"Is Orchid AI free?" is one of the most common things people search right before they text us. Here's the short answer, then the reasoning, then the exceptions.
No. Orchid is paid, from $29.99/mo, as a flat subscription. There's no free tier and no meter running on your messages. Students and YC founders get a free stretch, and we'll get to that.
Why we didn't build a free tier
Almost every consumer AI product has a free plan. We chose not to, for two reasons worth saying out loud.
The first is that an assistant that reads your inbox shouldn't be paid for with your inbox. Orchid connects to your Gmail and your calendar. The only way to run that without ever selling data or training on it is to charge for it. Our privacy promise is credible because you're the customer, not the product.
The second is that the thing Orchid replaces isn't a chatbot subscription. It's the executive assistant you'd otherwise hire. We did that math in The True Cost of Hiring an Executive Assistant in 2026: salary, benefits, recruiting, ramp, turnover, and the three to five hours a week you spend managing them. Against that number, a flat monthly price is a rounding error, and that's the honest comparison.
What the plan buys you
Everything Orchid does from your thread. Inbox triage and drafting, scheduling, meeting prep, reminders and follow-ups, voice notes, carousels, and the memory that ties them together. There's no per-feature upsell inside the assistant. If you want the full tour, it's in Orchid on iMessage.
The evidence that this kind of help pays for itself has gotten deep. A field study of about 5,000 support agents found that an AI assistant raised productivity 14% on average, with the biggest gains for the least experienced workers (Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, NBER 2023). A controlled experiment on professional writing found that access to ChatGPT cut time spent by roughly 40% while raising quality (Noy and Zhang, Science 2023). And a study of 758 consultants at BCG found the group with AI finished 12% more tasks, 25% faster, at more than 40% higher quality on work inside the model's competence (Dell'Acqua et al., Harvard Business School 2023). Those were chat tools. An assistant that's wired into your actual inbox and calendar, and that acts instead of suggesting, compounds on top of that.
Who does get it free
Students get Orchid free for 3 months, then 50% off a yearly plan. The details are at orchid.ai/students, and one student wrote up what she did with it.
YC founders get 3 months free. Email [email protected] with your name, company, and batch.
If you're leaving Notion Mail before it shuts down, we're applying a free month. Start at orchid.ai/migrate/notion.
Cancelling
From settings at app.orchid.ai, any time. Disconnecting your accounts cuts Orchid's access immediately, and you can delete everything from there too. No retention call, no "are you sure" email chain.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free trial?
Not a general one. Students and YC founders get 3 months free, and Notion Mail switchers get a free month. Everyone else starts on the paid plan and can cancel whenever.
How much does Orchid AI cost?
From $29.99/mo, billed monthly. Current plan details live inside the app.
Does Orchid charge per message or per email?
No. The plan is flat. A busy inbox doesn't cost you more.
Is Orchid cheaper than an executive assistant?
By a lot. A US executive assistant runs well over $70,000 a year once benefits and your own management time are counted; the full breakdown is here. Orchid isn't a great human EA for everything, but it covers the daily coordination work that eats most of their hours.
Does Orchid use my data to keep the price down?
No. We never sell your data, share it, or train on it. That's exactly why it's paid.
Want to find out if it's worth it for you? Text +1 (415) 605-3216 and hand it your inbox for a week 馃尭
