The pricing page you read twice, looking for the catch. The line is in one place, and your words are on the free side.

A journal for every chapter of your life, made like a notebook and private like one. The journal is free: one synced journal with unlimited entries, sync between your devices, search across all of it, and an export that takes everything with you. Innerholm+ is $40 a year for every journal on the shelf.

Yes, Innerholm is free, and the free account is a whole journal: one synced journal with unlimited entries, sync, full-text search, ten editions including the ones for the hard seasons, on-device journals, end-to-end encryption, and a complete export whenever you want one. Innerholm+ is $5 a month or $40 a year, and it opens the shelf: every journal you want to keep, the rest of the editions, a builder for your own edition, saved searches, a book of your journal set in type, a journal you keep with up to five other people, and the companion, which stays off until you invite it into one journal. No credit card starts an account, and nothing you have written is ever behind the paid line.

What the free account is

Free is not a sample of Innerholm. It is Innerholm, with the workshop closed.

• One journal, with unlimited entries. Your one synced journal, in any edition below, with no monthly cap and no entry limit. Keep as many on-device journals beside it as you like. The second synced journal is where Innerholm+ begins.
• Ten editions, including every hard season. Daily, Gratitude, Mindfulness, Grief, Sobriety, Postpartum, Caregiving, Health, Trying, Therapy. The journals somebody reaches for on the worst week of their year are on the free side of the line, and they stay there.
• Sync, and search across all of it. Write on a laptop, finish on a phone, find the entry from any browser.
• The calendar, tags, starred entries, photographs. The whole reading surface, not a preview of it.
• On-device journals. A journal that lives in your browser and never reaches a server, ours included. No account is needed for one, and there is no limit on how many you keep.
• End-to-end encrypted journals. Any journal can be sealed with a passphrase only you hold. Encryption is never a paid feature and never will be. Privacy is the floor, not the upsell.
• A complete export, free, at any time. Markdown ZIP or a Day One archive, with the pictures. An encrypted journal exports as Markdown from inside it, once you have unlocked it. If you leave, you take everything.

Photographs ride along with your entries, and nothing meters them today. If a limit is ever needed, the number appears on this page before it applies to anyone.

Innerholm+

A good paper journal costs $30 to $40, for one chapter.

$40 a year, or $5 a month. Four months free on the year, which is the only reason the annual is the default. Every edition, for every chapter, for less than one notebook.

Encryption, export, sync, search, and unlimited entries are never behind Plus. There is no trial, because there is nothing to trial: the free account is not a countdown. No credit card starts one.

What Plus opens

• Craft. Every journal you want to keep, the rest of the shelf, and a builder for your own edition: your prompts, your paper, your ink, your type, your binding, and the small companions you want on the page. Choices from a bench of designed parts, so nothing you make comes out ugly.
• Keepsake. One journal and a stretch of days, set as a book: A5, real type, a chapter for each month, your photographs on the page. It arrives as a PDF you can print anywhere. We do not print or post it, and the page about it says so.
• Finding. Saved searches. Name the question you keep coming back to, and keep it, in the palette and in the sidebar.
• Capacity. Voice entries, for the days you would rather speak than type. The transcription happens on your own device and the recording never leaves it.
• Together. A journal you keep with the people it is about, up to six of you. The people you invite join free, so one subscription covers the circle.
• Companion. A second read on an entry you choose, and a question you can ask across the journals you have invited it into. It reads one journal without seeing the rest, and a journal you never invite it into is invisible to it.

Before we ever charge you again

Annual plans get one plain note 30 days before renewal, with the date and the amount on it. It is not a marketing letter and it carries no offer. If the price of Innerholm+ ever changes, that note comes at least 30 days ahead too, and you can leave before it applies. Cancelling is one button in Settings, which hands you to Stripe to confirm.

If Plus lapses, nothing you wrote is touched. Every entry stays, every journal stays readable and exportable, and a journal you built keeps its binding. Writing continues in one journal of your choosing; the workshop and the other journals wait for Plus to return.

Giving it to somebody else

A year of Innerholm+ is also $40 as a gift, bought without an account. The code never expires, the year starts when they open it, and nothing renews afterwards. Give a year.

Questions

Is Innerholm free?

Yes. The free account is one synced journal, in any of ten editions, with unlimited entries, sync, full-text search, the calendar, tags, photographs, on-device journals without limit, end-to-end encryption, and a complete export. It does not expire, and it is not a trial. Innerholm+ is $5 a month or $40 a year, and it opens the shelf: every journal you want to keep, and the rest of the editions.

What does Innerholm+ cost?

$5 a month, or $40 a year. Prices are in US dollars, and that is the price everywhere: there is no regional pricing game where the checkout quotes a different number than the page did.

Is there a free trial?

No, and deliberately. A trial is a countdown attached to a journal, and a journal is the wrong place for one. The free account is the trial, except it does not end.

Do I need a credit card to start?

No. Starting a journal needs an email address and a password, or a Google account, and nothing else.

What happens if I stop paying?

Everything you wrote stays. Every journal stays, and every entry inside it, readable, searchable, and exportable. Writing continues in one journal, and you choose which in Settings; the others wait, every page intact, until Plus returns. A journal you built keeps its paper, its binding, and its prompts; what pauses is rebinding it. Saved searches you already kept stay visible and can still be deleted. The workshop closes; the journal does not.

Can I export my journal without paying?

Yes, on every account, at any time, with no upgrade. Markdown ZIP (one file per entry, foldered by journal, with front matter) or a Day One compatible archive, both with the photographs. An encrypted journal exports as Markdown from inside the unlocked journal. The Markdown format is published in full at /export-format, so it stays readable even if we are not here.

Can I bring my old journal across without paying?

The preview is free: upload a Day One, Journey, Diarium, Apple Journal or Markdown export and see exactly what would come across before anything is saved. Bringing it in is part of Innerholm+. Leaving is always free and complete, so the door is wider on the way out than on the way in, and that is deliberate.

Is end-to-end encryption a paid feature?

No, and it never will be. Any journal can be sealed with a passphrase only you hold, on the free account. Privacy is the floor of this product, so it cannot also be the thing you pay to reach.

What am I told before an annual plan renews?

One plain note, 30 days ahead, with the date and the amount on it. If the price ever changes, the same 30 days of notice applies before the new price does, and you can leave inside that window. Cancelling is one button in Settings, which hands you to Stripe to confirm.

Related: What Innerholm+ opens · Print your journal as a book · The export format, in full · If we ever close · Give a year