Pricing

Priced on what costs us money, not on how many people you employ

Retrievals, staleness refreshes and actions are what cost real money to serve, so they are what is metered. Pro starts at $20 and grows only if you use more than it includes. Seats are free on every tier.

Free

$0/mo

Enough to store real memory, scope it to real people, and prove the whole shape works.

100 memory objects, stored directly or condensed from a source
Scope any memory so only the people you name can retrieve it
1 connected system of record
500 retrievals / month across app, API and MCP
250 staleness refreshes / month
Entitlement enforced at retrieval time, by role
Full MCP server and REST API access
Self-host it yourself with no limits at all

Start

most teams start here

Contextely Pro

from$20/mo

Starts at $20 a month and grows only as you use it: production volume, near-real-time freshness, and per-scope entitlement.

$20 a month includes 10,000 retrievals, 10,000 staleness refreshes and 2,000 actions
Past that you keep going and pay for what you use: $1.20 per 1,000 retrievals, $12.50 per 1,000 refreshes, $2.00 per 1,000 actions
10 connected systems of record
5,000 condensed memory objects
TTLs down to 60 seconds for near-real-time working memory
Per-scope entitlement grants, not just roles
Retrieval audit log: every query, every entitlement refusal
25 products in one account, sharing memory and connections by consent
100 members

Start

Self-hosted

Run the whole thing yourself. No plan limits, no metering, no phone-home. You bring a Postgres database and an llm11 key; the entitlement and freshness engines are identical to the hosted ones because they are the same code.

Self-hosting guide

Questions

Questions people actually ask

What counts as a retrieval?: One call to context_search, from any surface. Walking to related memory, listing sources and checking usage do not count. Reading a full record back (context_expand) counts against the refresh allowance instead, because that is the round-trip it costs.
How does usage-based billing on Pro work?: Pro is $20 a month and includes 10,000 retrievals, 10,000 refreshes and 2,000 actions. Past that you keep going and pay $1.20 per 1,000 retrievals, $12.50 per 1,000 refreshes, $2.00 per 1,000 actions.
What happens when I hit the limit?: On Free, retrievals return an explicit quota_exceeded error with the reason, so an agent can back off. Pro keeps serving past its included volume and refuses only at a safety ceiling (250,000 retrievals a month) that stops a runaway loop. Nothing is deleted.
Why is there a minimum TTL on the free plan?: Because a short TTL is the expensive thing. A one-minute freshness window means Contextely re-reads your system of record and re-condenses constantly, and both of those cost us money per call. Free floors it at an hour; Pro goes down to 60 seconds.
Is entitlement enforcement paywalled?: No. Retrieval-time entitlement is the product and both tiers get it. Free enforces it at role level; Pro adds per-scope grants and the audit log.
What does self-hosting cost?: Nothing, and it has no plan limits. You supply a Postgres database and an llm11 key for condensation. The trade is that you run it.
Can I cancel?: Any time, from the billing page, through Stripe's own portal. You drop to Free at the end of the period and keep every memory object: nothing is deleted or pruned. The Free limit then applies to what a query scans.