Here is the whole pricing page in one line: Home Bar Hero is free, the free tier is a real bar rather than a demo, and if you want to support the thing you can pay us once and never think about it again.
No trial timer. No credit card to look around. No feature that gets yanked away on day fourteen. Three tiers, no asterisks.
The free tier is a real bar, not a demo
Most "free" cocktail apps are a storefront wearing a hat. You get twelve recipes, a countdown, and a paywall the moment you touch anything good.
That is not what this is. Here is exactly what a free account gets, in full:
- AI bottle scanning. Snap a photo of your shelf and up to 10 bottles get identified and added at once.
- Your top 12 bottles painted as shelf art. Your bar in the app looks like the bar in your kitchen.
- Recipe matching against your whole shelf. Hundreds of recipes, classics plus seasonal drops, community-powered, sorted into what you can pour right now and what you are one bottle away from. Near misses come back tagged "Ready, with a sub" with the swap that works.
- The Barkeep, free to talk to. Ask our AI bartender anything, as much as you want. It knows what is on your shelf, it writes the full recipe right in the chat, and the conversation costs zero credits.
- 20 AI credits a day, resetting at midnight Central, for the heavier jobs: bottle scans, Flavor Lab creations, menu scans.
- Unlimited saved recipes. Save every drink you like. There is no shelf limit and no cap on your recipe book.
- One shareable drink menu, with a QR code your guests can browse without downloading anything.
- The Open Bar. The one room every member shares. Post what you poured, swap tasting notes, reply in threads, ask the Barkeep in front of everybody. Free for everyone, forever.
- Regulars. Friends pull up a stool at your bar and see the recipes you choose to share with them.
- Community recipes, ratings, and comments, plus 45 badges across 9 categories.
- No ads. Not on the free tier, not anywhere.
If that is all you ever use, that is genuinely fine. Plenty of people have been running free accounts since launch and have beautiful bars.
Top Shelf: how the lights stay on
Home Bar Hero has no ads, no data to sell, and no investor telling us to add a paywall. The app runs on the people who like it enough to chip in. That is what Top Shelf is, and we would rather say that out loud than dress it up as a "Pro" tier.
What supporters actually get:
| Free | Top Shelf | |
|---|---|---|
| Bottle scanning | Yes, on your daily credits | Yes, and it never spends a credit |
| Painted shelf art | Your top 12 bottles | Your whole bar |
| Chatting with the Barkeep | Free, unmetered | Free, unmetered |
| Daily AI credits | 20 a day | A much bigger daily allowance |
| Recipe matching and substitutions | Everything | Everything |
| Saved recipes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Drink menus | One | As many as you want |
| Party hosting tools | Not included | Included |
| The Open Bar | Yes | Yes, with a supporter glow on your name |
| Community, badges, Regulars | Everything | Everything |
| Ads | None | None |
Two things worth calling out, because they are the ones people notice first.
Your whole bar painted. Free accounts get their 12 best bottles rendered as shelf art and the rest drawn as clean labels. On Top Shelf the entire shelf gets painted, so a 60 bottle collection looks like a 60 bottle collection. If you own a lot of bottles, this is the upgrade you will feel every single time you open the app.
Adding bottles stops costing anything. On the free tier, identifying a bottle from a photo draws from your 20 daily credits. On Top Shelf it does not touch them at all, so a Saturday afternoon spent stocking the whole bar costs you nothing and leaves your allowance intact for the fun stuff.
The three price points
$69.99 once, lifetime. This is the one we would pick, and the one most supporters pick. Pay once, Top Shelf stays on your account, and everything we add to it later is included. No renewal, no anniversary charge, no version 4.0 upgrade fee. It pays for itself against the annual plan in under three years, and then it never asks again.
One honest heads-up: the lifetime plan is an early-supporter offer. It will not be on the menu forever, and when it leaves, it leaves for good. Everyone who already has it keeps it, forever. That is the whole point of it.
$24.99 a year. Roughly two dollars a month, billed once. The sensible middle if you would rather not commit seventy dollars to an app you met last week.
$2.99 a month. For people who prefer to keep everything month to month. Cancel any time, and your bar stays exactly where it is.
Every plan gets the identical feature set. There is no "annual only" feature and no lifetime-exclusive perk you would miss by paying monthly. The only difference between the three is how often you think about it.
Look at the plans in the app →
What we will not do
A pricing page is mostly a list of promises, so here are ours.
- We will not put ads in the app. Not on the free tier, not ever.
- We will not take something that is free today and move it behind Top Shelf. The free tier only grows.
- We will not sell your bar. Your bottles, your recipes, and your conversations are yours.
- We will not run a fake sale. The prices on this page are the prices.
- We will not overpromise the AI. Top Shelf is a bigger daily allowance, not a bottomless one, and we will keep describing it that way even though the other word sells better.
Frequently asked questions
Is Home Bar Hero really free?
Yes, and the free tier is a real bar rather than a demo. Scan bottles, match your whole shelf, chat with the Barkeep as much as you like, save as many recipes as you want, build a shareable menu, earn badges, and sit in the Open Bar with everyone else. No ads, nothing expires. Free accounts also get 20 AI credits a day for the heavier jobs.
What does Top Shelf actually add?
A much bigger daily AI allowance (and adding bottles stops spending credits at all), your whole bar painted instead of your top 12 bottles, as many drink menus as you want instead of one, and the party hosting tools. That is the entire list.
Is the lifetime plan really lifetime?
Yes. $69.99 once and Top Shelf stays on your account, including everything we add to it later. No renewal, no re-buy. The only limited thing about it is the buying window: it is an early-supporter offer, and at some point it will come off the menu for new purchases. Yours never expires.
How do AI credits work?
Talking to the Barkeep is free and never touches credits. Credits cover the one-shot heavy jobs: identifying bottles from a photo, inventing a drink in Flavor Lab, scanning a restaurant menu, and looking up a cocktail the library has never seen. Free accounts get 20 a day, resetting at midnight Central. Anything another member already generated is cached and costs nobody a credit, and referring a friend permanently raises your daily allowance by 5.
What happens if I stop paying?
Nothing disappears. Your bottles, recipes, badges, posts, and menus stay put. The account simply returns to free tier limits.
Do I need an account to see somebody's menu?
No. Menus open in a browser from a QR code with no app and no login. That is the point of them.
Start free, decide later
Build your bar first. Scan a few bottles, watch them get painted onto the shelf, ask the Barkeep what you can pour tonight, and go sit in the Open Bar for a while. If a month later you are still opening the app most days, Top Shelf is there and $69.99 buys it for good.
If you want the longer version of what the Barkeep can do, read the Barkeep's page. If you want to know what has landed recently, the changelog is dated and honest.