The short version: the free tier is not a crippled demo. Every feature works — recognition, editing, validation, PGN export, cloud history, both languages, web and iOS. What Pro buys is volume.
The comparison
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $4.99/month or $29.99/year (Pro+: $19.99/month or $119.99/year) |
| Credits | 10 on sign-up, +5 per referral | 100 every 30 days, on top of your balance |
| Scoresheets that buys | 5 | ~50 a month |
| AI recognition and move validation | Yes | Yes |
| Editing, replay, PGN export | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud history synced across devices | Yes | Yes |
| New features | When they ship | First |
There is no watermark on free exports, no cap on how many games your library holds, and no feature that unlocks only when you pay. We would rather someone scan five sheets properly and decide than scan twenty crippled ones and leave annoyed.
When Pro is worth it
Roughly: more than three scoresheets a month.
Three scoresheets is 6 credits. The free 10 credits cover your first five sheets, and referrals top that up slowly, but if you are digitising games regularly — after every club night, after every weekend tournament — you will run dry within a month or two.
Some concrete cases where it pays for itself:
- A club player recording league games: two games a week is about 16 credits a month. Pro covers it six times over.
- A coach digitising a student's tournament: a nine-round Swiss is 18 credits in one weekend. That is the free tier gone in two days.
- An archivist working through a box of old scoresheets: this is the case Pro exists for. 100 credits a month, credits carrying over, and the yearly plan at $29.99 makes a 600-game backlog cost about the same as a chess book. For a club or a coach scanning for several players, Pro+ raises the grant to 500 credits a month ($19.99/month or $119.99/year).
If you scan one game a month, stay on free — the referral link will probably keep you topped up indefinitely, and we would rather you did that than pay for something you barely use.
Monthly or yearly
Yearly is $29.99 against $59.88 for twelve months bought one at a time — half the price. It grants credits on the same 30-day cycle, not all 1,200 up front. Pro+ follows the same ratio: $119.99/year against $239.88 paid monthly.
Pick monthly if you are still deciding, or if your scanning is seasonal and you would rather subscribe during tournament season and cancel afterwards. Credits you have already banked survive cancellation, so that pattern works fine.
Things worth knowing before you pay
- It renews automatically at the same price until you cancel, monthly or yearly depending on the plan.
- Cancelling is self-serve and takes two clicks on the pricing page — see how to cancel.
- Payments are final — there are no refunds, which is exactly why the 10 free credits exist. Try it properly before you subscribe. See refunds.
- Credits never expire and survive cancellation.
- Waffo appears on your statement, not ScanChess — it is our merchant of record.
Details of how the credits themselves behave are in how ScanChess credits work. Current prices are always on the pricing page.