# Subscriptions

The editor, agents, Insight, remotes, and your own model providers all work without an Insula account and without a paid plan. A subscription is optional.

Insula Labs is a small, independently built project. Paid plans exist mainly so people who want to can support continued development. The concrete product unlock is more room to sync the same account across devices.

## What you get without paying

On a free account (or with no account at all):

- Full local use of the desktop app
- Your own providers and Active Models
- Project work, agents, Insight, and remote SSH sessions
- Optional sign-in for account macros and cloud backup of providers and app preferences

You do not need a subscription to write code, talk to agents, or open a remote host.

## Devices and sync

Account features that follow you between machines (cloud backup of providers and preferences, account macros) are tied to **active devices** on your Insula account.

A free account is limited to **one active device**. That is enough if you mainly work on a single computer. If you sign in on another machine and hit the device limit, free up the existing device or upgrade.

A **paid** plan raises the limit to **up to 10 synced devices**, so the same account can stay signed in across the machines you actually use day to day.

Managing devices and billing lives in the Insula web dashboard after you sign in (Account in the app opens the browser flows for login and account management).

## Why pay

Honestly: most people will never need a paid plan. One machine, or copying settings by hand, is enough for a lot of workflows.

Pay if you:

- Want the same signed-in account and cloud backup on several computers (up to 10)
- Want a simple way to support Insula Labs and ongoing development

The subscription is not a gate on core editing, agents, or remotes. It is device capacity for account sync, and a tip jar with a clear benefit attached.

## What a subscription does not include

Paid does not sell you model tokens. You still bring your own provider connections and API keys. It does not move your project files, Insight indexes, or plan history into the cloud; those stay on each computer. See [Settings spaces](/wiki/02-settings-spaces) and [Models](/wiki/04-models).

## Related topics

- [What is Insula](/wiki/01-what-is-insula)
- [Settings spaces](/wiki/02-settings-spaces)
- [FAQ](/wiki/10-faq)