.