Billing, the Free Trial, and Cancellation

This page explains exactly what you are charged, when, and how to stop it. Billing is handled by Stripe: Meridian never sees or stores your card details.

The plans

Meridian has a free plan and one paid plan, Meridian Pro, at $8.99 per month. Your current plan, and the exact AI credit allowance each plan includes, are always shown live on the Plans and credits page in the app.

Where to upgrade

Five places in the app lead to the purchase page, and they all lead to the same one:

• The side navigation. An Upgrade entry sits at the top of the rail on desktop, and in the More menu on mobile. Free accounts see it; it disappears once you are on Pro.
• Settings. The Plan and Credits card at the top of Settings shows your plan, both credit balances, and the buttons to subscribe or to buy a top-up pack.
• Wherever credits run out. Chat, photo diagnosis, meter scan, and plant comparison each offer the upgrade at the point you reach the limit, rather than leaving you to go looking for it.
• The credit counter. Open it on the photo diagnosis or meter scan pages for the full breakdown of what you have left, and the link to add more.
• The active-plant limit. Free accounts cap out at 5 active plants, and that screen offers the upgrade alongside the option to archive a plant instead.

Whichever route you take, you land on the same page, see the same price ($8.99 per month for Pro, $7.99 for the 50-credit pack), and the same terms are shown before you enter a card.

If a payment has failed, the navigation entry changes to Fix payment and takes you to the same place to update your card.

On Pro the navigation entry is withheld, because there is nothing left to sell you there. Everything you need is on the Plan and Credits card in Settings: your balances, the top-up pack, and the link to manage or cancel the subscription.

What happens when you run out of credits

Nothing is lost and nothing is deleted. The AI features pause until you have credits again. Everything else keeps working: your plants, journals, entries, photos, spaces, recipes, calculators, and charts are all unaffected.

There are three ways to have credits again:

1. Wait for the refill. Free credits reset at the start of each month.
2. Subscribe to Pro, which raises the monthly allowance.
3. If you are already on Pro, buy the 50-credit top-up pack. Those credits never expire.

A free account is offered Pro rather than a pack, on purpose. A pack bought on the free plan would be spent at the same rate and would not raise your allowance, so it is the worse deal of the two.

What each action costs: a chat reply is 1 credit, a meter scan is 1 credit, and a photo diagnosis is 2 credits.

The 7-day free trial

First-time subscribers get a 7-day free trial of Pro. You enter a card at checkout, but nothing is charged during the trial.

When the trial ends, two things can happen:

• If you have not cancelled, the card you entered is charged $8.99 and your subscription begins. Billing then recurs every month until you cancel.
• If you cancelled during the trial, nothing is ever charged.

The trial is offered once. If you have subscribed before, starting Pro again begins billing right away with no trial.

How to cancel

1. Open the app and go to Settings, or to the Plans and credits page.
2. Select "Manage subscription" (in Settings) or "Open billing portal" (on the Plans and credits page).
3. In the Stripe billing portal, choose Cancel subscription.

Cancelling stops all future charges. Pro features stay available until the end of the trial or the month you have already paid for, then your account moves to the free plan. Nothing else about your account changes: your plants, journals, photos, and data all stay.

You can also update your payment method and download past invoices from the same billing portal.

Deleting your account cancels the subscription too. See Deleting your account: what happens to your data.

AI credits

AI credits pay for chat replies, photo diagnoses, and meter scans.

• Free credits come with your plan and refill at the start of each month. They do not roll over: an unused free credit expires when the month does. The refill is applied the first time you open Meridian in a new month, so it may land a little after midnight on the 1st.
• Purchased credits come from the one-time 50-credit top-up pack, $7.99, available to Pro subscribers. They never expire, and they are only spent after your free credits run out.

Buying a top-up pack is a single one-time payment. It never starts a recurring charge.

Credits are spent by the AI features described in Using AI Chat for Plant Diagnosis.

Questions or problems

If a charge looks wrong, or you cancelled and were still billed, contact support@growmeridian.com and we will sort it out.