# Accounts, Pro, and billing

> Signing in and out, what Pro costs and adds, how to upgrade or cancel, where invoices live, and what happens to your data when you stop paying.

- Canonical: https://big-agi.com/docs/account-pro
- Minimum tier: free  [Open ⊂ Free ⊂ Pro - a tier only ever ADDS to the Open baseline]
- Kind: how-to · Last content update generation: 2026-07-27 · Review by: 2026-10-25
- Answers: How much does Big-AGI Pro cost? · What exactly do I get for the monthly price? · How do I cancel my subscription? · What happens to my chats if I stop paying? · If I log out, does it delete my local data?

Big-AGI requires signing in, Free or Pro. Self-hosted [Open](/docs/self-host) has no accounts and no billing at all.

| Sign in | What happens |
|---|---|
| Google | Asks which account to use, enabling user switching. |
| Email | Check your inbox, open the link, and confirm. The link expires in 24 hours. |

## What Pro adds

Four things **[Pro]**:

- Cloud backup of personas, chats and rambles
- Multi-device sync
- 1 GB of cloud space
- Email support from the builder

**Lock-in the pro sub early as features are expanding and price may increase.**

> **Pro:** Chats, personas and rambles stay on this device and browser only, unless you subscribe to Pro: cloud backup and multi-device sync (1 GB). On Open there is no sync. Disabling sync never deletes local data.

Model usage sits outside that. Your AI service bills you directly in every version, and Big-AGI neither takes a cut nor caps your use. Entitlements are computed per account and every sync route is scoped to it, so there are no seats and no family plan. The Business plan, for teams, starts from the [contact form on big-agi.com](https://big-agi.com/#pricing).

## Subscribe to Pro

1. Open the plans dialog - **Activate Pro** in the nav is one entry point.
2. Pick monthly or yearly. Checkout happens **on Stripe's own page**: billing address, automatic tax, and a promotion code if you have one.
3. You land back on the account page: *"**Welcome to Pro**! Cloud Sync is now active across your devices."*
4. Enjoy!

Stripe takes the payment and holds the card; the app keeps a customer reference against your account and nothing about the card itself.

## Changing, cancelling, and invoices

**Your Plan** -> **Manage Subscription** opens the Stripe billing portal, which holds the subscription, the payment method and the invoices. Cancelling and switching plans happen there, not in the app. The date line reads `Renews <date>`, or `Ends <date>` once a cancellation is pending - the only place the app confirms one.

Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, so you keep Pro until then.

## If you cancel or stop paying

1. **Your local data is untouched.** No cancellation path clears anything: chats, personas, settings and keys stay in the browser.
2. **You lose the ability to pull the cloud copy back down**, along with the cloud trashcan. The entitlement check applies to reads as well as writes, so anything that exists only in the cloud stays there until you subscribe again.
3. **Sync stops with no error dialog.** The account card reverts to **Backup Requires Pro**.

We advise taking a `Backup All Chats` file before you cancel ([Back up, restore, and import](/docs/account-backup)). The [privacy policy](https://big-agi.com/privacy) states how long the server copy is kept after a cancellation. Deleting the data behind the account is its own process: [Delete your data](/docs/account-delete).

## Signing out

Signing out ends the session, with one choice on the same card. Switching between your accounts on your own machine: `Keep on device` `[ Sign out ]` leaves everything here. On a public or shared machine: `Remove from device` `[ Clear & Sign Out ]` wipes this identity, **API keys with it** ([Keep your key safe](/docs/key-storage)). What each wipe removes, and what survives it: [Delete your data](/docs/account-delete#wiping-this-browser).

## When this doesn't work

| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| `Storage quota exceeded. Please upgrade your plan or free up space.` | Cloud space is full. 1 GB is the only quota sold in the app, so the fix is deleting synced items, not a larger plan. |
| `This sign-in link has already been used or has expired.` | Links are single-use and last 24 hours. The card offers **Email me a new link** - take it. |
| `We could not complete the sign-in. Please try again.` | A sign-in that started in one browser and finished in another - an in-app webview, or a home-screen app handing off. Retry **in this browser**. |
| `This email is already used with a different sign-in method. Please use your original sign-in method` | The address is on the other method. Use the one you signed up with. |
| `You do not have permissions to sign in. Please contact support.` | Your account is blocked, for security reasons. Not one to retry: the page renders a support address next to it. |
| `Failed to open billing portal` · `Failed to create checkout session` · `Failed to start checkout process` | A transient failure between us and Stripe. Retry. |
| `Sync not available` | What a lapsed or cancelled subscription looks like from the server side, once the period you paid for has ended. |

## Related

- [Open, Free, or Pro](/docs/choose-version)
- [What syncs between devices](/docs/feature-sync)
- [Back up, restore, and import](/docs/account-backup)
- [Delete your data](/docs/account-delete)