The obvious way to build a free tier is to withhold the feature people want most and charge for it. For a budgeting app, recurring transactions are an easy candidate.
We put five of them in the free plan. We didn't start there — we started at three, and three was wrong.
Three covers rent, salary and one subscription
Which is exactly why three seemed right. That set is the whole habit loop that makes the app useful without you touching it — open it in month three and the picture is already current. Withhold it, and a free user's app is empty every time they return, so they stop returning.
It was enough, which was exactly the problem
Rent, salary and one subscription is exactly three things. So a free user who set up precisely what the limit was designed around then hit a paywall on their fourth recurring item — the moment the habit started working, not the moment they outgrew the plan. That reads as a punishment for using the feature as intended.
Five leaves room without giving away the case for Pro
Five still bites for anyone with a real subscription stack, and that's a fair moment to ask for money — the app has already proved itself by then. But it leaves headroom for a second subscription and a loan payment, so the free plan can hold an ordinary month instead of stopping right at the edge of one.
And nothing is ever taken back
If a subscription lapses while you are over a limit, nothing is deleted, hidden or locked. The limits only stop you creating more. That rule is written into the app's entitlement logic rather than a support policy, because a promise enforced by code is worth more than one on a page like this.
Ready to try it?