Building your app
Free tier
A free tier is the part of a service you can keep using without paying, up to a limit and with no end date, unlike a free trial, which lets you use a paid plan for a set time, after which you pay or lose access.
Also called free plan, freemium
Looking this up for a class, a job, or something you want to build? If it is the last one, nommi reads your idea before you spend months on it.
Limits are counted in things like users, storage or emails per month. Past the limit, the service starts charging or stops working; which one happens depends on the service and on whether you added a payment card. Terms change, so read the current pricing page. A small budget usually means leaning on free tiers, and Idea Finder reads the hours and budget you give it when it suggests where to start.
At a glance
| Free tier | Free trial | |
|---|---|---|
| How long it lasts | No end date | A set time |
| What you get | Part of the service, up to a limit | A paid plan, for a while |
| What ends it | Passing the limit: it charges or stops working | The end date: you pay or lose access |
When this shows up
Example, not a real founder: your app runs fine for months, then stops saving new sign-ups during your launch week. The database had reached its free storage limit, and the warning went to an inbox nobody checks.
What to do next
For each service on a free tier, write down the limit, what happens when you pass it, and which inbox gets the warning email.
Go deeper
How much does it cost to run an app I built with AI?
One set of tools you can build your app with and run on your own, one for each layer, each with a reason.
Read the guideOr go straight to the tool