FrameOSPricing
FrameOS is free and open source, and so is running it yourself. FrameOS Cloud is free for a normal home; paid plans from $2 a month cover heavy use and keep a bootstrapped project going.
FrameOS is free and open source. All of it: the software that runs on your frame, the backend you can host at home, the scene editor, the apps, and the code behind FrameOS Cloud itself. It is licensed under the AGPL-3.0 and lives at github.com/FrameOS/frameos. You can read it, change it and run it without asking anyone or paying anything.
So the short version of this page is: you never have to pay to use FrameOS.
Three ways to run it, all free
| What it is | Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Standalone | A frame on its own. Flash an SD card or an ESP32 and it runs, with no account and no server. | Free |
| Self-hosted backend | A web app you run at home that manages all your frames. No limits but your own hardware. | Free |
| FrameOS Cloud | We host the backend for you at cloud.frameos.net. | Free for a normal home, paid above that |
Nothing is held back from the free paths. A standalone or self-hosted frame gets every app, every scene, the editor and every update. If the cloud disappeared tomorrow, your frames would keep showing what they show and the software to run them yourself would still be public.
FrameOS Cloud is mostly free
The cloud exists for people who would rather not host anything. You make an account, link a frame and manage it from the browser.
The Free plan is meant to be all a household needs, for as long as you like:
- 20 frames, with 20 scenes on each
- 250 MB of photos
- 100 MB each of private scenes, backups and frame logs
- The scene store, the scene editor, photo albums and backups
- Updates, two-factor sign-in, and everything else that keeps your frames safe
No card is asked for, and nothing on that list has a time limit.
We charge when usage gets big
Hosting is the one part of FrameOS that costs money every month: servers, storage, bandwidth and backups. One home's worth of frames costs very little. A wall of 150 screens, or tens of gigabytes of photos, does not.
So the paid plans are about scale, not features. A higher plan buys room for more frames and more files. It does not unlock a better editor or hide anything from free accounts.
| Plan | A month | Frames | Photos | Private scenes, backups and logs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 20 | 250 MB | 100 MB each |
| Private | $2 | 40 | 500 MB | 200 MB each |
| $5 | 60 | 1.2 GB | 500 MB each | |
| $9 | 80 | 2.2 GB | 900 MB each | |
| $29 | 160 | 7.1 GB | 2.8 GB each | |
| Business | $49 | 199 | 12 GB | 4.8 GB each |
| $99 | 299 | 24 GB | 9.7 GB each | |
| $199 | 499 | 49 GB | 19 GB each | |
| $499 | 999 | 122 GB | 49 GB each |
The rule behind the table is simple: a plan at $N a month holds N times the Free plan's storage. Business also comes with priority support, and dedicated support at $499.
Planned for the paid plans, and not part of what you pay for today: sharing frames with other people on your plan, virtual frames and thin clients such as the Inky Frame, and single sign-on with SAML for Business. They will be listed here as included once they exist.
Already over a limit?
Nothing is deleted and nothing stops working. You keep what you have, and you cannot add more until you are back under the limit or on a bigger plan.
Paying is how you support FrameOS
FrameOS is a bootstrapped project. There are no investors behind it, no ads in it, and nothing about you or your frames is sold to anyone. The servers and the time that goes into the software are paid for by the people who choose a paid plan.
That makes a paid plan two things at once. If you run a lot of frames, it is a fair price for what you use. And if you simply like FrameOS and want it to keep getting better, it is the most direct way to say so, even at $2 a month and even if the Free plan would have been enough for you.
There are other ways to help that cost nothing, and they matter just as much:
- Star the project on GitHub, report bugs and send fixes.
- Publish the scenes you make to the scene store.
- Show your frame and help others on Discord.
How paying works
- Where: paid plans are being opened up now. You choose one under Settings → Usage in your cloud account. If checkout is not switched on for your account yet, the button there writes to us and we set the plan up with you.
- Billing: monthly, in advance, in US dollars. VAT or sales tax is added at checkout where it applies, and you see the total before you pay.
- Who charges you: card payments go through Creem, a merchant of record. Creem is the seller for the payment, sends your receipt and invoice, and is the name on your card statement. We never see your card.
- Changing plan: a bigger plan starts at once and you pay the difference for the rest of the month. A smaller one starts at your next renewal.
- Cancelling: any time, from the same Usage page. The plan runs to the end of the month you paid for and is not charged again.
What about AI?
The scene editor has an AI assistant that writes and edits scenes for you. It works on every plan and costs the same on each. While FrameOS Cloud is in beta it is free, within a daily allowance. You can also plug in your own OpenAI key, or switch AI off for your account.
On a self-hosted backend the AI runs on your own key, so there is nothing to pay us at all.
What stays free
Some things will not move behind a paid plan: making an account, enrolling and managing the frames you own, installing public scenes from the store, and anything that is about security (two-factor sign-in, revoking a frame, signed updates). And FrameOS itself stays open source.
Questions
Write to [email protected] or ask on Discord. The legal side is in the cloud's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.