Pricing
Pay once. Use forever.
No subscriptions, no seats-per-month, no AI metering. Bundled on-device AI works without any account, or bring your own OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini key. Upgrade between tiers any time.
Free
Everyone
$0one-time
A better QuickTime for taking timestamped notes.
- Local video playback & YouTube embeds
- Timestamp-anchored notes
- Library with playlists
- Full-text note search
- Markdown export
Scholar
Students
$9.99one-time
Your lectures become searchable and studiable.
- Everything in Free
- Whisper transcription
- Frame & region capture with OCR
- Visual slide-timeline detection
- Formula → LaTeX recognition
- Anki export
Most popular
Researcher
Writers, analysts, podcasters, grad students
$39.99one-time
Your library becomes a cross-referenced knowledge graph.
- Everything in Scholar
- 4-layer AI Brief per video
- Chat with any video
- Entity extraction + knowledge graph
- Cross-video synthesis / tension maps
- Multi-provider AI routing (bundled Local AI, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini)
- Obsidian export with wikilinks
Feature comparison
Everything, side by side.
The full feature breakdown across all four tiers.
| Feature | Free $0 | Scholar $9.99 | Researcher $39.99 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playback & Notes | |||
| Local video playback (AVPlayer) | |||
| YouTube video playback | |||
| Timestamp-anchored notes | |||
| Video library + playlists | |||
| YouTube playlist import | |||
| Basic Markdown export | |||
| Full-text search (notes) | |||
| Transcription & Capture | |||
| Whisper transcription (VOD) | |||
| YouTube caption import (when public captions exist) | |||
| Transcript search (FTS5) | |||
| Frame capture from video | |||
| Region capture (crop) | |||
| OCR on captured frames | |||
| Formula → LaTeX recognition | |||
| Visual slide-timeline detection | |||
| Anki export (.apkg) | |||
| AI Intelligence | |||
| 4-layer AI Brief per video | |||
| Chat with video (Q&A) | |||
| Key claims extraction | |||
| Notable quotes extraction | |||
| Entity extraction | |||
| Flashcard generation | |||
| Draft research note | |||
| Reading list extraction | |||
| Cross-video synthesis / tension maps | |||
| Compiled research documents | |||
| Knowledge graph (entity network) | |||
| Entity resolution across videos | |||
| Multi-provider AI routing | |||
| Provider fallback on rate limits | |||
| Spotlight indexing | |||
| Obsidian export (YAML + wikilinks) | |||
Questions worth addressing up front
Why not a subscription?
Because we have zero server costs. Transcription runs locally on-device (WhisperKit), AI briefs run on-device by default (Apple MLX), and cloud AI calls use your own API keys. There's nothing to fund with recurring revenue.
Do I need API keys?
No. VidNotes ships with bundled on-device AI (Apple MLX) that works without any key for briefs, synthesis, and chat. If you'd rather use a cloud provider, OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini all work with your own key — Gemini's free tier is generous.
Can I upgrade later?
Yes. Pay the difference at any time and the app unlocks the higher tier — no reinstall, no data migration.
Is my data private?
Yes. Everything lives in a local SQLite database on your Mac. No telemetry, no cloud sync, no account required. AI calls (when you enable them) go directly from your Mac to the provider you chose.
What happens if I stop paying?
Nothing. You paid once. The app keeps working. Forever.