Status: planned (not built). After accounts.md and saved-lists.md (the first things worth paying for). Source: the commercialization strategy in ideas/, adjusted below. Part of product.
What stays free
Quad's reputation is open, cited data with no lead generation. Everything derived from federal data, and every college's profile, Explore, Compare (4 colleges), the Data page, the glossary, and the roadmap stay free for everyone, signed out. Paid tiers sell memory, personalization, and decision tools, never access to a public number. No ads, no selling leads to colleges, no sponsored placements; the strategy document's "ad-free" bullet is moot because there are no ads to remove.
Tiers
| Free | Plus | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| For | Everyone; underclassmen; casual searchers | A student building and running a list | A family in decision season; a guardian with several students |
| Price | $0 | $1.99/month or $15.99/year | $49 one-time season pass (12 months) or $9.99/month |
| Covers | one student | the guardian's households (all their students), or one student |
Pricing follows the strategy document. Notes from research (2026-10-02): at $1.99, Stripe's $0.30 + 2.9% is about 18% of revenue (plus 0.7% for Stripe Billing), so the annual plan is the default on the pricing page, with monthly shown second. Stripe Tax handles sales tax where digital goods are taxed. A $49 one-time pass is a one-off payment with a 12-month entitlement, not a subscription, so there is nothing to cancel.
Feature map
Each feature's own spec says what's free; this table is the single list the entitlement code reads from
(lib/entitlements.ts, one typed object, tested).
| Feature | Free | Plus | Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profiles, Explore, Compare (4), Data, glossary, roadmap | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Account, household, student profile (student-profile.md) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Saved list (saved-lists.md) | 1 list, 12 colleges | lists, 30 colleges each | same |
| Statuses, outcomes, notes, deadlines | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Follow colleges and update emails (follow-colleges.md) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Standing on a profile (Chances and Fit: Where You Stand) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Standing across the list and in Explore; fit sort | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Compare up to 10 (table view) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| CDS detail: GPA bands, early rounds, class sizes (cds-admissions.md) | on profiles | + filters and sorts | same |
| Early-application checklist (Early Decision and Early Action: Does Applying Early Help?) | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Earnings by major, deeper views (field-of-study.md) | top majors on profiles | ✓ | ✓ |
| CSV and PDF export of a list | ✓ | ✓ | |
| SAI and Pell estimate (Net Price Estimator: What This Family Would Pay) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-college price ranges and 4-year projection | 3 colleges | 3 colleges | whole list |
| Award letter form and one comparison (offers.md) | ✓ (Mar–May) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Award letter upload, 4-year totals, appeal summary | ✓ | ||
| Family PDF dossier (list, standing, estimates, offers) | ✓ |
The planner (The Planner: From the First List to the Deposit, 2026-10-07) is meant to be the primary paid feature, but its line is drawn here only after it is built (owner decision); its specs name no tier and expose capability names through one hook (model.md) for this map to fill in then. | Scattergrams from your high school (Scattergrams: Outcomes From Your High School) | counts | ✓ | ✓ | | Multiple students under one plan | | | ✓ |
Gating UX: a gated block renders its frame with a blurred sample and a "Plus" or "Pro" chip and a one-line reason; nothing is hidden, nothing nags. One upgrade sheet, from any chip.
Billing
- Stripe Checkout (hosted) for payment; Stripe Billing for the subscriptions; Customer Portal for cancel, card, and invoices. No card data ever touches the app.
- Products:
plus_monthly,plus_yearly,pro_pass(one-time),pro_monthly. Prices live in Stripe; the app reads a price id per product from env. - Webhooks (
/api/stripe/webhook, signature-verified) writesubscriptions (user_id, tier, status, current_period_end, stripe_customer_id, stripe_subscription_id); the entitlement check reads that table, not Stripe, at request time. A nightly job reconciles against Stripe. entitlements(user)(server-only) returns the tier and limits; a guardian's Pro applies to every student in their active households (accounts.md). Server Actions and pages enforce it; the UI only reflects it.- Trials and refunds: a 7-day Plus trial once per account; Pro pass refundable within 14 days if unused (no upload, no export). Stated on the pricing page.
- Minors paying: under-18s can't form contracts in most states; the Terms say a purchase by a minor is made with a guardian's permission (the strategy document's "allowance" case). Apple/Google in-app purchase rules apply only if there's a native app.
- Telemetry events
subscribe_started/subscribe_completed/subscription_cancelledfrom the server (telemetry.md).
Pricing page (/pricing)
Per the strategy document's layout: a Monthly / Annual toggle with annual preselected ("Save 33%"), two Plus cards and a Pro card, the feature map as a comparison table, FAQ (what stays free, refunds, minors, cancel any time), and a line about why there are no ads. Linked from the footer and the upgrade sheet; not in the main nav.
B2B
Organization plans are specified separately: Counselor Portal: Quad for Counselors ($299–$599/year per
organization by seats) and Data API: The Dataset, History, and Lineage for Developers ($1,200+/year). Both reuse the Stripe products and
entitlements() with an org_id.
Legal and operational before launch
Terms of service, privacy policy (telemetry, minors, data export and deletion), refund policy, a business entity and bank account for Stripe, sales-tax registration where Stripe Tax says it's needed, a support email, and a status page. The formal release in backlog.md (prod Supabase project) is a prerequisite.
Files (planned)
lib/entitlements.ts(feature map, limits,entitlements()),app/pricing/,app/api/stripe/webhook/route.ts,lib/stripe.ts, migration…_subscriptions.sql,tests/entitlements.test.mts(every gated feature in a spec appears in the map; guardian coverage; expired subscription loses access).- Env:
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY,STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET,STRIPE_PRICE_*.
Open questions
- Is Pro a one-time $49 pass (the document's first option) or a $9.99/month seasonal subscription (the second)? Recommendation: offer both, expect the pass to dominate, and watch telemetry.
- Niche now offers award-letter decoding free. Should the award letter form stay free year-round rather than March–May? Recommendation: decide after the first spring's funnel data.
- A "counselor recommended" referral discount for Plus (a code from a counselor organization) could be the main acquisition channel; cheap to add to Stripe (promotion codes).