Pricing

What costs what.

Every paid tier across HiveJournal, Graphene, and write.cafe in one place. The free tier is the whole platform — paid tiers add depth + polish + creator tools, never lock the basics.

The whole platform, paid features locked.

Free

Freeforever

Every chapter on Graphene is free for the first week. Every write.cafe surface — the daily ritual, contests, battles, streak, cohort — is free forever. The journaling product is free in full.

Full HiveJournal journaling — entries, mood, notebooks, comics, AI quotes
Read + listen to every Graphene chapter for the first 7 days after release
Public RSS feed (most-recent + free-window chapters)
Full write.cafe — daily streak, weekly contest, AI battles (limited), bento prompt
Tip writers any amount, any time

Listen past the free window. Letters jump the queue.

Graphene+

$5/moor $48/yr (2 months free vs. monthly)

The audio-fiction subscription. Keeps the back catalog open past each chapter's 7-day free window, bumps your Listener Letters to the top of the cast's queue, and unlocks every paid HiveJournal feature in one bundle.

Full back catalog access — every chapter on every show, no expiry
Subscriber-only RSS feed (paste into Apple Podcasts / Spotify / etc.)
Listener Letters jump to the top of the cast's queue
HiveJournal premium included (handwriting fonts, doubled monthly drops)
10% bonus on every Drift coin bundle you buy
Cancel any time from your dashboard — no friction

Subscribe — $5/mo →

Twelve months for someone you like.

Graphene+ Gift

$60one-time, no auto-renew

A pre-paid sub credit, not a recurring subscription. Buy once via Stripe Checkout; the recipient gets a redemption email; access starts the moment they redeem and runs for a full year. Anonymous-friendly — you don't need an account.

Same 12 months of Graphene+ access as the regular subscription
No auto-renew on either side — your card is never touched again
Recipient doesn't need an account yet (sign-up flows on redemption)
You can resend the redemption email + copy the link directly if it bounces
Pre-expiry reminders sent at 30 / 7 / 1 days so they can decide whether to subscribe

Send a gift — $60 →

Sharper feedback, faster feedback loops.

write.cafe Pro

$3/mocafe-side subscription

A small subscription tier inside write.cafe for writers who want the editorial side of the cafe accelerated. Free writers keep the daily ritual, contest, battles, streak, cohort — Pro is purely additive.

Skip the 4-hour human-pairing window on AI Battles for Clout
Request 200-400 word AI-persona critiques in the personas' voices
Feature verbatim critique excerpts as Editorial impressions on your story pages
Featured blurbs roll up to your /writers/[handle] hub + the cafe homepage
Persona excerpts on every social-share OG card
Cafe → Kindle anthology pipeline access (when your story wins curation)

Try Cafe Pro →

Common questions

The honest stuff.

Do paid tiers stack — can I have Graphene+ AND write.cafe Pro?

Yes. They're separate products on the same Stripe Customer Portal. One subscription doesn't affect the other; cancel either independently. Both run on the same payment method by default.

What if I gift Graphene+ to someone who already has Graphene+?

Their existing subscription keeps running unchanged. The gift sits as a separate entitlement with its own 365-day window. If they cancel their subscription later, the gift takes over and they keep listening through the gift's end date.

Can I cancel a paid tier?

Yes — directly from your dashboard, in a couple clicks. Access continues through the end of the period you've already paid for; no early-termination fee. Subscriptions don't auto-renew after a cancel.

How do creators get paid?

Tips land directly in the writer's Stripe Connect account at the moment of charge — 80% to writer, 20% to platform on dollar tips; 90/10 on Drift coin tips. The Graphene+ subscription pool splits monthly: 70% to creators by listening-time share, 30% to platform.

What's Drift?

Drift is the listener-side coin economy. Listeners find treasures hidden in chapter prose to earn coins, then spend coins on tipping writers or unlocking individual chapters past the 7-day free window. 90% of every coin spent reaches the writer's ledger. Full explainer at /drift. You don't have to use Drift to listen — every chapter is free for its first week regardless.

What about the original HiveJournal journaling product?

Free in full. Every journaling feature — entries, mood tracking, notebooks, daily comics, AI quotes — is unlimited on the free tier. HiveJournal+ premium (handwriting fonts, doubled monthly drops, Stream filters) is bundled into Graphene+ at no extra cost — one subscription, two products.

Is there a free trial?

Sort of — every Graphene chapter is free for the first week after it drops, on the public RSS feed and the web player. You don't need a subscription to listen to current chapters. Subscribe when the back catalog (older chapters past their free window) becomes the thing you want.

Full feature catalog →