Shift browser pricing: what the free tier covers

The question behind a pricing search is rarely the price. It is whether the free tier covers the way the machine is already being used, and if not, exactly which limit gets hit first. That answer comes from arithmetic, not from a feature list. The published plan page gives two numbers that matter, a help article gives two different ones, and knowing which pair applies is the difference between an accurate estimate and a subscription bought for no reason.

What the free plan lists

The plan page shows two tiers. The free one is labelled "$0 forever", which places it outside the trial category. It covers five Spaces, ten apps inside each Space, the layout builder along with its templates, limited use of the built in AI, and carbon neutral browsing.

The paid tier, Advanced, is listed at $199.99 per year or $19.99 per month, with the annual toggle marked "Save $40". It adds unlimited Spaces, unlimited apps per Space, an expanded AI allowance, and priority customer support that includes video calling.

The comparison table further down that page is more informative than the tier cards. Templates, Space creation, adding apps, colour themes, carbon neutral browsing, sync across devices and download scanning all carry a mark in both columns. Only three rows differ: the Space ceiling, the app ceiling, and the AI allowance, plus the support channel, where the free column reads email and chatbot and the paid column adds video calling.

That shape is worth naming plainly. Paying does not unlock a different product. It raises ceilings on the same product. Anyone evaluating the cost should therefore stop asking which features are missing and start asking how many containers the current routine needs, because that is the only axis the money moves.

	Free	Advanced
Price	$0, no expiry	$199.99 per year, or $19.99 per month
Spaces	5	Unlimited
Apps per Space	10	Unlimited
Built in AI	Limited usage	Expanded usage
Extensions	Chrome extension library	Chrome extension library
Sync across devices	Included	Included
Download scanning	Included	Included
Support	Email and chatbot	Email, chatbot and video calling

Two sets of numbers on the same site

Anyone comparing figures across pages will find a contradiction. The help article titled "How much does Shift cost?" states that the free download allows two Spaces with a maximum of five apps each, and puts Advanced at $149.00 per year. The plan page states five Spaces, ten apps each, and $199.99.

Neither figure appears to be a typing error. They describe different builds. The product is mid transition from the older v9 to a rebuilt browser, and parts of the knowledge base still carry the terms that applied to v9. Several help entries make the transition explicit, including one on migrating a v9 account and another on the differences between the two versions.

Checking which set applies takes one look inside the application. Open the menu bar, choose About Shift, and read the version string. A version that begins with 9 is the older build.

The migration terms are published as well. The rebuilt browser rolls out to existing users over a period of months, and when it arrives it carries across Spaces, apps and bookmarks. Downloading the new build early is allowed, but the documentation is direct about the consequence: it opens with a clean slate and nothing is migrated. Anyone already paying who jumps early is told to sign in with the primary account email so the Advanced entitlement follows.

For a pricing decision this matters more than the dollar figure. A budget built on five Spaces and a machine running two Spaces are two different budgets.

Working out whether the ceiling binds

The limits multiply rather than stack. Five Spaces holding ten apps each is fifty slots. Two Spaces holding five each is ten. Those are not close enough to guess between.

The count runs in two passes. First, count identities rather than projects: the work self, the personal self, the client or side business self. That list is almost always shorter than the number of containers already sitting in a current setup, because finished work rarely gets cleaned up. Second, inside each identity, count only the services that need a permanent home. A service opened twice a month belongs in an ordinary tab and should not consume a slot.

A common professional setup runs five work services, three personal ones and perhaps four for a side project. Three Spaces, none of them near ten apps. Under the plan page terms that setup never touches the ceiling and the free tier is the correct answer.

The setups that do hit the ceiling look different:

• One Space per client or per project, with completed ones never removed
• The same service signed in under six or more accounts at once, each needing its own container
• Research and reading tools kept permanently inside a work Space rather than in tabs

One change in the rebuilt version affects this count directly. Spaces no longer need an email account associated with each one, and apps can sit anywhere in the layout. A count carried over from a v9 setup will therefore overestimate what the rebuilt version needs, so it is worth recounting after migrating rather than before.

What payment removes, and what it leaves in place

Four constraints lift with Advanced: the Space ceiling, the app ceiling, the AI allowance and the support channel. Everything else in the list below stays exactly as it is, at any price, and these are the constraints that strand people after the card has been charged.

One subscription covers one account. Multiple machines are supported through signing in on each and turning on sync from Quick Settings and then Advanced Settings, which carries the layout, Spaces, apps, bookmarks and history across. That is a different thing from two people sharing a licence, which the account terms do not allow.

Platform support is Windows 10 and 11 plus Mac, with macOS 11 Big Sur or newer required and 8GB of RAM recommended. There is no mobile version; the help entry on the subject states the product is available only on those desktop platforms. Anyone whose routine depends on continuing the same session on a phone will not find that in any tier.

Extension support is identical in both tiers, covering almost the whole Chrome extension library, so extensions are not a reason to upgrade. Download scanning through the integrated file reputation service is also present in both.

Teams are handled by a separate subscription with consolidated billing, a management dashboard and volume pricing that varies with headcount. No figure is published for it, which means any multi seat budget starts with a sales conversation rather than a page.

Refunds, discounts and the date that actually costs money

The refund window is fourteen days from the original purchase or from a renewal payment, which is the clause most likely to cost money later. An annual renewal that goes unnoticed for two weeks is not recoverable. Refunds are requested from the account portal under Subscriptions, or through support, and an approved request moves the account back to the free plan and cancels the subscription, with funds returning to the original card in five to ten business days.

Three standing discounts are published, each taking 30 percent off Advanced: student, educator and non profit. As of September 2026 a separate back to school offer sits at the top of the site giving students and educators Advanced at no cost, which is time limited and therefore worth reading in full rather than assuming it continues.

Two facts sit on the entry side of the funnel and are easy to miss. No credit card is required to download, and the rebuilt version does not require an account at all to use. Payment details appear only at the point of upgrading. On the exit side, uninstalling the application does not cancel anything. Cancellation is a separate action taken in the account, and skipping it is the most common way a renewal lands unexpectedly.

Monthly against annual, measured over the period actually used

Twelve monthly payments total $239.88 against $199.99 for the year, a difference of $39.89, which is what the "Save $40" label refers to. That is a discount of just under 17 percent, which is ordinary for this category.

The instinct on seeing that gap is to take the annual rate. The better sequence runs the other way. The moment a ceiling is hit is the worst moment to judge how many Spaces a routine needs, because the frustration is loud and the count has not settled. Two months on the monthly rate shows whether the Space count keeps climbing or stabilises, and the total cost of finding that out is under forty dollars.

Prices are listed in US dollars, so a payment made from another country lands at the exchange rate and card fees applied on the billing date rather than the listed figure. The renewal date can be found in the account portal, and there is a help entry describing where. Putting a calendar reminder two weeks before renewal is what keeps the refund window usable, since the window opens on the renewal charge itself.

The costs that never appear on the plan page

Two expenses sit outside the published figures and both are paid in time rather than money.

The first is the rebuild. Downloading the new build ahead of the automatic rollout starts from an empty layout, so every Space, every app and the arrangement of the bars has to be recreated by hand. For a setup of three Spaces that is a short evening. For a setup of a dozen containers built up over years it is considerably more, and it lands on whichever day the download happened rather than on a day chosen for it. Waiting for the automatic migration, which carries Spaces, apps and bookmarks across, converts that expense to zero for the price of waiting a few months.

The second is the ceiling being reached mid task. Hitting an app limit is not a billing event that can be deferred to the weekend. It arrives while a client is waiting, which is precisely the condition under which an annual subscription gets bought without a count being done. Running the count in advance, while nothing is urgent, is what keeps the decision a decision.

There is also one cost that does not exist here and is worth noting because it does in some competing products: the AI allowance is described as limited on the free tier and expanded on the paid one, not as a credit pack sold separately. The published tiers are the whole price list for an individual, with the Teams subscription as the only other line, and that one is quoted rather than published.

What to change first

Before any payment, write down three numbers: how many identities need to stay separate, how many services inside each one genuinely need a permanent home, and how many accounts of the same service need to be open simultaneously. Those three numbers decide whether any free tier in this category fits, and they stay valid across every product here. If the answer is that the identities are few but the switching between them is constant, the cost that matters is attention rather than dollars, and a setup where each app holds its own real window is the shape worth testing: that is the design behind SpaceDeck, with the plan terms on Pricing and the per account model on Workspaces. For a direct comparison with the product discussed here, see Compared with Shift.