The free tier on most AI products is a trial. You get 7 days, or 5 generations, or 100 messages, and then you hit a wall designed to convert. That's not the kind of free tier we wanted.
The math forced a decision. Live audio interviews on Gemini cost roughly $0.023 per minute. A free user with 15 minutes per month costs us about $0.35 in audio alone, before any other feature. Multiply by potential free-tier users and you get a cost line that needs the conversion math to actually work.
What we did
Free tier: 5 imports, 3 generated tests, and 15 minutes of live interview per month. That's enough to actually use the product against one or two real interview cycles. Not enough to run a full job hunt for a quarter.
Pro tier: $29/mo. 100 imports, 30 tests, 150 minutes (about 10 sessions). This is the line where the cost becomes meaningful but the unit economics still work.
Elite: $59/mo. Unlimited imports/tests, 450 minutes (about 30 sessions). For people in the middle of an active hunt.
Why no $5 starter
We considered a $5 tier between Free and Pro. The numbers don't work. At $5/mo, you can't cover the audio + LLM cost of a single hour of mock interviews. Every $5 user would be a loss leader and the conversion to Pro doesn't pay back fast enough.
The free tier is the right place to lose money. The $5 tier is the wrong place.
What about price increases
We won't raise the price on existing subscribers. If we ever raise the list price, you're grandfathered for as long as the subscription stays active. We'd rather keep happy users on a low price than churn them onto a higher one.