The Free Plan — What You Get
PlaneWX will never put safety behind a paywall. Every pilot on the free plan gets the same high-quality weather intelligence, the same PAVE risk assessment, and the same access to our mentor network as every paying subscriber.
Safety Is Not a Premium Feature
We built PlaneWX to make general aviation safer. That mission falls apart the moment we charge pilots for safety-critical information. So we made a decision early on:
We don’t make pilots pay for safety. We won’t. We refuse.
Every free briefing uses the same AI engine, the same three weather models, the same data sources, and the same scoring methodology as a Pro briefing. There is no “lite” version of a go/no-go decision. Paid tiers unlock convenience, scale, and automation — not the quality of the analysis itself.
What Every Free User Gets — Full Quality, No Compromises
These features are identical on the free plan and every paid plan. No downgrades, no watermarks, no “upgrade to see full results.”
Full WX Score
The same 0–100% WX Score with complete breakdown — ceiling, visibility, wind, crosswind, icing, turbulence, convective, and hazardous weather deductions. Full score transparency showing exactly why your score is what it is.
Synoptic Intelligence™
AI-synthesized weather briefings from 122 NWS Weather Forecast Offices, calibrated by NOAA’s National Blend of Models. The same Grok-powered analysis, the same route-aware regional selection, the same plain-English briefing.
Multi-Model Icing & Turbulence
Three independent weather models (HRRR, GFS, ECMWF) queried at multiple points along your route. ~120 data points per flight. Confidence scoring, ice type prediction, SLD/warm nose detection, total icing exposure, turbulence with Richardson number — all of it.
Convective Watch
Full thunderstorm scoring with CAPE, Lifted Index, K-Index, CIN suppression, model consensus, SPC Day 1 outlook, Convective SIGMET parsing, diurnal awareness, and equilibrium level (potential max tops).
PAVE Risk Assessment
Full access to the FAA PAVE (Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, External Pressures) risk assessment — integrated with your weather briefing data. No restrictions.
Mentor Network
Full access to the peer mentoring system. Request help from experienced pilots who can see your full briefing, personal minimums, and PAVE assessment. Free users broadcast to all available mentors; Pro adds the ability to browse and select a specific mentor.
Personal & Aircraft Minimums
Define your own weather minimums (ceiling, visibility, crosswind, icing tolerance, turbulence tolerance) and aircraft-specific limits. The system automatically uses the more restrictive value — exactly the same as paid tiers.
Alternate Departure Suggestions
When weather looks poor, PlaneWX identifies better departure windows and explains why they’re better. This safety-critical feature is available on every plan.
Full Raw Data Transparency
Every free briefing includes the complete Weather Sources panel — per-model data tables, icing and turbulence grids at every altitude level, cloud layer boundaries, freezing levels per model, fetch timestamps, and section-level source attribution. We show our work to every pilot, not just paying customers.
Free Plan Limits
The free plan limits how much you can use PlaneWX, not how well it works. These limits are designed for pilots who fly a few cross-countries a year and want high-quality weather intelligence without a subscription.
| Resource | Free | Pro ($99/yr) |
|---|---|---|
| Active flights | 2 | 10 |
| Aircraft profiles | 1 | 5 |
| Weekly briefings | 15 | Unlimited |
| Saved routes | 10 | 25 |
2 Active Flights
You can have up to 2 flights being monitored at any time. This covers a typical round trip (outbound + return). When you’re done with a trip, archive or delete the flights to make room for new ones.
1 Aircraft Profile
Configure one aircraft with its specific capabilities — crosswind limits, icing tolerance, turbulence tolerance, TAS, service ceiling, and FIKI/de-ice equipment. If you fly multiple aircraft, Pro lets you save up to 5 profiles with instant switching.
15 Briefings per Week
Each briefing creation, edit, or manual refresh counts toward your weekly limit of 15. The counter resets every Monday at midnight UTC. For a typical weekend trip, this gives you plenty of room to create your flights and refresh a few times as departure approaches.
10 Saved Routes
Save up to 10 frequently-flown routes for quick trip creation. Saved routes let you create a new flight with one tap instead of entering airports and waypoints every time.
What Pro Adds — Convenience, Scale, and Automation
Pro doesn’t make your briefings better — they’re already full quality. Pro makes PlaneWX work harder for you by adding automation, proactive monitoring, and the ability to manage more flights simultaneously.
Automatic Weather Updates
PlaneWX automatically refreshes your briefings on an intelligent schedule — more frequently as departure approaches. Free users must manually refresh. This is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade: your WX Score is always current without you lifting a finger.
Email Weather Alerts
Get notified when your WX Score changes significantly or your flight status changes (GO → CAUTION → NO-GO). You don’t have to keep checking — PlaneWX tells you when something important happens.
Trip Watchers (“My Crew”)
Add family members, passengers, or management as watchers on your trips. They receive the same weather updates you do — so rescheduling becomes a shared conversation based on data, not a confrontation based on one person’s word.
Corridor Watch
Monitor up to 10 frequently-flown corridors with a rolling 7-day VFR outlook. See at a glance which days look good for your regular routes without creating a flight. Free users can save routes for quick trip creation but don’t get corridor monitoring.
Multi-City Weather Optimizer
Planning a multi-stop trip? The optimizer finds the best order to visit up to 6 cities based on weather across your travel window. Great for business pilots visiting multiple sites or planning a multi-day adventure.
Mentor Browse & Select
Free users can broadcast a “Need Help Now” request to all available mentors. Pro adds the ability to browse mentor profiles, see their specialties and aircraft experience, and select a specific mentor. Either way, you get the same mentoring session — Pro just gives you more control over who you talk to.
Full Comparison
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Safety & Analysis — identical on all plans | ||
| WX Score (full breakdown) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Synoptic Intelligence™ (AI briefing) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-model icing analysis (HRRR + GFS + ECMWF) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-model turbulence analysis | ✓ | ✓ |
| Convective Watch (thunderstorm scoring) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Winds aloft (model-derived) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hazardous weather detection | ✓ | ✓ |
| PAVE risk assessment | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mentor network (request help) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Personal & aircraft minimums | ✓ | ✓ |
| Alternate departure suggestions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Raw data transparency (Weather Sources) | ✓ | ✓ |
| 14-day planning horizon | ✓ | ✓ |
| Convenience & Automation | ||
| Auto-refresh briefings | Manual only | ✓ Automatic |
| Email weather alerts | — | ✓ |
| Trip watchers (My Crew) | — | ✓ |
| Corridor Watch | — | ✓ (10 corridors) |
| Multi-City Weather Optimizer | — | ✓ (6 cities) |
| Mentor browse & select | Broadcast only | ✓ Browse + select |
| Weekly briefings | 15 | Unlimited |
| Scale | ||
| Active flights | 2 | 10 |
| Aircraft profiles | 1 | 5 |
| Saved routes | 10 | 25 |
Who Is the Free Plan For?
Weekend and Occasional Flyers
You fly a few cross-countries a year — Oshkosh, a family visit, a $100 hamburger run that’s actually a $400 hamburger run. Two active flights and 15 weekly briefings is plenty for planning a weekend trip. You get full-quality intelligence for those flights that matter most.
Student Pilots Planning Cross-Countries
You’re building hours and planning your first cross-country flights. The free plan gives you the full PAVE risk assessment, full WX Score, and the ability to request help from a mentor — exactly the tools a student needs to develop good decision-making habits.
Pilots Evaluating PlaneWX
You want to see what PlaneWX can do before subscribing. The free plan isn’t a watered-down demo — it’s the real product with quantity limits. Create a flight, run the briefing, and see for yourself what multi-model analysis looks like compared to your current tools.
When You Might Want Pro
You’ll know it’s time to upgrade when the free plan starts feeling like a constraint on how you use your airplane, not just how you use PlaneWX:
You fly often enough that 2 active flights and 15 weekly briefings feel tight. Business pilots, weekly flyers, and multi-leg trip planners need more capacity.
You want PlaneWX watching weather for you instead of logging in to check. Auto-refresh and email alerts mean your WX Score is always current and you’re notified when something changes.
You want stakeholders in the loop. Trip watchers let your spouse, passengers, or boss see the same weather data you see — so “we should reschedule” comes from the data, not from you having to explain why.
You fly multiple aircraft and need more than one aircraft profile with different performance data, equipment, and icing/turbulence tolerances.
Common Questions
“Are free briefings less accurate or less detailed?”
No. A free briefing and a Pro briefing for the same flight are identical. Same AI engine, same three weather models, same scoring algorithm, same data sources, same raw data transparency. The only difference is that Pro briefings auto-refresh and generate email alerts.
“What happens when I hit 15 briefings in a week?”
You can still view your existing briefings and their WX Scores, but you can’t create new flights or refresh existing ones until the counter resets Monday at midnight UTC. If you consistently hit the limit, Pro removes it entirely with unlimited briefings.
“Can I still use PAVE and mentors on the free plan?”
Yes, with no restrictions. PAVE risk assessment and the mentor network are safety features. We will never gate safety behind a subscription. The only mentor difference is that free users broadcast to available mentors while Pro users can additionally browse and pick a specific one.
“Do I need a credit card to sign up?”
No. The free plan requires no credit card and never expires. You also get a 14-day Pro trial when you sign up — also no credit card required — so you can experience auto-refresh and email alerts before deciding.
“Will the free plan always exist?”
Yes. Our mission is to increase general aviation safety. Removing the free plan would mean telling pilots they need to pay to access weather intelligence that could prevent an accident. That’s not something we’re willing to do.
The Bottom Line
The free plan exists because we believe every pilot deserves access to the best possible weather intelligence when making a go/no-go decision. Pro makes PlaneWX more convenient and more powerful for pilots who rely on their aircraft regularly. But the analysis that keeps you safe? That’s the same for everyone.