Pricing
Free where it counts.
Your journal on your own device is free forever — reading, writing, and exporting your entries never costs a thing. The only thing that ever costs money is optional cloud sync.
Hearth
Everything, on your device
Forever. No account required.
- All nine practice modes, including "A hard day"
- Photos, moods, prompts & "on this day"
- Works fully offline, installs to your home screen
- Export anytime — Markdown, JSON, CSV, PDF
- Optional passcode / biometric lock
- No ads, no tracking, no analytics
Hearth Premium
Keep your journal in step, everywhere
includes 1 GB of encrypted storage — then $0.50 per 100 MB
- Everything in Free
- End-to-end encrypted sync — only your passphrase can read it
- Phone, tablet & computer always in step
- Encrypted cloud backup for peace of mind
- Cancel anytime — your local journal stays yours
Not switched on yet. Sync and storage are free for everyone right now, with no cap on the total you keep. This is what Premium will cost when it begins — you'll hear from us well before that day (the app shows the date ahead of time), and your entries are always yours to read and export either way. When it begins, free accounts keep syncing, with up to 200 MB of encrypted photos in the cloud.
Get started in the appSync is set up inside the app: create a free account and set your encryption passphrase. Right now that is all it takes, because sync is free while Premium is not switched on. When it begins it will be one monthly subscription you can cancel whenever you like, with no lifetime purchase.
Fair questions
What you're actually paying for
Why isn't the app just free?
The app is free — forever. Writing, reading, and exporting your own journal on your own device costs nothing and never will. A subscription only pays for the one thing that has a real ongoing cost to run: secure servers that store your encrypted entries and keep them in step across your devices.
What does "end-to-end encrypted" mean here?
Before anything leaves your device, each entry is encrypted with a key only your passphrase (or your recovery phrase) can open. Hearth's servers only ever store unreadable ciphertext — we can't read your words, your moods, or the dates inside your entries (the server only sees when encrypted data was last uploaded).
How is storage counted and billed?
Storage is the photos and recordings you keep in the cloud. Each one is encrypted on your device before it leaves, and stored as unreadable ciphertext with two independent storage providers — a main copy and a backup copy. To run this, Hearth's server keeps a ledger: which account a file belongs to, an identifier made from your own key, whether it's a small preview, the view you see, or the original (so it can tell a photo from a recording, never what either shows), its size, whether each copy exists, and when each was stored — never a key and never the photo. See our Privacy Policy for the full list.
Premium includes 1 GB. Beyond that, each 100 MB (or part of one) costs $0.50 a month, counted at the most you stored during the month and added to your next monthly renewal — never charged in the middle of a month and never backdated. The Storage screen in the app shows where you stand before anything is billed. While Premium is not switched on, nothing is counted against you and nothing is charged for storage.
What happens if I cancel?
Your local journal is untouched — it lives on your device regardless. You simply stop syncing new changes to the cloud. Everything you already synced, photos included, stays yours to download and export at any time.
Is there a lifetime option?
No. When Premium begins it will be a simple monthly subscription. We'd rather keep it honest and cancellable than promise "lifetime" for a service that has real, ongoing running costs.
Do I need to pay to keep my data safe?
Never. Your data safety comes from the local-first design and from exporting your own backups, both of which are free. Sync is a convenience for using Hearth across several devices — not a hostage situation.