Free vs Pro
Start with Free. Choose Pro when your work needs more power.
Free gives you an excellent SpacebarX foundation. Pro is the upgrade for people who want their outline to handle bigger projects, recurring questions, sensitive documents and more ambitious planning—without adding another tool.
Every capability, clearly compared
Both plans, row by row, so the choice can be made without leaving the page.
| Capability | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Capture and structure | ||
| Private nested outlines | Included | Included |
| Keyboard-first navigation and custom shortcuts | Included | Included |
| Quick capture | Included | Included |
| Templates | Included | Included |
| Mirrors | Included | Included |
| Checkboxes, dates and recurring tasks | Included | Included |
| Markdown and multi-select editing | Included | Included |
| Offline-first workspace | Included | Included |
| OPML import and export | Included | Included |
| Drive Sync with your own Google Drive or Dropbox | IncludedNeeds a signed-in account. | IncludedNeeds a signed-in account. |
| Plan and see work clearly | ||
| Today View with automatic rollover | Included | Included |
| Calendar file export | Included | Included |
| Board View | Available with Pro | Included |
| Table View | Available with Pro | Included |
| Mind Map | Available with Pro | Included |
| Google Calendar connection | Available with Pro | Included |
| Find and move work forward | ||
| Focus Mode | Included | Included |
| Full-text search | Included | Included |
| Saved Searches | Available with Pro | Included |
| Auto-archive | Available with Pro | Included |
| Protect and recover important work | ||
| Version History | IncludedChanges are recorded on every plan. | IncludedChanges are recorded on every plan. |
| Restore an earlier version | Available with Pro | Included |
| Encrypted Documents | Available with Pro | Included |
| Passkeys and recovery codes | Available with Pro | Included |
| File uploads | Available with Pro | Included |
| Make the workspace yours | ||
| Built-in themes | Included | Included |
| Custom colours and fonts | Available with Pro | Included |
| PDF and print export | Available with Pro | Included |
| AI with your own provider key | Available with Pro | Included |
Pro is where SpacebarX becomes your full work system
Free is ideal for building an outlining habit. Pro is for the moment your system needs to answer bigger questions: What is blocked? What changed? What is due? Where is the secure version? What does this project look like as a plan?
Plan visually
Board View, Table View and Mind Map let you see the same SpacebarX branch in the form that makes the next decision easier.
Find and follow through
Saved Searches keep the questions you ask repeatedly close at hand. Calendar connection and auto-archive help active work move forward without manual upkeep.
Protect and recover important work
Version restore, encrypted documents and passkeys give serious work the safeguards it deserves.
Extend the outline when it helps
Use file uploads, PDF export, deeper customisation and your preferred AI provider when the job calls for them—while keeping the outline as the source of truth.
Pro is a natural fit if you are managing more than a list
- You run projects with changing stages, owners or deadlines.
- You regularly review work across multiple branches.
- You want sensitive notes protected inside the same workspace.
- You write, research or plan enough that recovery and better views save real time.
- You want AI assistance without moving your outline to another tool.
What each capability covers, exactly
A tick above means the capability is on that plan. This is what each one does and where it stops, so nothing is a surprise after you have moved your outline in.
Board, Table and Mind map
All three read a branch of your outline — nothing is duplicated or kept in sync by hand. Table view flattens two levels of a branch into rows and shows 500 at a time, with a hard cap of 4,000: a working view of one branch rather than a database over the whole outline. The mind map draws up to 400 nodes breadth-first and balances only the first level of children. The outline, Today, search and whole-list views carry no such caps and are free.
Calendar and version history
There is no standalone calendar view and no month grid. What Pro adds is a date strip inside Today, plus one-way push to Google Calendar; .ics export is free on every plan. Version history records on every plan — it is restoring an earlier state that is Pro, so the recording has been running long before the day you need it.
Import, export and templates
OPML carries text, notes, checkboxes, checked state and hierarchy — in both directions. It drops due dates, mirrors, colour, the numbered flag and collapsed state; a SpacebarX JSON backup keeps all of it, but only SpacebarX writes one. There is no Markdown file import or export, so an Obsidian or Logseq vault converts to OPML first. Templates are subtrees you save yourself, not a gallery to download. Capture from outside the app is a desktop feature and the desktop build is not released yet, so today capture happens in the web app.
Encrypted documents and passkeys
A passkey unlocks an encrypted document. It is not an account login — signing in is an email magic link with a six-digit code, or Google. Each encrypted document gets its own AES-GCM key, wrapped by a password, by ten one-time recovery codes, or by a passkey through the WebAuthn PRF extension.
Where the synced file actually goes
Google Drive or Dropbox in the browser, or any OS-synced folder on desktop — iCloud Drive, Drive for Desktop, Syncthing. iCloud is not possible on the web. Merges are conflict-free (a CRDT), and collapsed state is deliberately left unsynced so each device keeps its own. Because no SpacebarX server sits in the data path, synced files are not end-to-end encrypted by us: they are plain files in an account you already own, protected by that provider. Sync needs a signed-in account.
AI on your own key
Bring a key from Anthropic, OpenAI, OpenRouter, Grok or Gemini. Requests go from your browser straight to that provider — SpacebarX never proxies, stores or meters model traffic, and there is no SpacebarX-hosted model. The agentic edit mode previews every create, edit, move and delete before applying it as an ordinary, undoable command.
The free tier does not expire and does not ask for a card. If Pro lapses, your outline stays on your device and every free capability above keeps working — see data ownership for what that means in practice.
Use the same outline. Unlock a much stronger system.
Start the 14-day Pro trial and see what your real work looks like with the full SpacebarX toolkit.