Why we're writing a whole page about this

Because "free" is one of the most distrusted words in app pricing, and for good reason. Plenty of apps use it to mean "free until we've got you hooked," then quietly move core features behind a paywall in an update six months later. We'd rather just tell you upfront, in plain language, exactly what stays free and why, instead of letting you find out the hard way.

What's free forever

Free, forever
  • Round logging (quick log)
  • Handicap index tracking
  • Friend feed and social layer
  • Course history
  • Personal records and milestones
  • Basic stats: rounds, scoring average, birdies, eagles
Pro, $9.99/mo
  • Everything in Free
  • Hole-by-hole scoring
  • Groups: private communities and leaderboards
  • Strokes gained analysis
  • Handicap-adjusted net scoring
  • Advanced performance insights
  • Priority support

This isn't a "free trial" of the full app with a countdown clock. There's no point at which logging a round, seeing your handicap trend, or checking your friend feed starts asking you to pay. That's the actual product for free users, not a sample of it.

Why we drew the line where we did

The honest logic: free covers what almost every golfer uses every time they play, logging a score and seeing how they're trending. Pro covers things that either cost meaningfully more to build and run, or matter mostly to a smaller, more specific group of golfers, competitive amateurs, people running a season-long group, golfers who want granular hole-by-hole detail.

Let's actually answer "why isn't Groups free?"

This is the one people ask about most, so we're not going to dodge it. Groups means real-time leaderboards, season-long data tracking across every member, and ongoing infrastructure to keep that running reliably for every group on the app, not just yours. That's meaningfully more expensive to build and operate than the core logging and friend-feed experience, and it's a feature that a smaller subset of users (people actively running a group competition) will use, compared to something like handicap tracking that essentially everyone uses.

We priced Pro to actually cover that cost rather than build it for free and hope the economics work out later, which is usually the moment a "free forever" promise quietly breaks. We'd rather be honest about the tradeoff now than make a promise we can't keep in a year.

The test we used: would moving this feature behind Pro break the core promise of "track your handicap and stay connected to your friends, free forever"? If yes, it stays free. Groups, deeper analytics, and hole-by-hole detail didn't meet that bar, they're valuable additions, not the core promise itself.

Who actually needs Pro

Stay on Free if

You want to track your handicap trend, log rounds quickly, and see your friend group's activity. That's the entire core experience, and it's not artificially limited to push you toward upgrading.

Consider Pro if

You're running a season-long group competition, want hole-by-hole detail and strokes gained data, or specifically want handicap-adjusted net scoring for fair group play. If none of that applies to how you actually play, you may not need Pro at all, and that's fine.