Plans and credits
This page tells you what you can do on the Free plan, what a paid plan adds, and how credits pay for advanced auto-digitize. Read it when an upgrade prompt appears, or before you start a design you plan to sell.
Boldbobbin has a Free plan and five paid ones. Your current plan shows as a badge next to your account, and the account menu spells it out.
The whole design workspace (drawing, stitches, importing, auto-digitizing, and exporting) works on the Free plan. What a paid plan adds is the ability to send certain content out, plus a few tools of its own and a commercial license.
The pattern to hold on to: the Pro-gated content features are all free to create, preview and edit. The wall is at export and publish, not at the work. Nothing in your design is ever locked or lost. For example, on the Free plan you can fill a shape with a Stipple and see it on screen; the upgrade prompt only appears when you export or publish that design.
Separately from plans, the three advanced auto-digitize methods, and Bobby, the chat assistant, are paid for in credits, because they run on Boldbobbin's servers.
The plans
| Plan | What it is |
|---|---|
| Free | Everything except the gates below. |
| Pro | A subscription. Lifts every gate, removes the watermarks, and grants a commercial license. |
| Lifetime | A one-off purchase with the Pro feature set. Bought on the website. |
| Bullis | A school site license: every Pro capability except commercial use, with its own design cap. Granted to a school, not bought. |
| Business | A seat-based plan for a team. Comes with a shared team library and a pooled credit balance. |
| Max | The same shape as Business, at a higher tier. |
New in v1.3.0: you have exactly one plan, and it is the best one you hold. If you have your own Pro subscription and also a seat in a Business organization, the badge reads Business, never "Pro and Business", and that one plan governs everything, your own personal designs included.
A seat counts while the organization's subscription is live. If it ends, or you are removed from the team, your own plan applies again.
The badge reads Not verified, with a Try again button, and paid features may be unavailable until it succeeds. Boldbobbin shows this instead of quietly showing you a lower plan.
Offline, a plan you own keeps working. A plan that comes from an organization's seat keeps working for a while after the last time Boldbobbin could confirm it, and after that your own plan applies. If a payment is being retried, you keep your plan meanwhile.
What each plan includes
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Design, generate stitches, import | Yes | Yes |
| Export to every machine format | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-digitize (Photostitch, Cross-stitch, Auto-Trace): create and preview | Yes | Yes |
| Auto-digitize: export or publish | No | Yes |
| Magic wand: use it, preview and edit its shapes | Yes | Yes |
| Magic wand: export or publish its shapes | No | Yes |
| Line art: draw, edit, preview | Yes | Yes |
| Line art you drew or edited: export or publish | No | Yes |
| Divide by drawing | Yes | Yes |
| Advanced auto-digitize (paid in credits): create, export, publish | Yes | Yes |
| Pixel art: paint, preview, edit | Yes | Yes |
| Pixel art stitched as cross-stitch or mini-satin: export or publish | No | Yes |
| Fill patterns: design and preview | Yes | Yes |
| Fill patterns: export or publish | No | Yes |
| Tatami gradients: design and preview | Yes | Yes |
| Tatami gradients: export or publish | No | Yes |
| Decorative stitches (stipple, spiral, maze, radial, motif fill, appliqué, sculpture run, motif run, hand stitch, motif column, Flexi Split, needle-hole textures): design and preview | Yes | Yes |
| Decorative stitches: export or publish | No | Yes |
| Your own fonts: import, digitize, edit, stitch with | Yes | Yes |
| Your own fonts: export a design that uses one | No | Yes |
Your own fonts: export the .bbf, or keep fonts in the cloud | No | Yes |
| Chat with Bobby (signed in; paid in credits after a free allowance) | Yes | Yes |
| Density analysis | No | Yes |
| Cloud designs | Up to 10 | Unlimited (within fair use) |
| Community publications | A few (the dialog shows your count) | Unlimited |
| Run sheet PDF export | No | Yes |
| Batch export (several formats at once) | No | Yes |
| Commercial use license | No (personal use only) | Yes |
| Watermark on image (PNG/SVG) and video exports | Yes | No |
| Team library with version history | No | With a Business or Max seat |
Lifetime and Bullis hold the Pro column, with two exceptions noted under cloud design limits and commercial use. Business and Max hold it too, and add the team library and a shared credit pool.
Cloud design limit
| Plan | Cloud designs |
|---|---|
| Free | Up to 10 |
| Pro, Business, Max | Unlimited, within fair use |
| Lifetime | Unlimited, within fair use |
| Bullis | Up to 100 |
When you reach a cap, Boldbobbin tells you and offers to upgrade or delete some
designs. Local .vemb saves to your own computer are never limited. For example,
a Free user with 10 cloud designs can still save an eleventh design to their own
computer.
Lifetime used to be capped at 50 cloud designs. It is now unlimited, like Pro.
Community publications
The Free plan includes a handful of published designs; the publish dialog shows how many you have used. When they are all in use you can unpublish one to free a slot, or upgrade. Designs you have already published stay online either way.
What counts as Pro content
Seven kinds of content are gated at export and publish:
| Content | What's free |
|---|---|
| Photostitch | Run it, preview it, edit the result. |
| Auto-Trace | Same. The prompt also lists Magic wand shapes (new in v1.3.3) and line art you drew or edited (new in v1.3.3) under Auto-trace: see Magic wand and line art. |
| Pixel art stitched as cross-stitch or mini-satin | Paint it, preview it, edit it. A sprite set to tatami fill, or an empty one, is not gated at all, and neither is an untouched Pixel art result from advanced auto-digitize. |
| Fill patterns | Design with a pattern and see it on screen. |
| Tatami gradients (new in v1.3.1) | Design with a gradient and see it on screen. |
| Decorative stitches (new in v1.3.2) | Design with a Stipple, Spiral, Maze, or Radial fill, a Sculpture run, Hand stitch, or a needle-hole texture, and see it on screen. New in v1.3.3, the same goes for Motif run, the Motif fill, the Motif satin (the Motif column), Flexi Split and the Appliqué fill (Create an appliqué). Backstitch, Stemstitch, Triple run, the Offset fill, and every other satin stitch style are free. See What needs Pro. |
| Your own lettering | Import a font, digitize it, correct any letter, set text with it. |
If a design uses several at once, the prompt names all of them together rather than sending you round the export loop once per feature.
The prompt looks at what is in the design right now, so removing or changing the Pro content lifts it immediately, with nothing to clear. Switching a sprite from cross-stitch to tatami, a fill from patterned or graded to plain, or a stipple back to Tatami, is enough.
Convert to → Stitch block is not a way round it. As of v1.3.1 a block converted from Pro content still needs Pro to export. (A block converted from a gradient or a decorative stitch is listed as "Fill patterns" in the prompt.)
Publishing needs Pro for the same content as exporting does.
Magic wand and line art
Both are new in v1.3.3, and both follow the Auto-Trace rule: free to make, Pro to export.
- Magic wand: free to use. Exporting a design with shapes the wand made needs Pro, and the wand's bar says so.
- Line art: drawing and previewing are free. Exporting a design with line art you drew or edited needs Pro, and the line-art editor says so when it opens. That covers a drawing made with New Line Art… (even the starting heart, unchanged), paths turned into a drawing with Convert to → Line art, and a drawing whose lines you changed in the editor. Turning a drawing back into paths with Convert to → Curve keeps it Pro.
- An unchanged AI drawing exports on any plan. A Line art & Redwork result stays free, as you paid for it in credits, until you edit its lines in the line-art editor.
- Divide by drawing is free. Its pieces are ordinary shapes that keep the original shape's settings, so they need Pro only if that shape did.
For example, on the Free plan you can trace a cartoon with Line art & Redwork, resize it on the canvas and export it. Open it in the line-art editor and make the outline satin, and the export then asks for Pro.
A result from Pixel art, Line art & Redwork, or Vector stylization is free to export and publish on any plan. You paid for it in credits, and the payment is the gate. This is the one place where advanced and local auto-digitize behave differently. A Pixel art sprite stays free until you edit its pixels (see Exporting), and a Line art & Redwork drawing until you edit its lines (see Magic wand and line art).
Bobby
Bobby, the design assistant in the Chat panel (new in v1.4.0), needs you signed in, on any plan.
- What Bobby makes follows the tools' rules. A logo it traces is Auto-Trace content and a layered pet or portrait design is gated as Photostitch: free to make and edit, Pro to export. Artwork it places from a paid generation exports free, like an advanced auto-digitize result.
- Chatting is metered. Trying the chat is free up to an allowance; after that, replies use your credits. The chat's settings show your balance and what the conversation has used.
- Nothing is paid without your click. Before any paid generation Bobby shows a card with the price, and waits for Generate or Not now, whatever you set for how much it asks.
Density analysis
Analysis is the one Pro feature that isn't about content: it measures a design you already made. It is Pro outright, not gated at export.
Custom lettering
Making fonts is free: import a typeface, digitize it, correct any letter, set text
with it, preview it, and save the design. What needs Pro is getting it out:
exporting a design containing text in one of your own fonts (any format, including
the run sheet and video), and exporting the font itself as a .bbf.
Your fonts stay on your computer either way. If you're on the Free plan and need to export, switch that text back to one of the six bundled fonts and the design exports normally. See Fonts and lettering.
Watermark
On the Free (personal) plan, PNG and SVG image exports carry a small "Boldbobbin" wordmark badge in the bottom-right corner, and exported videos carry a "Made with Boldbobbin" watermark. Machine embroidery files (DST, PES, and the rest), JSON, CSV, and the PDF run sheet are not watermarked. A paid plan removes both watermarks.
License
Free exports are under a personal-use license (no selling finished goods or the files). Pro exports carry a commercial license. The commercial rights granted to a file at the moment you export it are permanent for that file: they stay valid even if you later change or cancel your plan.
New in v1.3.0: the export wizard's License row carries a Get commercial use button whenever the export carries a personal license. It explains what a commercial license covers:
Selling what you stitch from your designs, or the design files themselves, needs a Commercial Use License. Pro grants one for every export you make while subscribed, and it stays valid for that file after you cancel.
The button follows the license on the export, not the name of your plan, so it appears for anyone exporting under a personal license. That includes a Bullis school license: it grants every Pro capability except commercial use, so it is the one paid plan whose exports are still personal.
Credits
The three advanced auto-digitize methods run on Boldbobbin's servers and are paid for in credits, separately from your plan. Credits are not a subscription feature and a subscription is not a way to buy them.
- Where the balance shows: in the account menu under your plan, and above the cards in the Advanced auto-digitize chooser.
- What a job costs: whatever the card says. Prices are set on Boldbobbin's servers and can change at any time, so the card is the one to trust. As of v1.3.3, Line art & Redwork asks what your picture is: a picture that is already a line drawing is traced as it is for 10 credits, against 40 for a photo or artwork that is redrawn first. At the time of writing, Pixel art is 30 and Vector stylization 50. For example, 100 credits cover two redrawn photos and two traced line drawings.
- Bobby's chat uses the same credits once its free allowance is spent, and a generation Bobby proposes shows its price before you confirm. See Bobby.
- Buying: Buy credits opens boldbobbin.com/dashboard/credits, which carries your balance, your history, and the packs. This is not the Pro pricing page.
- Refunds: a job that fails or is cancelled is refunded automatically, and Boldbobbin says so when it happens.
- Every plan uses credits the same way. Pro does not make the advanced methods free, and Lifetime includes none: a Lifetime holder buys packs like anyone else.
Organization pools
A Business or Max seat gives you the organization's credit pool, and a job spends from that by default. A Pay with choice on the panel offers your own personal credits beside it. The account menu lists both, the organization's pool named after the organization.
An administrator can set a monthly spend cap per member. Hitting it is not something a credit pack fixes, and the message says so rather than routing you to a checkout.
If the organization's subscription ends, its credits are paused, not lost. They come back when an administrator restores the subscription, and nothing can be added to that pool meanwhile.
See Credits for what each message means in practice.
Upgrading
When you try to use a Pro-only feature, Boldbobbin shows a prompt that names the feature, with two buttons: Got it (dismiss) and See Pro plans. When it is an export, the prompt lists every Pro feature the design uses and says plainly that nothing is locked and nothing in your work is lost: you upgrade only to send it out.
See Pro plans opens the Boldbobbin website pricing page (boldbobbin.com/pricing), where you pick a plan and pay. That page is where current pricing lives, and prices may change, so check there for the latest.
Some plans cannot take a Pro subscription on top, and Boldbobbin no longer offers one where that is the case: "Pro cannot be added to your current plan. Get in touch if you need a higher limit." Lifetime already holds the Pro feature set. A Bullis holder can buy Pro, and is offered it only where it would add something: the design cap, and commercial use.
The account menu hides Upgrade to Pro from every plan above Free.
Cancelling
Manage or cancel your subscription from your account on the Boldbobbin website (billing is handled there, not inside the editor). If a plan lapses, paid capabilities remain until the paid period ends, then the account returns to Free. Already-exported files keep their commercial license.
A team's designs are not deleted when its plan ends: the library becomes read-only.