Licensing & activation
DeepState is sold as a monthly subscription. Your license key unlocks the app on one computer at a time and includes a monthly allowance of DeepState AI model usage so you can research without bringing your own API keys.
Tiers
| Personal | Pro | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 / month | $49 / month | per seat: $49 (1-5), $39 (6-20), $29 (21+) / month |
| Boards | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited per seat |
| Feature set | Personal | Pro | Pro |
| Activations | 1 computer | 1 computer | 1 per seat |
| DeepState AI budget | $2 / month | $8 / month | $8 / seat / month |
| Seat & usage dashboards | — | — | ✓ |
Enterprise is bought as a master key with a number of seats (2-50 at checkout; contact sales for
more). Each seat is its own SEAT-… key handed to one person. A Team variant - the same seat
model with Personal-level features - is available on request. See Enterprise.
What Pro unlocks
Pro-only features are marked PRO throughout these docs. Concretely:
- Unlimited boards. Personal is capped at five; the Create, Import and Join buttons disable at the limit.
- Vision. OCR and AI description of Media nodes, and attaching images to the chat.
- Person search - public-records people lookup tools.
- YouTube - transcripts, channel listings and comments.
- Historical newspapers - Library of Congress Chronicling America archive (1777-1963).
- RSS feeds created by the AI - the
create_rssfeedtool. You can still add feeds by hand on Personal. - Custom tools - your own JavaScript tools loaded into the assistant.
- A larger DeepState AI allowance.
Everything else - all 14 node types, the rest of the 70-odd tools, narratives, timeline, presentations, collaboration, export and backup - is in every tier.
Key formats
| Kind | Looks like | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Personal / Pro | PER-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX, PRO-XXXXX-… | The prefix reflects the tier at purchase |
| Trial | TRI-XXXXX-… | 14 days, one activation |
| Team / Enterprise master | TEAM-XXXXX-…, ENT-XXXXX-… | Used on the seat management and usage pages, not in the app |
| Seat | SEAT-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX | Entered in the app together with the seat holder's email |
Keys are shown masked in Settings after activation.
Activating
- Launch DeepState. If no valid license is stored you are asked for a key immediately; otherwise open Settings → License.
- Paste the key. For
SEAT-…keys also enter your email address. - Click Activate.
The app sends the key plus an anonymous machine identifier to the license server, which records the activation and returns your tier, features and expiry. For DeepState AI it also provisions your model-access credentials at this point.
Validation and offline use
- The license is re-checked in the background once every 24 hours.
- If the check cannot reach the server (you are offline, or the server is), DeepState keeps working on the last known status for 3 days. After that it asks you to connect once so it can validate again.
- A failed check retries after five minutes; it never nags.
Nothing about your boards is sent during validation - only the key and machine identifier.
Renewals and expiry
Subscriptions renew automatically through Stripe. Each successful payment extends the license by a month (32 days, so a late card retry doesn't lock you out on day 31). If a payment fails and the license lapses, a banner appears in the app for three days after expiry with a link to update your billing details; the app stays usable during that window.
Manage Subscription in Settings → License opens your Stripe billing portal where you can change card, view invoices or cancel. Cancelling stops renewals; the license stays valid until the paid period ends. Upgrading Personal → Pro is done through the same portal; the app picks up the new tier at the next validation - no new key needed.
Moving to another computer
A license activates one machine at a time. To move:
- On the old machine open Settings → License → Transfer License / Deactivate. This frees the slot. (If the old machine is dead, contact support and we'll release it.)
- Install DeepState on the new machine and activate with the same key.
- Bring your data along with a backup or by exporting individual boards.
Seat keys work the same way: the seat holder deactivates before moving.
DeepState AI budget
Every license includes model access through DeepState's router so you can start immediately. The allowance resets monthly. Usage is shown as a bar in Settings → License; when you approach the limit the bar turns amber, and at the limit DeepState AI requests are declined until the next cycle. Switch to your own provider (Claude, OpenAI, OpenRouter, OpenCode or a local Ollama model) at any time under Settings → AI Provider - there is no budget when you bring your own key. See AI providers.
Analytics
The only telemetry is an anonymous count of app opens and board creations tied to a hash of your license, used to understand active usage. You can turn it off in Settings → License → Anonymous usage analytics. It never includes board content, titles, prompts or file names.
Trials
Trial keys (14 days, Personal features, one activation) are issued by hand - ask [email protected] if you want to evaluate before buying.