What the Elite plan unlocks

Elite is NearbySpy's premium subscription tier for Investigators. It exists because some of the most sensitive workflows — signed retainers, escalated client tools, and stronger marketplace visibility — require a higher level of trust, account verification, and platform investment than the entry-level plan can provide. This article describes what Elite includes and how to decide whether you need it.

What you get with Elite

• DocuVault e-signing — the full document signing workflow. Prepare PDFs, request signatures from clients and counter-parties, and store the signed originals with audit metadata. DocuVault is the single largest functional difference between plans. See Why DocuVault requires Elite and Preparing PDFs and sending for signature.
• Eligibility for Featured placements — Elite accounts can purchase Featured slots on directory and search pages. The Elite plan is a prerequisite, not a replacement: you still buy and configure each Featured assignment separately. See Featured placements in directory and search.
• Higher Scout AI access — Scout, NearbySpy's in-product assistant, is allowed to look at more of your dashboard data on Elite, with the same permissions you already have. See What Scout can access and when to use it.
• Priority support — Elite tickets are routed ahead of free and entry-level tickets for response, particularly for billing and DocuVault issues.
• Profile signals — your public profile shows the Elite badge that signals to potential Clients that you have completed the platform's higher verification bar.

What stays the same on every plan

Cases, Operations, Evidence integrity (SHA-256 hashing, immutable storage, the audit trail), Client invitations, RBAC, and basic messaging are all available on every Investigator plan. Elite does not gate the core operational workflow. If you are running Cases without Featured placements and without sending documents for signature, you can stay on the standard plan indefinitely.

How to know you need Elite

• You routinely send retainers, releases, or NDAs to clients and counter-parties and currently use a separate signing tool (e.g. paper, email, another app).
• You want to compete for Featured placement in a specific city, county, or specialty.
• You are building a referral practice and want the Elite badge as a visible signal on your public profile.
• You spend enough time inside Scout that the higher access tier would save you more than the price of the plan.

How to upgrade

Open the Billing area in your Investigator dashboard and choose Upgrade to Elite. You will be sent through the checkout flow described in Completing Elite checkout, which uses Authorize.Net as the payment gateway. Once payment clears, the new features turn on immediately — there is no manual approval queue. See Understanding Billing for where to find the new charge in your history.