Pricing
The daily question is always free.
Every day, forever, with no card and no end date. You can write as much as you like and take the whole archive out whenever you want it. Membership is what fills in the rest of the day — the missions, and the photographs, video and recordings they ask for.
What you get for nothing
- A question about your kid, every morning, forever.
- As many written entries and did it entries as you want.
- Any day, any year — every entry backdates to the day it happened.
- Search across everything, including what was said out loud.
- A full export, complete, any time, on any tier.
- No ads. Not on the free tier, not on any tier, not ever.
What membership adds
- A mission every day — a photo, a video, their voice, or something to do together.
- Two of them at the weekend, when there's an afternoon for it.
- The bigger mission each week, and the monthly measurement.
- Letters you seal until they're old enough to read them.
- Photographs, video and their voice — everything that has to be stored somewhere.
- Their voice, recorded — up to ten minutes at a time, as often as you like.
- Their other parent, writing into the same archive.
| Feature | Free | Membership |
|---|---|---|
| The daily question | Every day, forever | Every day, forever |
| Written entries and did it | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Filling in the past | Any day, any year | Any day, any year |
| Moments — this day in earlier years | Always | Always |
| Search and full export | Always | Always |
| Everything already in the archive | Yours, always | Yours, always |
| Ads | None | None |
| Daily missions | — | One on weekdays, two at the weekend |
| Weekly mission, monthly measurement, sealed letters | — | Included |
| Photographs | — | No limit |
| Voice notes | — | Up to ten minutes each, as many as you want |
| Video | — | Included |
| The second parent | — | Included |
| Price | $0 | $59.99/yr or $5.99/mo |
Nothing you write or capture is ever locked behind payment.
Membership buys more of the day — never access to your own archive.
Every word, every photograph, every recording you have ever put in here stays readable, searchable and exportable whether you pay or not, and whether you paid once or never. That is the promise the whole product is built on, and it is the one thing on this page that has no exceptions.
Free on iPhone. The daily question is free forever, and the first two weeks are open with no card.
On the App Store it’s listed as PocketChronicle.App.
Everything open for two weeks
No card, nothing to cancel. You are not signing up for a subscription you have to remember to stop. There is no card on file to charge, so nothing happens when the two weeks are up except that the missions become part of membership — along with the photographs, the video and the recordings they ask for — and the daily question carries on the way it always has.
Most of this category cannot say that sentence, which is exactly why it is here rather than in the small print.
$59.99 a year, or $5.99 a month
The year is two months free against the monthly price. It's preselected because it's cheaper, not because it's stickier — cancel in Settings on your iPhone, in two taps, like any other subscription. We don't get to make that hard, and wouldn't want the version of this business that did.
One membership, the whole family
Every child, both parents. Not per child. Having another kid shouldn't cost more, and neither should the second parent wanting to write things down.
No ads on any tier
Including the free one. That's the row people assume is the catch, so it's stated plainly here and at length on the promise page.
Why the question is the free part
Because it is the thing that makes you stop and think about your kid for fifteen seconds, and a version of this that charged per question would be a worse product on the day it made the most money. Some apps in this category meter questions per day by tier. Pocket Chronicle does not, and will not — the daily question arrives every day whether you are a member or not.
The missions are where the money is because that is where the cost is. A mission asks for a photograph, a video, their voice — files, kept for eighteen years, which is the one part of this that gets more expensive every year you use it.
The question is free either way
In the app, every morning, forever — or by email, if you'd rather answer it in a notebook. No card either way.
Free on iPhone. The daily question is free forever, and the first two weeks are open with no card.