With Maintenance mode on, anyone who tries to visit your shop will see a message that it's currently under maintenance, and they won’t be able to access the rest of your shop.

When you first sign up with Big Cartel, Maintenance mode is automatically turned __on__ so you can set up your products, checkout, theme, and other details without the world watching your every move. When you’re ready to launch, you can toggle Maintenance mode off to go live! 

If you need to take a break or make behind-the-scenes updates in the future, you can turn Maintenance mode back on any time.

>Heads up! Shops on paid plans will still be billed for their monthly subscription while in Maintenance mode. If you want to stop being billed, you’ll need to [switch to the free Gold plan](/resources/help/article/upgrade-or-downgrade-your-plan "how to switch your plan") or [close your shop](https://help.bigcartel.com/close-your-account "how to close your shop"). 
>
>Also, visitors aren't tracked while your shop is in maintenance mode. We don't want to skew your [conversion rate](/resources/help/article/track-conversion-rates-and-trends).

Turn on maintenance mode

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