The promise

Search Party is free, and it will stay free. This page says exactly what that means, so nobody can move the line later.

What is free forever

The whole loop:

• Opening a search.
• Accepting an invite to help with one.
• Matching your calls against the searches you help with.
• Getting a nudge and acting on it.

That is the protocol. All of it is free, on this instance and on any instance.

What keeps it free

• The code is open source under the AGPL. Anyone can run their own copy. Nobody, including us, can take back what is already published. If someone runs a changed version as a service, they must publish their changes.
• You can leave with your data. Export gives you every search you own as plain JSON, in the same shape the protocol uses.
• It costs almost nothing to run. Matching a call costs a fraction of a cent. Hosting is a few dollars a month. There is no bill that grows with users, so there is no pressure to charge.
• No money changes hands. This instance takes no payment, has no paid tier, and sells nothing.

The line

The free tier is the whole protocol. If paid features ever exist anywhere, they sit around it, never inside it.

What we don't promise

• That this hosted instance runs forever. If it stops, the code and your export still work.
• That any one matching engine stays available. The matcher is a swappable part. Today it is Jev. Tomorrow it could be something else.