Pro is $4.99/month or $49.99/year (about 17% off). The Image Add-On, which lets you upload photos directly to your entries, is an additional $7.99/month or $79.99/year and requires an active Pro subscription (you can't have the Image Add-On without Pro). All payments are handled securely through Stripe. Prices are in US dollars, and checkout may show them in your own currency.
You can manage your subscription from Account settings.
A note on pricing, in case it's useful: running a platform like Pixel-Ponies costs quite a bit. We keep prices as low as we possibly can. A few of the things you don't see on the receipt:
- Hosting, compute, and CDN: server time and bandwidth that scale with usage
- Database hosting: every horse, image record, login session, and notification needs a home
- Image storage + delivery: uploaded photos, theme pack assets, and avatars all live on a paid CDN
- Transactional email: every magic-link login, PIN, and notification email goes through a paid provider
- Payment processing: Stripe takes its cut from every Pro charge
- Auth + content filtering: third-party tools that keep accounts secure and scan submissions for restricted terms
- Error monitoring: when something breaks, we need to know fast, and that costs money too
- Legal: time with lawyers for the privacy policy, terms of service, COPPA compliance, the data-export flow, and the patchwork of country and state laws we have to comply with
- Business filings: LLC formation fees, annual state reports, registered agent, accounting time
- Insurance: business liability and errors-and-omissions coverage that protects both Pixel-Ponies and the people who use it
- Taxes: income tax on whatever the project earns, plus sales tax remittance in the jurisdictions that require it
- Domain + certificates: yearly renewals, SSL across every subdomain
- And more... so much more.
We're not telling you all this to justify the price, just to be transparent. A surprising number of people assume running a website costs about as much as a domain name. The plain answer is this is a labor of love subsidized partly by Pro subscriptions, partly by the founder's free time, and partly by volunteers. If Pro is out of reach, the free plan has 15 entries and we've worked hard to make that useful on its own. If you want to support the project, a Pro subscription is the kindest way to do it.
Behind the scenes: Leigh designed every screen, drew every icon, and learned to code while building this. After a graphic design degree and 7+ years as a professional UX designer, this is the project she's pouring everything into, before her morning coffee, late into the night, in voice notes from her car. Every decision in here was mapped out and considered carefully, then reconsidered every time another decision touched it. You probably won't notice most of that work, and that's the goal. But Pro subscriptions are what make it sustainable to keep doing it.
Can I switch between monthly and annual?
Yes. Go to Account settings, find the Pro card, and tap "Switch to annual" or "Switch to monthly".
The change starts when your current billing period ends. You keep your current plan until then, you're not charged anything today, and nothing is refunded. The Pro card shows the date your plan switches. From that date you're billed the new plan's price:
- Monthly is $4.99/month.
- Annual is $49.99/year (about 17% off, roughly two months free).
Changed your mind? Before that date, tap "Keep monthly" or "Keep annual" on the Pro card and your plan stays as it is. Canceling your subscription also stops a switch that hasn't started yet.
If your plan has a discount that only works on your current plan (such as free months you claimed), you can switch once it has been used.