"Free" means three different things in this category, and the difference decides whether you are still using the product in six months.
The trial. Full product, 14 or 30 days, then it stops. Useful for evaluating, useless for a small operation that simply cannot justify a subscription.
The demo account. Free forever, but the export is watermarked, the history is a week, or you cannot add a second officer. It exists to make you upgrade, and it is designed to become annoying at exactly the moment you start relying on it.
The free tier. A real, bounded slice of the product that keeps working. The limits are quantities — how many checkpoints, how many sites — not crippled features.
Only the third kind survives contact with an actual operation. This post is about what ours contains, and just as importantly where it runs out.
What the free plan includes
- 5 checkpoints. The QR or NFC points fixed to the building.
- Unlimited officers. Not five, not "up to three" — unlimited, on every plan including this one.
- 1 site, 2 dashboard users.
- 30 days of history.
- QR and NFC scanning, incident capture with photo, and offline mode, which is not held back for paid tiers.
- No card, no expiry date.
The one number people assume is the catch is the officer count, so to be explicit: we do not charge per officer on any plan. Billing is per checkpoint. In an industry with the turnover this one has, charging per head means your bill moves every month for reasons outside your control, and it quietly penalises you for staffing properly.
Where 5 checkpoints actually gets you
A checkpoint is a physical scan point, not a room and not a patrol. Five is enough for:
- A residential building: main entrance, garage, roof access, plant room, rear door.
- A small warehouse: gate, dock, perimeter corner, office door, fire panel.
- A single retail site or a small office block.
It is not enough for: a hospital wing, an industrial estate, a multi-site contract, or anywhere the patrol route branches. If you are counting scan points and getting past about eight, the free plan is not your answer and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise.
The four points where free stops being enough
1. The second site. The free plan is one site. This is the most common reason people move, and it arrives sooner than expected — usually with a new contract rather than a decision to upgrade.
2. History beyond 30 days. Fine for internal peace of mind. Not fine the moment a client asks what happened seven weeks ago, or an insurer asks for a quarter. Paid plans hold 12 months; Business holds it indefinitely.
3. A contract that specifies patrol frequency. Once "four rounds a night" is written into an agreement, you need the record that proves it across a billing period — which usually means more history than 30 days, and more than one dashboard user reading it.
4. Scheduled reports and richer alerting. If a supervisor is manually opening the dashboard to check whether the night went well, that is a job the paid tiers do for you.
What it costs when you outgrow it
Pro is $29 / 29 € per month, 10 checkpoints included and +$2 / +2 € per extra checkpoint, with 3 sites, 5 users and 12 months of history. Business is $79 / 69 €, 40 checkpoints included and +$1 / +1 € beyond that, with 15 sites, 20 users and unlimited history.
Because Business charges less per extra checkpoint, the two plans meet rather than cross: at 35 checkpoints in USD ($29 + 25 × $2 = $79) and 30 in EUR (29 € + 20 × 2 € = 69 €) they cost the same, and past that point Business is cheaper. There is no price cliff to fall off and no penalty for growing into it mid-month. The pricing page has the calculator.
How to evaluate a free tier that is not ours
Four questions that expose the demo accounts:
- Does it expire? If yes, it is a trial. Fine, but plan for the end of it.
- Is the export usable? Watermarked or partial exports mean the free tier cannot produce evidence, which is most of the point.
- How many officers? A per-officer limit on a free plan tells you how the paid plans bill, and that bill grows with your turnover.
- Does offline work? If offline is a paid feature, the free tier will fail in exactly the places patrols are hardest — basements, plant rooms, remote perimeters.
When not to bother with us at all
If you need man-down detection or facial verification of the officer, we do not have either and they are not on this year's roadmap. If your checkpoints have to be Bluetooth beacons rather than QR or NFC, that is a Q4 2026 item. In those cases a free plan is not what you are missing, and you will find that out faster reading this than sitting through a demo.
Short version
- Three kinds of "free": trial, demo account, real tier. Only the third one lasts.
- Ours: 5 checkpoints, unlimited officers, 1 site, 2 users, 30 days of history, offline included, no card, no expiry.
- It runs out at the second site, past 30 days of history, or when a contract makes you prove frequency.
- Pro $29 / 29 €, Business $79 / 69 €, and the two meet at 35 checkpoints in USD or 30 in EUR — no cliff.