Plans and Limits

Scholarly offers three plans: Free, Premium, and Laureate. Free gives you core study tools with clear lifetime allowances that do not reset. Premium unlocks the core paid experience with 10 AI creations each week and unlimited uploads, chat, autocomplete, quizzes, and exams. Laureate provides 80 creations each week for your most important work.

Free

The free plan includes:

• AI chat -- 3 messages total. This is a lifetime allowance and does not reset.
• Voice mode -- 15 minutes total. This is a lifetime allowance and does not reset.
• Autocomplete -- 500 words total. This is a lifetime allowance and does not reset.
• AI creations -- 1 total free AI creation, shared across every AI creation type: new flashcard decks, podcasts, video lectures, slides, AI Image Playground images, mind maps, study guides, infographics, worksheets, timelines, SOPs, flowcharts, lesson plans, outlines, spreadsheets, story books, Study Packs, and Deep Research. Each Playground image or edit costs one creation per selected model. This is a lifetime free credit and does not reset.
• Flashcard fixes -- Repairing a card, refining an existing deck, or asking deck chat to add, rewrite, or remove cards does not use an AI creation. Chat edits still follow the normal Chat message allowance.
• Images in AI Chat -- Generating or editing an image inside a regular Chat conversation does not use an AI creation. The Chat message still uses the normal Chat allowance.
• Manual flashcards -- Build decks card by card in the Build Manually tab — no daily limit, no AI required.
• Studying flashcards -- Unlimited.
• PDF → flashcards -- AI generates a deck from up to 32 pages of a PDF on free — long enough for a full lecture chapter without needing to upgrade.
• Pages and notes -- Unlimited note-taking.
• Quizzes -- 5 practice questions total. This is a lifetime allowance and does not reset.
• Practice exams -- 1 completed exam attempt total. This is a lifetime allowance and does not reset; starting and abandoning an attempt before completion does not spend it.
• File uploads -- 1 total free upload, up to 8 MB. This is a lifetime free upload credit and does not reset.
• AI Meeting Notes -- Recording and transcription do not use an AI creation credit. An uploaded audio file uses one file-upload slot; a live recording does not. Creating flashcards or another artifact from the transcript uses one AI creation credit for that new artifact.
• Deep Research -- Uses the shared AI creation allowance on Free.
• AI Video Lectures -- Every Video Mode (Standard, Illustrated, Short, Manim Math Animation, Freestyle) is available on every plan. Free lectures with a length control are fixed at 2 minutes; a completed lecture's Make Longer banner can upgrade and replace it at about 10 minutes in the same spot without another creation credit. Short uses its own short video format. You can render at 720p on every plan; 1080p Full HD, watermark-free output, and MP4 downloads are paid upgrades.
• AI Podcasts -- Free episodes are fixed at 2 minutes. A completed episode's Make this podcast longer? banner can upgrade and replace it in the same spot at about 15 minutes without using another creation credit; choosing a different target before generation is also a paid feature.
• Mind Maps, Study Guides, and Infographics -- Each generates a downloadable PDF from your material or a typed prompt. Every plan can create them; they count toward your shared lifetime AI creation on Free.
• PDF document design -- Typeset PDF documents (study guides, worksheets, lesson plans, outlines, SOPs, timelines) render in a clean, professional design on every plan.
• AI Slides themes -- Every visual theme (Editorial, Vibrant, Freestyle) is available on every plan.
• Captions -- Captions on AI Podcasts and AI Video Lectures are included on every plan.
• Connections -- Link Google Drive at no extra cost. One Drive connection includes only the Docs, Slides, and other files you choose through Google's Picker. See Connections.

Exporting and printing flashcard decks (Anki .apkg, PDF, or print) requires a paid plan.

Premium

Premium unlocks paid features, refreshes the AI creation allowance weekly, and removes the upload cap:

• Unlimited AI chat -- No daily message cap. Auto uses GPT 5.6 Luna with high reasoning.
• AI creations -- 10 each week, shared across every AI creation type: new flashcard decks, podcasts, video lectures, slides, AI Image Playground images, mind maps, study guides, infographics, worksheets, timelines, SOPs, flowcharts, lesson plans, outlines, spreadsheets, story books, Study Packs, and Deep Research. Each Playground image or edit costs one creation per selected model. A standard model costs 1 creation and a Frontier model costs 3. The allowance resets every Monday at 00:00 UTC. Failed creations are refunded automatically. Fixing an existing flashcard deck does not use this allowance.
• Voice mode -- 2 hours of voice chat per day.
• Unlimited quizzes and practice exams -- No daily question or exam cap.
• Unlimited uploads -- Up to 300 MB per file.
• PDF → flashcards up to 1,000 pages -- Generate decks from full textbooks, not just a chapter.
• 1080p video lectures -- Render AI Video Lectures in 1080p Full HD (720p is available on every plan).
• Custom video length -- Set a target lecture length up to 45 minutes with the length slider. Free lectures with a length control are fixed at 2 minutes.
• Custom podcast length -- Set a target episode length (up to 60 minutes). Free episodes are fixed at 2 minutes and can be remade longer in place after upgrading.
• Watermark-free videos -- Remove the Scholarly logo from AI Video Lectures.
• Choose your AI model -- Pick any model in the creation catalogue, including the Frontier models, from any create tool. Free users can browse the model picker; choosing a model is a paid feature, and paid users otherwise get the recommended model automatically.
• Unlimited research reports -- No daily research limit.
• Flashcard exports -- Export any deck to Anki .apkg, PDF, or print.
• Early access and priority support -- Get the highest support tier and earlier access to new features.

Laureate

Laureate is $99/month or $950/year (about 20% less than twelve monthly payments). It includes everything in Premium, plus:

• 80 AI creations each week -- A higher allowance for the same creation tools included with Premium.
• Unlimited AI Chat -- Chat messages never draw on your creation allowance.
• Automatic model routing -- Video Lecture Auto uses Claude Sonnet 5 at low reasoning, flashcard Auto uses Gemini 3.8 Flash at medium reasoning, and other standard Auto surfaces use GPT 5.6 Luna at high reasoning. All are standard models, so a creation you leave on Auto costs 1.
• Priority generation -- Laureate creations are processed ahead of other work, and more of them can run at once.
• Larger uploads -- Up to 1 GB per file, versus 300 MB on Premium.
• Larger PDF imports -- PDF → flashcards works on up to 3,000 pages, versus 1,000 on Premium.
• More voice mode -- 12 hours of voice chat per day, versus 2 hours on Premium.
• Priority support and early Frontier access -- Get direct billing and product help from the Scholarly team plus early access to newly launched Frontier models.

The weekly allowance resets every Monday at 00:00 UTC. Failed work is refunded automatically. See Choosing an AI Model for the model and reasoning defaults for every feature.

What a Creation Costs

Every paid plan draws on one weekly AI creation allowance, and every model in the creation catalogue is available on every paid plan.

• A standard model costs 1 creation. Auto always picks a standard model, so a creation you do not change costs 1.
• A Frontier model costs 3 creations. GPT 5.6 Sol and Claude Opus 5 are the Frontier models. The model picker marks them 3× so you can see the cost before you create.
• Frontier models are for creations, not chat. GPT 5.6 Sol and Claude Opus 5 are not offered in unlimited AI Chat.

A failed creation returns everything it reserved, including all three creations for a Frontier model.

Credit Packs

If you run out before the week resets, any paid plan can buy a one-time credit pack:

• 5 creations for $15
• 15 creations for $30
• 40 creations for $60

Credits never expire, and they are used automatically once your weekly allowance runs out, so there is nothing to switch on. Buy a pack from Settings → Billing, or with Buy credits on the notice you see when you reach the weekly limit. See AI Credit Packs for more.

Lifetime Free Allowances

Every metered Free allowance is account-wide and does not reset. Existing accounts receive a fresh allowance when this policy launches; usage begins accumulating in the lifetime ledger from that point forward.

The shared AI creation credit covers every new AI artifact — flashcard decks, podcasts, video lectures, slides, AI Image Playground images, mind maps, study guides, infographics, worksheets, timelines, SOPs, flowcharts, lesson plans, outlines, spreadsheets, story books, Study Packs, and Deep Research. Each image or edit queued in the Playground uses one creation per selected model. You can spend the free creation on any one of these. Repairing a card, refining an existing flashcard deck, or asking deck chat to change cards does not use an AI creation; the Chat message allowance still applies to chat edits. Images generated or edited inside regular AI Chat also do not use an AI creation. AI Meeting Notes recording and transcription are included separately; only a new artifact created from the transcript spends the AI creation credit.

Errors and Returned Usage

Scholarly reserves what a creation costs when a request starts -- 1 for a standard model, 3 for a Frontier model -- then settles it when the request finishes:

• A successful creation normally counts once. Internal AI retries are part of that same request and do not use additional creations.
• A request that reaches a final failed state returns everything it reserved automatically. This includes a failure where Scholarly cannot produce the requested artifact after its built-in retry attempts, and it returns all three creations for a Frontier model.
• A newly generated flashcard deck with fewer than 15 cards does not use an AI creation. The finished deck is still saved, and Scholarly shows a message confirming that the creation was returned. This quality exception applies to new flashcard decks, not quizzes. Existing-deck flashcard fixes never reserve an AI creation in the first place.
• Trying again after a failed request starts a new creation. The new request reserves usage separately, and it is returned too if that request also ends in failure.

If a request is still processing or retrying, its creation may appear reserved until it reaches a completed or failed state. Refresh Settings → Billing after the request settles to see the current allowance.

Recurring and Per-Item Limits

Paid voice allowances reset daily at midnight UTC. Paid AI creation allowances reset weekly. File-size, PDF-page, media-length, and video-quality limits apply to each item rather than accumulating over time.

When you hit a limit, you'll see a clear message explaining exactly what happened: whether you used a lifetime free allowance, a recurring creation allowance, or a paid daily limit. Reaching the weekly creation limit on Premium shows a notice written for your plan: it names the limit you reached, tells you when your creations come back, and offers a credit pack alongside the upgrade. Free members can see lifetime usage in Settings → Billing; paid members can see recurring usage and reset timing there.

Upgrading

Click Upgrade from any limit prompt, or open the Pricing page from the sidebar. The Pricing page opens with a Personal and a Business tab. Yearly and Monthly sit inside each paid plan card, and the term you pick there is the one that carries into checkout. Exact prices and what each plan unlocks can vary by region — the Pricing page always shows the current terms for your account.

What the Upgrade Screen Shows You

The upgrade screen compares Free, Premium, and Laureate side by side so you can see exactly what you unlock:

• A feature-by-feature comparison.
• Yearly and Monthly inside the Premium and Laureate cards, with each yearly price shown at its monthly-equivalent rate.
• A clear call-to-action labeled for the action you were trying to take -- for example, "Unlock and keep studying" when you hit a study limit.

Managing Your Subscription

Access billing and subscription management from Settings → Billing. You can view your current plan, update payment methods, move a monthly Premium subscription to yearly billing, or cancel your subscription. Changes take effect at the end of the current billing period -- you keep access to your paid features until then.

See Billing and Subscriptions for a step-by-step.