My question is, once I've paid for an account - for example, a personal account - will I have to pay a second time in order to open a community?
no. once you have a personal account you can create as many communities as you like. whether you paid for that account and it has since lapsed, or you got an invite code is irrelevant, once you have it, you can create communities.
Or does one fee allow me to open multiple accounts?
no. fee, or invite code: create one personal account. communities are a different type of account.
once this is all out of the beta-testing phase, must you start out as a paid subscriber (reverting to "free" status after a month, if you want) or can you start out as a free subscriber and decide later if you want to upgrade to paid?
you can only start out as a free subscriber if you have an invite code, in open beta and after official launch. once you have an account, you can upgrade later, or downgrade (there is more than one level of paid account), or let the payments lapse and revert to free.
no subject
no. once you have a personal account you can create as many communities as you like. whether you paid for that account and it has since lapsed, or you got an invite code is irrelevant, once you have it, you can create communities.
Or does one fee allow me to open multiple accounts?
no. fee, or invite code: create one personal account. communities are a different type of account.
once this is all out of the beta-testing phase, must you start out as a paid subscriber (reverting to "free" status after a month, if you want) or can you start out as a free subscriber and decide later if you want to upgrade to paid?
you can only start out as a free subscriber if you have an invite code, in open beta and after official launch. once you have an account, you can upgrade later, or downgrade (there is more than one level of paid account), or let the payments lapse and revert to free.