For anyone who needs it
Twenty-nine ninety-nine.
A year. No questions.
Most software treats a discounted tier as a marketing problem to be hidden. Vaely treats it as a worldview to be stated. If you live with chronic illness on disability, on fixed income, or simply cannot pay $39.99 right now — the Reduced Rate is for you. Listed in the App Store as a separate tier. No income verification. No proof we ask for. The honor system, on purpose.
Full Pro access. The same as $39.99 / year, less ten dollars. Apple processes the charge. We never see a card number.
How
Three things, in any order.
- i
Open the App Store and download Vaely.
Free to download. The free tier includes unlimited natural-language logging on its own. You can use Vaely without ever paying.
- ii
During onboarding, choose Reduced Rate.
The tier appears alongside the regular Pro options. Self-select if it applies to you. Or choose it later in Settings if you change your mind.
- iii
Apple charges $29.99 once a year.
That is the entire transaction. There is no second screen, no verification email, no ID upload, no pay-stub request. We honor what you said you needed.
The honest version
Why we can offer this, and what it actually costs us.
Running a software company is not free. Apple takes a cut of every subscription. The team that builds and supports Vaely gets paid. Legal review, accounting, hosting, design tools — the lights cost what the lights cost. The price of Pro covers those things. It is not a margin on nothing.
What is different about Vaely is the shape of the cost curve. The AI runs on the chip in your phone, not on a server we rent. Adding one more $39.99 user does not add to a cloud-inference bill. Adding one more $29.99 user does not either. Most chronic-illness software is built on cloud AI, where each heavy user creates a real cost the company has to cover by charging more, throttling features, or selling data. We do not have that pressure, so we do not have to make those trades.
That is what makes Reduced Rate structurally honest. It is not charity, and it is not a loss leader. It is the same product, sold at a lower price to the people who need the lower price, because the unit economics let us. The patient who pays $39.99 funds the team. The patient who pays $29.99 funds the team. Both numbers are real prices.
The cost of a few non-qualifying users picking this tier is much smaller than the cost of a verification system that humiliates the people we are actually trying to serve. — Vaely's reasoning, written down so you can hold us to it
Questions worth answering
The plain answers.
Do I have to prove I qualify?
No. There is no verification. There is no proof we ask for. You select the Reduced Rate tier in onboarding, or any time later in Settings inside the app. Apple processes the $29.99 charge. Vaely does not see your income, your disability status, your prescription history, or anything else.
Why isn't this just the regular price?
Because pricing carries information. The $39.99/year price tells one story; the $29.99/year price tells another. Listing both signals to the chronic-illness community that we know who they are, that we built the cost structure to serve them, and that we are not trying to hide a discount in a coupon code. Many of our most engaged users will pay the full price. Some will pay this one. Both are correct.
What stops people who could afford full price from choosing this?
Nothing. We are betting that the people who would game an honor-system tier are not the same people who would download a chronic-illness journal. The cost of a few non-qualifying users picking this tier is much smaller than the cost of building a verification system that humiliates the people we are actually trying to serve.
Will switching tiers later cause any issue?
No. You can move between Reduced Rate, Pro Annual, Pro Monthly, and Free in Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions on your iPhone. Apple handles the proration. Your data stays on your device regardless of which tier you are on.
Is the experience reduced for the Reduced Rate tier?
No — the price is the only difference. Reduced Rate is full Pro access: unlimited Doctor Reports, custom tracking, and detailed Siri logging. Same Apple Watch app, same exports, same caregiver sharing. Identical to Pro Annual.
How does Vaely afford to do this?
We have real costs — Apple's subscription cut, the team that builds and supports the app, hosting, legal, the rest. The price of Pro covers them; it is not a margin on nothing. What is different about Vaely is that the AI runs on your phone, not on a server we rent. Adding heavy users does not add to a cloud-inference bill. Most chronic-illness software cannot say that, and that pressure is what pushes other companies to charge more, throttle features, or sell data. We do not have that pressure, so we can publish Reduced Rate at $29.99 without it being a loss or a marketing stunt — it is the same product at a price the unit economics can support.
Is there a tier for people who cannot pay anything at all?
Yes. The free tier includes unlimited natural-language logging by voice or text, the daily timeline, medication reminders, basic Apple Health read access, the Apple Watch widget, the basic Siri shortcut, and three doctor-ready PDF reports per year. On AI-capable iPhones, the weekly summary, pattern observations, and ambient journal are included at no additional cost. The free tier is genuinely useful on its own — never a teaser. If you cannot afford $29.99, the free tier is for you.
Twenty-nine ninety-nine, a year.
For anyone who needs it.
Three days free. Then $29.99 once a year, until you cancel — and you can switch tiers any time in Settings.
See the full pricing page for all tiers.