Licensing
Free, trial, and paid tiers — and which features each one unlocks.
What is gated
Section titled “What is gated”Exactly three features need a trial or a paid plan. Everything else in Shady Notes is free, permanently, with no note limit and no nagging.
| Premium | Free |
|---|---|
| Plugins | Everything else |
| All 16 themes | Dark, Light and Nord |
| Revision history | — |
Writing, the shade, the vault, workspaces, tabs, the Navigator, sticky notes, search, find and replace, conflict handling, every Markdown feature, all keyboard shortcuts and every setting are free.
The trial
Section titled “The trial”Fourteen days, starting the first time the app checks — no sign-up, no card, no button to press. During it, all three gated features are unlocked.
When it ends the app returns to the free tier. Nothing is taken away that you made: notes are untouched, plugin-managed notes stay exactly as they are, and recorded history is kept — you simply stop being able to browse it until you are on a paid plan again.
If your theme was a premium one, it falls back to a free one.
The plans
Section titled “The plans”Prices and the full comparison are on shadynotes.app/pricing. In short:
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | The editor, the vault, everything not listed above |
| Personal | $4 | $36 | All three premium features, and updates while subscribed |
| Supporter | $8 | $72 | Personal, plus priority support, early builds and a heavier vote on the roadmap |
Yearly saves 25%. Both paid plans unlock exactly the same three features — Supporter is patronage rather than a bigger app.
It is a subscription; there is no one-time or lifetime purchase. Checkout runs through Clerk Billing, with Stripe as the payment processor. Round Rect is the seller of record and handles tax, and you manage or cancel the subscription from your account at any time.
Refunds are 14 days, no questions — email hello@shadynotes.app from the
address on your receipt. → Refund policy
Signing in
Section titled “Signing in”Buying happens on the web; the app finds out about it when you sign in. Subscribe at shadynotes.app/pricing, then sign in from Preferences → Premium and the app picks up the entitlement on its next check. → Signing in
Offline
Section titled “Offline”Once entitlement is established, Shady Notes works offline for 14 days before it needs to check again. A flight, or a week without a connection, is not a problem.
Cancelling
Section titled “Cancelling”If a subscription lapses, the app returns to the free tier at the next check. Your notes are never touched by any licensing state.
What goes online
Section titled “What goes online”Only the app token, and only to check your account. Your notes never leave your Mac — they are not uploaded, synced or read by us. → Privacy and data
Documented against Shady Notes 4.1.19 · release notes