Following five vessels is free, and the free plan is not a trial: it does not expire and it never asks for a card.

What each plan does

The map, search, departure and arrival notices, photos, messages and your own AIS receiver are available on every plan, the free one included. Paid plans increase the number of boats you can follow, lists you can keep, fleets you can use and fleets you can run, plus the length of track history you can view and the number of a boat's port calls you can see. They also let you connect an AI assistant to your account.

Prices are shown in US dollars on the website. In the App Store you are charged in your own currency, at Apple's equivalent price.

The columns, one at a time

• Boats you can follow. Boats within your plan appear through their enabled lists, keep their last known position and can send departure and arrival notices. The type filter does not hide an enabled list's boats. At the limit, you can unfollow a boat to make room for another. Existing follows are retained after a downgrade, but those beyond the new limit pause as described below.
• Lists. How many lists you keep besides Favorites and the boats you photographed, the ones you made and the ones you subscribe to counted together. The boats across your lists count toward the follow limit above; a boat on two lists counts once. Lists
• Fleets you can be in. How many of the groups your boat has been added to stay live at once, oldest membership first. It does not limit how many you may join. Memberships beyond it stay listed but are not live: no roster, no positions, no chat and no messaging reach to those boats.
• Fleets you can run. How many you can start and organize yourself. This is a separate number, and a fleet you run never counts toward the fleets you can be in. Fleets
• Track history. How far back the AIS track behind a vessel is drawn: the last 24 hours on Basic, the last 7 days on Plus, the last 30 days on Pro. Windows beyond your plan stay visible on her panel and say which plan unlocks them. Choosing one you do not have shows the plan that includes it instead of drawing a track for that window.
• Port calls. How many of a vessel's latest port calls her panel lists: her latest one on Basic, her latest 3 on Plus, her latest 10 on Pro. The port she is in now is shown as well and does not count toward that number. When she has more than your plan shows, the panel says how many more the next plan shows. Port calls
• AI assistant. Whether an assistant you connect, such as Claude or ChatGPT, can read your account: your boats, lists, fleets, notices and receivers, within your plan's limits. The assistant cannot read your messages or followers, and cannot change anything. Connect an AI assistant

A longer track window does not improve coverage. Gaps in received reports remain gaps on every plan; upgrading cannot supply a position the network did not receive.

Where you meet a limit

• At your limit, a new follow is not added, and the plan screen is offered instead. You can unfollow a vessel you no longer watch, or move to a higher plan.
• Subscribing to a list bigger than the room you have left keeps its first boats and lists the rest under Beyond your plan, because of your plan's follow limit. What your plan counts
• Fleets beyond your plan are grouped under Not on your plan in the Fleets panel.
• A track window you do not have says which plan has it.
• A vessel's panel says how many more of her port calls the next plan shows, when she has more.
• On Basic, an assistant you connect cannot read your account. The assistant is told that this access is part of Plus and Pro.

Subscribing on the website

Plans are managed on the Plan screen in the account menu. Choosing one takes you to a card payment; from then on that screen also holds Manage billing, which is where you change your card, read your invoices, switch between Plus and Pro, and cancel.

• Switching between Plus and Pro takes effect straight away, with the difference charged or credited on the spot rather than at the end of the month.
• Cancelling leaves the plan running to the end of the period you have paid for, and you keep the follows you already have while it runs. There is no refund for the remainder of a month you have paid for.
• If a card payment fails, you keep your plan while it is retried. Nothing is switched off on the first failed attempt; the Plan screen and your e-mail will ask you to update the card.

Subscribing in the app

The same plans are sold in the AIS Fleet app for iPhone, as App Store subscriptions.

A plan is the same plan wherever you bought it, and it is the same account. It is billed where you bought it, and that decides where you pay for it, change it and cancel it:

• One bought in the app is paid to Apple and cancelled in your Apple ID subscription settings. The Plan screen on the website will keep pointing you there rather than offering to bill you a second time.
• One bought on the website is paid by card and cancelled under Manage billing.
• Check where your current plan is billed before subscribing. Each side warns you when the other already has a plan running.
• Restore purchases, on the app's plan screen, brings an App Store subscription back after a reinstall or a new phone.
• If you change to a cheaper plan in the App Store, the change takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, so until then the app shows you on Pro, renewing to Plus.
• If an App Store renewal cannot be collected, paid access may pause while Apple retries it. The Plan screen keeps pointing you to Apple to update or cancel that subscription and does not offer a card subscription meanwhile.

Complimentary plans

Some accounts carry a plan we granted rather than one that was bought: a member who helped us, an early contributor, an arrangement with a club. The Plan screen says so, shows no upgrade and no billing controls, and there is nothing to cancel. If you hold one and want a different plan, write to [email protected] rather than buying alongside it.

How to get Plus or Pro for free

Each calendar month, an account that contributed enough in the month before holds Plus or Pro for that month without paying for it. Two things count: the boats you photograph, and what your own AIS station hears. The higher of the two applies; the two are not combined, and each earned month is one month, the one that follows.

Months run from midnight to midnight UTC, like the days on the station page.

Photographs

• A photo counts once it has been reviewed and published. A photo still under review does not count yet, and one that was declined never does.
• The boats have to be different ones: a second photo of the same boat does not count as another boat.
• A boat counts the first time a photo of her from you is published, and not again in a later month. A declined photo does not stop her from counting when a later photo of her from you is published. A boat does not count if your first published photo of her was submitted before this programme started.
• A photo of a boat that already has photos from other people counts like any other.
• A photo counts toward the month you submitted it in. If it is published in the month after, it still counts: the plan it earns starts the day it is published and runs to the end of that month. If review takes longer than that, it counts toward the month before the one it is published in.

Contributing a photo is described under Vessel photos.

Stations

• One station has to reach all three figures at once. Two stations do not combine; your best one is the one that counts.
• The figures are the ones on the station's own page as the month ends: the 30-day uptime, the boats-a-day average over the same 30 days, and the middle day of the range chart over those days, so that half of them reached at least that far. What your station has been doing explains how each is measured. A day the station was switched off counts as zero boats and zero range in those figures, and as time not heard in the uptime, exactly as it does on the page. A day with fewer than two boats has no range to measure and counts as zero range. The range here is the chart's figure, not the ring on the map, which is the farthest single boat and normally larger.
• Time the receiver is off for any reason, a power cut or a lost connection included, counts as time not heard, the same as switching it off: at 80% that is about six days in thirty, at 90% about three.
• Your own boat on the feed, from a transponder or from reporting your own position, counts as a boat heard and keeps the uptime up; the other two figures still need traffic.
• The station has to have been added before the month began. A station added during a month can first earn in its first full month, and a removed station that is added again is a new station, so switch a receiver off rather than removing it if you mean to bring it back.

If you already pay for a plan

• Card subscription, earning the plan you pay for or a higher one: one renewal is covered, including tax. If that month's renewal was already billed when the award arrived, it is credited and any payment already collected is returned. Otherwise, a one-time discount covers your next renewal. The Plan screen says "at no charge" while that renewal is still covered; later renewals return to the ordinary price unless you earn another month. If you earn a higher plan than you pay for, you hold the higher plan for the month as well. A subscription already set to end is not discounted, because there is no renewal to cover; the earned month runs on after it ends.
• Card subscription, earning a lower plan than you pay for: nothing changes. A Plus reward does not cover a switch to Pro, even if its discount was already applied to your subscription.
• App Store subscription: Apple still collects the renewal, and we cannot skip it. If you earn a higher plan than you pay for, you hold it for the month. If you earn the same plan you pay for, the month is kept for you. Kept months wait while the App Store plan renews: they start once you cancel it in your Apple ID settings and the paid period runs out, or once Apple cannot collect a renewal, each running one month from the day it starts, one after another. The Plan screen shows how many are kept.
• Complimentary plan: an earned plan higher than it applies for the month; one at or below it changes nothing.

Late photo approvals can raise your earned plan for the rest of the month. A card discount already issued keeps its original plan coverage, even if it reaches your bill after a delay. Raising that award does not cover a second renewal. Changing or canceling your card subscription does not stop a renewal credit already being applied.

Buying during an earned month

On the website, the Plan screen keeps its purchase buttons during an earned month. Buying the plan you already hold as an earned month starts the subscription when that month ends, so you are not billed for a month you already have; the card payment page shows the days until then as a trial, and nothing is charged before then. That offer is not shown in the last two days of the month; you can buy on the 1st instead. Buying a higher plan starts it straight away.

When it ends

An earned month ends with the calendar month, and your account returns to whatever plan you hold otherwise. Nothing is deleted; what is beyond that plan goes quiet as described under Moving down a plan, and comes back the next time you earn or buy a plan.

The programme can change or end; a month already awarded stays. An earned month is a plan for that month only: it cannot be exchanged for money or moved to another account. An account feeding a station with something other than its own receiver, or otherwise raising the counts artificially, can be excluded from earning.

Moving down a plan

Nothing is deleted when you move down, and nothing is deleted when a plan lapses. What happens instead is that the extra capacity goes quiet:

• Follows past the new limit stay listed under Beyond your plan, still yours, not drawn and not announced, until you unfollow something or move up.
• Lists past the new limit pause: nothing added, nothing drawn, no notices. Anyone subscribed to one of your lists keeps seeing it as it was.
• Fleets past the new limit are not live until there is room.
• Fleets you run past the new limit pause for everyone in them, first fleets kept. You are told before it happens when a cancellation is scheduled, and again when it does.
• A connected AI assistant stays connected, but on Basic it cannot read your account. Disconnect an assistant

Move back up and everything comes back as it was.