What is free permanently, what triggers a paid tier, and how seats are counted.
There is no published price list yet. Synthelio is pre-launch and the founding cohort is currently the only route into the product, so this article explains the model rather than the numbers. When commercial pricing is set, the shape below is what it will follow.
This is the part worth getting straight, because most software in this category works the other way around.
Two things are free permanently, for any size of firm:
Neither is capped by headcount. A firm of 200 people can track time for all 200 and run one real engagement end to end without paying anything.
What moves you to a paid tier is scope: wanting the full platform across more than one engagement. That is a decision your firm makes deliberately, not something that trips automatically when you hire your eleventh person.
Once you choose the paid tier, seats are counted across the workspace rather than for a subset of people who use particular modules.
That is a deliberate simplification. Per-module or per-role seat counting sounds fairer and produces a licensing spreadsheet somebody has to maintain, arguments about whether a project manager needs a P&L seat, and a bill nobody can predict before it arrives. One count is easier to reason about and easier to forecast.
The free time tracking guarantee is not a lead magnet, and it survives the move to a paid tier in the sense that it is never the thing that generates a bill on its own.
The reasoning is about data quality rather than generosity. Every number Synthelio produces is derived from logged hours. A tool that charges per person to record time creates pressure to keep people out of it, and a firm where a third of the team is outside the system has margin figures that are fiction. Charging for the input that makes every other number trustworthy would be the wrong incentive to build in.
You will not be moved to a paid tier automatically, and the free guarantees do not quietly degrade into a trial.
If your firm decides it wants the full platform across your whole portfolio, you choose that. Until you do, the free scope keeps working the way it always did.
Founding members currently have full access to everything, free, with no seat count and no engagement limit. The lowest price is guaranteed permanently for them once commercial pricing begins.
What happens at the end of the founding period has its own article.
How much will it cost? Not set yet. When it is, founding members get the lowest price and keep it.
Do contractors and part-time people count as seats? On a paid tier, anyone with access to the workspace is a seat. If someone does not need access, do not give them an account.
Can we stay on the free scope indefinitely? Yes. Unlimited time tracking and one complete engagement are permanent guarantees, not trial terms.
What if we want the full platform on two engagements? That is the paid tier. The free engagement allowance is one.
Tell us what you need. We will point you to the answer or write the article.
