How does the 30-day free trial actually work?
You enter your email, set up your household in under seven minutes (we benchmarked it against fourteen other apps), and the full Family plan is yours for thirty days. We ask for payment details on day twenty-eight so you have time to decide. If you do nothing, the trial quietly ends and your account drops to the free tier — your photos, voice notes, and calendars stay right where they are.
When does billing start, and can I cancel without a fight?
Billing starts on day thirty unless you cancel first, at $8.99/mo for Family or $14.99/mo for Extended Family, billed monthly. There is no annual contract, no retention call, and no "are you sure" page. Cancel from Settings → Billing in two clicks; the cancellation is effective at the end of the period you've already paid for. We don't save your card after that.
What happens to my family's photos and voice notes if we cancel?
Nothing leaves without your say-so. For sixty days after cancellation, your full archive — photos, voice notes, memory graph entries, calendars — sits in a read-only state and you can reactivate or export it as a single zip file. After sixty days, the encrypted data is permanently deleted from our production systems within thirty days, and from encrypted backups within ninety. We can confirm deletion in writing if you'd like.
Is my family's data really end-to-end encrypted, and what about the kids?
Shared albums and location check-ins are end-to-end encrypted; the audit by Cure53 in March 2024 returned zero critical findings. Cross-Household Memory Graph entries are encrypted at rest and in transit, with keys held only on devices you authorize. We do not require accounts for children under thirteen, and our COPPA and GDPR-K compliance is built into the data model — not bolted on. We do not, and will not, sell family data, and we do not run advertising in the app.
Do you offer a discount for educators, nurses, or military families?
Yes — fifty percent off the Family plan, indefinitely, with verification through ID.me for educators and military, and a short form for healthcare workers. Open Heartware covers families earning under $35,000 a year in full, so if one applies, the other usually doesn't need to.
Which countries is Family Heartware available in?
Twenty-two markets as of Q1 2025, with full localization in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), and Japanese. If yours isn't on the list yet, the web app still works but you'll see English copy in some corners. We'd rather be honest about that than pretend.
Can I switch between Family and Extended Family later?
Any time, in either direction, prorated to the day. Your household data, member list, and history come with you; only the seat count and the family newsletter feature change. The first fourteen days on Extended Family are free so you can decide whether the wider-household view earns the extra $6/mo.
