A free month, then Team. No free plan

Decision

• Every free user is on the free month. One month, no card, given once per company and once per person. There is no free plan.
• No AI, no Verify, and Analysis shows the numbers only. Merge and tag still work.
• When it ends the company is read-only, and the owner chooses: move to Team, keep it read-only for free, export everything, or delete it.
• The limits and what each choice does are in plans.

Why

AI is the only cost that grows with use, so any free AI is a cost with no end date; and a free plan that never ends gives no reason to decide.

Impact

• A free company costs about $0.05–0.25 a month: no AI, a few cents of capture and storage.
• The Plan step offers the free month and Team; Billing gains the read-only and deleting screens; the editor, Projects and Analysis gain read-only and locked states. Values in plans.
• Built as features/0016-free-month.md; read-only is a status the worker sets.

Status

Active

Sources

• The owner's answers in the session of 2026-10-16.