# Plans & Billing

The four KleioBase plans, what each unlocks, pay-as-you-go credits, and how to manage your subscription.


KleioBase has four plans, plus pay-as-you-go credits for the months you need a little extra. This page explains what each plan includes, how monthly credits work, and how to manage your subscription.

## The four plans

Every plan includes uploading and AI extraction, your knowledge base, duplicate matching, GEDCOM import and export, and the Research Companion. Higher plans raise your limits and unlock research gap detection, bulk ZIP upload, a stronger Research Companion model, more workspaces, and white-label PDF export.

| Plan | Price | Credits / month | People | Highlights |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Explorer | Free | 10 | 200 | Uploading and AI extraction, knowledge base, duplicate matching, GEDCOM export, basic Research Companion |
| Researcher | $15 / month | 100 | 2,000 | Everything in Explorer, plus research gap detection and duplicate fact cleanup |
| Archivist | $29 / month | 500 | 10,000 | Everything in Researcher, plus bulk ZIP upload, AI connection discovery, and a stronger Research Companion model (read-only collaboration coming soon) |
| Professional | $49 / month | 1,500 | Unlimited | Everything in Archivist, plus up to 5 [workspaces](/docs/workspaces) (separate knowledge bases) and white-label PDF export (editing collaboration and API access coming soon) |

Explorer is free forever. Duplicate matching and GEDCOM import and export are included on every plan; research gap detection starts at Researcher.

### Annual and lifetime options

You choose monthly or annual billing at checkout. Annual is roughly 28-32% cheaper than paying monthly:

| Plan | Annual price |
| --- | --- |
| Researcher | $129 / year |
| Archivist | $249 / year |
| Professional | $399 / year |

There is also a one-time **Researcher Lifetime** option for $199 if you would rather pay once than subscribe. It gives you Researcher access permanently, with no renewals, and founders also keep a discounted rate on Archivist and Professional if they upgrade later.

Researcher Lifetime is a limited founder cohort rather than a permanent part of the price list. The number of places in the current cohort, and how many are left, are shown on the [pricing page](/pricing). You will also see the option offered inside the app if you reach a limit on the free plan.

## What a credit is

A credit is what it costs to process one record. A normal scan uses **1 credit**; a [deep scan](/docs/uploading-records) uses **5**. Adding the images themselves is always free - credits are only spent when you process (extract) a record, which is why we count in credits rather than uploads.

Each plan includes a set number of credits per month (shown in the table above). These **monthly credits reset at the start of each billing month** and do not roll over. On the free Explorer plan the billing month is the calendar month, so credits reset on the 1st; on paid plans they reset on the monthly anniversary of your subscription. If you need more, you can buy pay-as-you-go credits, which work a little differently - see below. For how uploading and processing work step by step, see [Uploading Records](/docs/uploading-records).

## Which plan unlocks what

If you are deciding whether to upgrade, here is where each feature becomes available:

- **GEDCOM export**, **GEDCOM import**, and **duplicate matching** are on every plan, including Explorer (free).
- **Research gap detection** and **duplicate fact cleanup** (catching one fact recorded under several different wordings on the same profile) start at Researcher.
- **Bulk ZIP upload**, **AI connection discovery**, and the **stronger Research Companion model** start at Archivist.
- **White-label PDF export** is Professional only.
- **Up to 5 workspaces** (separate, isolated knowledge bases) is Professional only; every other plan includes 1. Credits and the Research Companion budget stay shared across your workspaces - see [Workspaces](/docs/workspaces).
- **Collaboration** (read-only at Archivist, editing at Professional) and **API access** (Professional) are planned and not yet available - they are labelled "Soon" on the pricing page.

If your main goal is to find and merge duplicate people across your records, that works on every plan, including free Explorer. See [Finding & Merging Duplicates](/docs/finding-duplicates).

## Research Companion budget

Each plan also includes a usage budget for the [Research Companion](/docs/research-companion), measured over a rolling 3-hour window. Higher plans get a larger budget.

| Plan | Research Companion budget |
| --- | --- |
| Explorer | Up to 80k tokens per 3 hours |
| Researcher | Up to 200k tokens per 3 hours |
| Archivist | Up to 400k tokens per 3 hours |
| Professional | Up to 600k tokens per 3 hours |

A token is roughly three quarters of a word, counted across both your question and the answer, so a message that searches your knowledge base costs far more than a short follow-up. This budget is what limits very long AI chats, so if a long conversation pauses, the rolling window is the reason. The window keeps moving, so waiting a while and picking the conversation back up gives you room again.

## Pay-as-you-go credits

If you reach your monthly credit limit but do not want to move up a plan, you can buy a credit pack instead. Pay-as-you-go credits are used **on top of** your monthly credits, so you keep your plan and just top up when you need more processing.

| Credit pack | Price | Savings |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 50 credits | $5 | - |
| 150 credits | $12 | Save 20% |
| 500 credits | $35 | Save 30% |

How credits are spent:

- One credit covers one normal extraction.
- A deep scan uses 5 credits.

### How monthly credits and extra credits fit together

You effectively have two pools of credits, and the difference trips people up, so it is worth being clear:

- **Monthly credits** come with your plan - for example, 10 on Explorer. They reset at the start of each billing month and do not roll over.
- **Extra credits** are the pay-as-you-go credits you buy (or are granted). They never expire, and they are only drawn on once your monthly credits for the period are used up.

Because of this, buying or being given extra credits does not raise your "Credits this month" number - that bar always reflects your plan's monthly credits. Your extra credits are shown separately at the bottom of **Settings > Usage**, and they kick in automatically once the monthly ones run out.

You buy credit packs from your billing settings (see below). If you find you are buying credits every month, upgrading to the next plan is usually the better value.

## Tracking your usage

To see how much of your plan you have used, go to **Settings > Usage** ([/settings/usage](/settings/usage)). It shows your current plan, credits used this month, how many people you have against your plan's limit, your Research Companion budget, and your remaining pay-as-you-go credits at a glance. To buy more credits or change plans, use the links there to jump to billing.

## Managing your subscription

Everything to do with your plan lives at **Settings > Billing** ([/settings/billing](/settings/billing)). From there you can:

- See your current plan and your next billing date.
- Upgrade or change plans.
- View and download your invoices.
- See the payment method on file.
- Buy pay-as-you-go credits.
- Cancel your subscription.

### Changing plans

1. Go to [Settings > Billing](/settings/billing).
2. Choose the plan you want to move to.
3. Pick monthly or annual billing at checkout.
4. Confirm the change.

Your new limits apply once the change goes through.

### Cancelling

You can cancel at any time from [Settings > Billing](/settings/billing). Cancelling keeps your access until the end of the current billing period, so you do not lose anything you have already paid for. After that, your account moves to the free Explorer plan.

When you cancel, the confirmation box asks one question: why you are leaving. Pick the closest reason from the list, and add a comment if you want to. It goes to the founder and nowhere else, and it is the main way we find out what is not working.

Your data stays in your account when you move to a lower plan or cancel. If you ever want a full copy of your tree, GEDCOM export is available on every plan - see [Importing & Exporting Data](/docs/importing-and-exporting). If you were on Professional with more than one workspace, dropping to a lower plan does not delete the extra workspaces either - they lock to read-only, kept in full and still exportable. See [Workspaces](/docs/workspaces) for exactly what that means.

## Related reading

- [Workspaces](/docs/workspaces) - what a workspace is, Professional's 5-workspace limit, and what happens to extra workspaces on downgrade.
- [Finding & Merging Duplicates](/docs/finding-duplicates) - duplicate profile matching is available on every plan; duplicate fact cleanup (facts recorded several ways) starts at Researcher.
- [Importing & Exporting Data](/docs/importing-and-exporting) - GEDCOM import and export.
- [Uploading Records](/docs/uploading-records) - how processing counts against your monthly limit.
- [Research Companion](/docs/research-companion) - the AI assistant and its usage budget.

Canonical: https://kleiobase.com/docs/plans-and-billing