Free vs Pro
What ships in the free tier, what Pro unlocks, why mosh and image paste are the usual reasons people upgrade, and how App Store billing, restores, and Apple ID binding work.
Moshi has a free tier that's a complete terminal — SSH, agent monitoring, push notifications, biometric key protection, dictation, and the inbox all work out of the box. Pro unlocks the things that turn Moshi into a daily driver instead of an occasional tool: more saved hosts, mosh, tmux/multiplexer pairing, image paste, custom themes and fonts, and a much larger cloud dictation quota.
This page covers what's in each tier, why most heavy users end up on Pro, and how billing works on the App Store and Google Play.
What's free
Free is not a teaser. The following are unmetered or fully featured on the free tier:
- Unlimited active sessions — open as many concurrent terminals as you want.
- Up to 2 saved connections — enough for a Mac and one VPS.
- SSH — full SSH transport, including key auth, password auth, and jump hosts.
- Push notifications — agents can wake your phone the same way Pro does.
- Biometric key protection — Face ID / Touch ID gating on private keys.
- Agent usage tracking — the Usage tab works; you can see your Claude Code, Codex, and OpenCode rate-limit windows.
- Inbox — first 5 actions per session (approve, deny, answer).
- Cloud dictation — 3 minutes per day. Local Whisper and Apple's on-device engine are free without a quota.
- Custom shortcuts — up to 3 custom shortcuts.
- Apple Watch — view-only mirror of inbox and usage. iOS only.
If you only ever connect to one or two hosts over plain SSH and don't need image paste, the free tier is enough.
What Pro adds
Pro is for people who actually live in their terminal:
- Unlimited saved connections — homelabs, side projects, work, friends' machines.
- Mosh — UDP transport that survives network changes (Wi-Fi to cellular, lock screen, sleep). On a phone this is the difference between "session disconnected" and "session resumed exactly where I left it" three times a day. The single biggest reason to upgrade.
- Multiplexer integration — tmux session pairing, window switching from the toolbar, automatic reattach. Long-running agent work lives inside tmux; Moshi can attach, list, and switch sessions from the UI rather than typing prefix chords.
- Image paste — paste a screenshot or photo directly into an agent prompt. No scp, no temp file. See Image paste.
- Cloud dictation quota: 60 min/day — 20× the free tier. Matters if you dictate prompts frequently or work in noisy environments where local Whisper struggles.
- Unlimited inbox actions — answer every approval from the inbox without hitting the daily cap.
- Apple Watch actions — approve / deny / answer agents from the wrist, not just glance at them.
- Unlimited custom shortcuts — a shortcut per project, per agent, per tmux setup, without juggling three slots.
- Custom themes — Dracula, Nord, Solarized, Gruvbox, Catppuccin, GitHub Light, Rosé Pine Dawn (some are Pro). See Personalization.
- Custom fonts — Iosevka, Ioskeley, DejaVu, and Noto CJK JP/SC/TC/KR.
Free vs Pro at a glance
Why Pro is usually worth it
If you only need a quick "ssh in, run a command, ssh out" workflow, free is fine. Pro pays off when one or more of these is true:
- You move between Wi-Fi and cellular often. Mosh alone justifies it.
- You run coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini, Cursor, Kimi, Qwen) from the phone. Image paste, tmux pairing, and unlimited inbox actions are how you actually steer them.
- You have more than two machines. Two slots fills up fast: prod + dev + a side project + a friend's box and you are already over budget.
- You're a heavy dictator. 3 minutes of cloud transcription is enough to confirm Cloud is better than local Whisper; 60 minutes is enough to use it.
For occasional users, the free tier is meant to remain genuinely useful — not crippled.
Subscribe or buy once
Open Settings -> Pro to see two options:
- Subscription — monthly or annual auto-renewing. Cancel anytime; the subscription stays active until the period ends.
- Lifetime — one-time purchase. Same Pro entitlement, no renewal.
On iOS, both are processed by the App Store and billed against the Apple ID signed in to the device. On Android, both are processed by Google Play and billed against the Google account on the device. Pricing is the same; the store layer is different.
Pro entitlements do not cross stores. A Pro subscription bought on the App Store unlocks Pro on every iPhone / iPad signed into that Apple ID, but not on an Android phone using the same email. The same applies in reverse for Google Play purchases.
Restore on a new device
A Pro purchase is tied to the store account that bought it, not to the device.
- iOS / iPadOS — install Moshi on the new device, sign in with the same Apple ID that bought Pro, then open Settings -> Pro and tap Restore.
- Android — install Moshi on the new device, sign in with the same Google account that bought Pro, then open Settings -> Pro and tap Restore.
If Restore does nothing, confirm the device is signed in with the same store account that made the purchase. Restore brings back entitlements only.
Entitlement vs settings sync
Two unrelated things flow between devices:
- Pro entitlement travels through the App Store / Google Play and the store account that paid for it. It is automatic on every device with that account, on the same store.
- Saved connections, themes, and other settings travel through iCloud (iOS only) and are off by default. Enable iCloud sync in Moshi settings on each iOS device if you want your connection list to follow you. Cross-platform settings sync is not available yet.
Restoring Pro on a new device does not bring saved connections. Enabling iCloud sync does not unlock Pro on a different account or store.
Cancellations and refunds
Cancellations, billing questions, and refunds are handled by the store, not by Moshi.
- App Store — use iOS Settings -> [your name] -> Subscriptions to cancel an active subscription, or
reportaproblem.apple.comto request a refund for any App Store purchase including the lifetime option. - Google Play — open the Google Play Store app -> profile -> Payments & subscriptions -> Subscriptions to cancel, or
play.google.com/store/account/subscriptionsfrom the web. Refund requests go throughsupport.google.com/googleplay.
When Pro features still look locked
If you are signed in with the right store account, tapped Restore, and Pro features still appear locked:
- Force-quit Moshi and reopen.
- Confirm the device has network and can reach the App Store / Play Store (try opening any other paid app).
- Sign out and back in to the store account if a recent ID change has not propagated.
If none of that works, contact support from Settings -> Support with your store, account region, and the original purchase email.