What ChatPEP costs and what the free plan includes

Judge a free tier by whether its message allowance, file allowance, and chat access cover a specific research task.¹ Someone asking occasional questions in the same chat has different history needs from someone returning to a collection of earlier conversations.² The useful test is whether those allowances fit the task, rather than whether a paid plan has a longer feature list. ChatPEP

Test a subscription by checking what is charged today, what renews later, and when cancellation takes effect.³ Compare the full yearly payment with the monthly option, since yearly billing is paid up front.¹ For a trial, check whether checkout names the first charge and its date.³ Keep cancellation and refunds separate in that comparison: stopping a renewal does not refund the current period. ChatPEP

ChatPEP offers Free, Basic, Research, and Frontier.¹ Their monthly prices are $0, $4.99, $9.99, and $19.99, respectively.¹ Their yearly prices are $0, $49.99, $99.99, and $199.99.¹ Prices are in US dollars, and yearly billing costs about 16% less than paying monthly for a year. ChatPEP

Some accounts receive an offer for a 7-day free trial.¹ When offered, checkout shows nothing due today and names the first charge date.¹ Cancelling before that date avoids the charge.¹ The free plan itself has no subscription to cancel. ChatPEP

Free provides the same answers as Basic, with 5 messages a day, 2 files per message, and 5 files a day.¹ It includes cited research answers, current web sources, and reading a web page whose link is pasted into a chat.¹ It also includes 10 minutes a day of dictation, meaning spoken messages instead of typing.¹ For a worked example, consider someone asking occasional questions and continuing in the same conversation: free can cover that task when its allowances fit, because the most recent chat remains accessible. ChatPEP+1

Basic adds 25 messages a day and saved chat and calculation history in the sidebar.¹ Research provides 100 messages a day and adds published-paper searches, reading the full pages behind search results, compound comparisons, and research profiles.¹ Frontier reviews more papers and web sources per answer and provides unlimited messages, subject to guardrails against abuse.¹ The plans draw on the same library of peer-reviewed research, meaning research checked by other specialists before publication. ChatPEP

An upgrade applies once payment is confirmed, including the new message limit, research features, and access to earlier chats.⁵ Messages already sent still count toward the new allowance.⁶ The daily limit uses a rolling window: each message frees its place a day after it was sent, rather than the allowance resetting at midnight.⁶ At the limit, a countdown shows when another message becomes available. ChatPEP

For a web subscription moving to a higher paid plan, the confirmation shows today's charge and the next renewal price.⁵ The charge covers the remaining period on the higher plan, with credit for the unused part of the existing plan.⁵ A move to a lower web plan takes effect at the next renewal, with nothing charged that day.⁵ Plan changes apply wherever the same account is signed in. ChatPEP

Cancellation stops the next renewal while preserving paid access until the end of the period already purchased.⁴ For a web subscription, the route is Settings, then Plan, then Cancel plan.⁴ For a subscription bought in a mobile app, cancellation starts under Subscription and finishes in the phone's subscription settings. ChatPEP

When the paid period ends, the account moves to Free.⁴ Chats, the saved profile, and My Stack stay in the account.⁴ The most recent chat remains accessible, and earlier chats become accessible again after a later upgrade.² Cancellation and account deletion are separate actions; cancelling preserves the account. ChatPEP

The terms state that fees are non-refundable except where the terms expressly provide otherwise or applicable law requires a refund.⁷ Support reviews refund requests individually, and a review is not a promise of a refund.⁷ The request should include the charge date, amount, and reason for asking. ChatPEP

For a web purchase, the documented route is the signed-in support form under Plans and billing, with a reply sent by email.⁷ For a purchase through a phone's app store, the refund request starts with the store that billed it.⁷ If the store that billed your Android subscription directs you to ChatPEP, ask support for a review.⁷ A refund request should come before account deletion, which does not issue a refund. ChatPEP