Every app you use is paid for by somebody.
When it isn't you, it's worth asking who, and what they get for their money.
Scratchpad is paid for by the people who use it, and by nobody else. That one decision explains most of how it works, so here it is, plainly.
One Plan, With Everything In It
It's US$12 a month, or US$8 with your own AI key.
The only difference between the two is the assistant. On the first, it answers 500 messages a month on our account. On the second, you add a key from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google Gemini, pay that provider directly for what you use, and nothing is counted.
Everything else is the same on both: 20 hours of transcription a month, 10 GB of files, share links, invitations, publishing, connecting apps, and the API.
There's no higher tier with the good parts held back.
Pay yearly and it's US$120 a year, or US$80 with your own key, which is 2 months free. The monthly allowances still come back every month on a yearly plan.
Students get 25% off, for up to 5 years, and the students page says how to apply.
What It Isn't Paid For By
There's no advertising.
We don't sell personal information, we don't use your notes for advertising, and we don't use your notes to train AI models. When you ask the assistant something, the AI provider is sent what it needs to answer: your question, the conversation so far, the note you have open, and the text of the files in it.
None of that is unusual to promise. What makes it easy to keep is that there's no second customer.
An app paid for by advertisers has to keep finding ways to serve them.
One paid for by you only has to be worth paying for.
Why There's No Free Trial
There's no free trial, and you need a card to start. The plan begins as soon as you subscribe.
I know that puts some people off, so here's the thinking.
There's no free tier either. A free tier is always paid for by somebody, usually the people on the paid plan, or advertisers, and this has neither arrangement.
What there is instead is a 30-day money-back guarantee. If Scratchpad isn't for you, email us within 30 days of your first payment and we'll refund it in full, to the card you paid with. It covers that first payment, monthly or yearly, and not the renewals after it.
What You Get
Everything the plan includes, from the first day: writing, pictures and files, search, folders and tags, reminders, history, locked notes, working offline, and taking it all out again, along with the rest:
| Either plan | |
|---|---|
| The assistant | 500 messages a month, with nothing counted on your own key |
| Transcription | 20 hours a month |
| Sharing, inviting, and publishing | Included |
| Connecting an app like Claude, and the API | Included |
Leaving
Cancel whenever you like. Your plan keeps working to the end of the month, or year, you've already paid for, and then stops.
Nothing is deleted because a plan ended:
- The account is paused. Your notes stay exactly where they are.
- You can still download them. A paused account doesn't lock you out of your own notes.
- Cancelling isn't closing. Starting a plan again picks up exactly where you left off.
The plans and payments page has the details, down to what happens when a payment fails.
A Price Is a Promise
A price tells you what you're paying for. It should also tell you who else is paying.
Here, the answer is nobody.
And I'd like to keep it that way.
