Knowledge Base

Premium members are users who have chosen to pay a small annual fee to support the Critique Circle. They receive access to more tools and services than Standard users.

Below we have listed the benefits of being a Premium member on CC:

Private Queues

You can create your own private queues. You can choose to create several types of queues and invite people to them. The queues can run on CC´s credit system, or without credits, depending on what you and your critique partners prefer. The queues can be many-to-one which means you submit stories and other people critique them, or many-to-many, which means all the people in your crit group can submit stories and critique each other. This is the ideal setup for critique groups, or for a dedicated reader system for a novel. It's also the ideal system for those who prefer to keep their manuscripts private, only viewable by selected few. You can even create a queue only viewable by yourself, and store your chapters there as backup.

The Novel system

Access to the Critique Circle Novel system, allowing you to structure your submission into a single cohesive novel, providing you with a marvellous way to keep your readers interested and critting.

Full Manuscript crit

The Full Manuscript crit feature enables you to give and receive macro crits on an entire manuscript, at a credit price that you and your critter mutually agree upon. Click HERE for more details.

Revise story while it's in the queue

You can edit your stories while they're still in the queue before they come up for review. Please note that placeholders are not allowed at Critique Circle.

Discount on submitting consecutive stories

You get a one credit discount when submitting a story in the public queues while you already have a submission in the queue or up for review, making it more affordable to stack submissions.

Outlining Workshop

You are given complete access to the massively useful Outlining workshop. You're able to create an unlimited number of characters as well as create your own templates for character creations. You're even able to publish your templates so others can create characters with your help.

Full access to all tools

You get full access to all the tools here at Critique Circle. You're for example able to create an unlimited number of characters in the character workshop, you're able to save names from the name generator, and use of the manuscript progress tool is unlimited.

Buddy List

Premium members are able to utilize the Critique Circle's powerful Buddy list feature. This enables you to receive notification if a friend of yours submits a story for review, solves an exercise, writes on the board, etc. This is for example useful for private crit groups where the members don't have much time to socialize, but want to keep track of what their buddies are up to. Your buddies are also only a click away when sending messages. You can have up to 24 buddies on your list.

Change your Profile Header

When you sign up as a Premium member, you have the exclusive choice of being able to change your profile header. Click on your username on top of the page in the right corner and choose Public profile. Then click on Edit my profile where you can change your profile header.

Access to Premium Forums

The Premium Forums are exclusively for the use of our Premium members.

Arrange Queues

You can arrange your queues any way you choose. Don't let CC's automatic Queue ordering bog you down, take charge of your own queue arrangement!

Huge message box

Our Premium members message box can handle up to 250 messages in either the inbox or the outbox (up to 500 in total). Additionally, messages never expire, so you don't have to worry about losing messages.

Unlimited number of books in the library

As a Premium member, you don't have a restriction on how many books you can have in the library on your profile page. The sky's the limit!

More information about our Premium subscription and price HERE.

We created an introduction video of the benefits of becoming a Premium member on CC:

Click here for more information and pricing.

Premium Gold Membership adds another layer to the benefits of Premium Membership by expanding the benefits.

In addition to premium benefits, these extras are also included:

Unlimited message box 

CC won't delete any of your messages!

24 member Queues

You can have up to 3x24 member private queues on your account!

Up-for-review editing 

Unlike normal Premium Membership, which only allows for editing prior to a story being up for review, Premium Gold Membership allows users to make minor edits their stories while they are live in the public queues. Note that you cannot replace the whole story while it's up for review but you can edit individual paragraphs to fix small issues.

No archive of stories 

Normally, stories are archived after a certain period of time to conserve space. As a Gold Member, your stories don't get archived unless you want them to!

Twice as many buddies

You can have up to 48 members on your buddy list instead of 24 which is the limit for Premium members. Never lose track of a friend you've made on CC.

If you currently have a premium account and want to upgrade to Gold, you can click here.

To request a refund for your premium subscription send a message to administrator through the message box or an email to support@critiquecircle.com.

Yes, but only if you are a Premium Gold Member.

Access your story, and select "edit story" at the top of the page.

If you are a Premium Member, you will only be able to edit as long as there are no crits in progress, and your story is in a private queue. If there are pending critiques, you will have to wait for the critters to submit them. 



Only premium gold members are able to edit a story in review in the public queues.

Please note that "placeholders" are not allowed.

Premium subscribers can create their own private critique group. One of the members creates a queue (Story Queue — My Queues), and invites the other premium members to participate. Before creating the queue, members have to decide on issues such as how long each critique period lasts, if it runs on the CC credit system or not, etc. 

All premium subscribers can create their own queues, but it's simpler for a crit group to use one queue for their shared work. If they prefer, they can instead each submit their stories to their own personal queue, and invite their group members to that queue.

This use of the Private Queue system only allows for Premium Subscribers to be members of the Queue and you can invite a maximum of eight members into each "Private many-2-many Queue". If you wish to have more than 8 members, you must become a Gold Premium member.

When you add people to your buddy list, you'll be notified when your buddies submit a story, a crit, write on the boards, etc.

This is useful, for example, if you primarily work within a private crit group and don't have much time to participate in other parts of the Critique Circle, but want to keep up with what your buddies are doing on the site.

To add a buddy, go to My Buddy List and click on Add a buddy, which you see on the blue bar in the middle of the page.

You can also add a buddy by clicking "add buddy" on someones profile page or on the window that pops up when you hover over their name. You can remove someone from your buddy list in the same way.

No, the only way to earn credits is to critique other people's stories.

However, the first time you you sign up for a premium subscription you get one extra credit as a thank you.

Some time may pass from the moment when you sign up for Premium Membership until your Premium account is activated.

If more than 24 hours pass and your membership hasn't been activated, please contact us through the message box.

Most of the time, new memberships are activated within a few hours.

Since standard membership is free, our Premium members run this site with their donation.

If you would like to become a premium member you can go here. If you would like to see what benefits you get from a premium subscription click here.

If you are already a subscriber, you can check the current status of your premium subscription on your subscription page. From there you can also view your subscription history.

You should receive a message before your membership expires, with a link to a renewal page.

If you don't receive this message, or want to renew ahead of time (your new subscription period will be calculated from the day your older one expires), you can use this link:

https://www.critiquecircle.com/store/subscribe/

You can check the current status of your premium subscription on your subscription page. From there you can also view your subscription history.

Please check your subscription page, and you'll find this information. On this page you can also manage your subscription.

You'll also receive notification around a week before your account expires.

You'll still have access to Critique Circle after your Premium subscription expires but your personal forum and queues will be closed.

You can see on "My page" when your subscription expires. Two weeks before your subscription lapses you'll get a message.

When you choose not to renew, your private queues will no longer be available to you. They are kept for some time, unless you request otherwise, so that everything is where you left it if you choose to return.

If you downgrade from premium gold to premium, your queues go from 24 member to 8 members, and the gold-only features will not be available anymore.

You can cancel your recurring subscription at any time from your subscription page. On that page you can see if you have an automatically recurring subscription profile and on what date you will next be charged.

Simply click on the "Turn off auto renew" link to cancel the recurring subscription. Your account will not be downgraded until your current subscription period ends.