Account & billing
Trial, subscription, and billing
In short
The free trial starts when you create an account and does not ask for a card. When you are ready, subscribe monthly or yearly from the dashboard. Payment details, invoices, plan changes, and cancellation are all handled in the billing portal, which you reach from your account settings.
The trial
The trial begins the moment you create an account and requires no payment details. You can build profiles, assemble libraries, set controls, and let your children watch for the full trial period before deciding anything.
Because no card is on file, nothing happens automatically when the trial ends — there is no surprise charge and no need to remember to cancel. Access to the child experience pauses until you subscribe, and your profiles, libraries, and settings are all still there when you do.
Our honest recommendation is to actually use it with your children rather than evaluating it yourself. The thing worth finding out is whether your child accepts a library in place of a feed, and that question is only answerable by handing them the device.
What you manage where
- Subscribing
- From your account settings in the dashboard. Choose monthly or yearly at checkout; current pricing is always shown on the pricing page rather than duplicated here.
- Changing plan
- Switch between monthly and yearly in the billing portal. Changes are prorated, so you are credited for the unused part of the current period rather than paying twice.
- Payment details
- Update your card in the billing portal. Card details are held by our payment processor and never stored on our systems.
- Invoices and receipts
- Every invoice is available in the billing portal, with a downloadable copy of each.
- Cancelling
- Cancel in the billing portal at any time. Access continues to the end of the period you have already paid for — cancelling does not cut you off mid-month.
Failed payments and what happens next
If a payment fails — an expired card is the usual cause — the charge is retried automatically over the following days rather than the subscription being cancelled immediately. You are notified so you can update the card before it becomes a problem.
Your data is not deleted when a subscription lapses. Profiles, libraries, settings, and watch history stay in place, and resubscribing restores access to them rather than starting you over.
If you are seeing repeated failures, the fix is almost always a card update in the billing portal. Contact support if it persists after that and we will look at it from our side.
Common questions
Does the free trial require a credit card?
No. The trial starts with your account and asks for no payment details. Nothing is charged automatically at the end, because there is nothing on file to charge.
What happens to my libraries if I cancel?
They stay. Profiles, libraries, control settings, and watch history are all preserved, and resubscribing restores access to the setup you already built.
Can I switch between monthly and yearly?
Yes, in the billing portal at any time. The change is prorated against what you have already paid for the current period.
How do I get an invoice for expenses?
Every invoice is in the billing portal with a downloadable copy, including past periods.
Do I pay per child?
Pricing covers your family rather than being metered per profile, so adding another child does not change what you pay. Current pricing is on the pricing page — we deliberately do not restate figures in the docs, because docs go stale and the pricing page does not.
Related articles
Quick start: set up Watchly in about ten minutes
Account, first child profile, first library, first time limit — the whole first run.
Troubleshooting common problems
Playback failures, missing content, PIN lockouts, and limit oddities.
Creating and managing child profiles
Add a profile, pick an avatar, set a birth year — and what each profile owns.
Try it with your own kids
The free trial needs no card, and nothing installs — build a library, set a limit, and hand the device over.