Unite: what the free tier covers

Most pricing questions about Unite are really one question wearing a disguise: is the free version a countdown, or is it a permanent tier with a ceiling? The difference matters, because a countdown forces a decision on a date somebody else picked, while a ceiling lets the decision wait until the work pushes against it. The answer, taken from the download page and the knowledge base rather than from reviews, is the second one. What follows is the shape of that ceiling, the four things a licence removes, the prices by Mac count, and the costs that never appear on a pricing page.

The free tier is limited by count, not by clock

Downloading requires an email address on the download page. After that, the first app created is free to keep. There is no stated expiry, no feature countdown, and no watermark on the app that gets built.

The restriction is the number of apps. Inside that single app, nothing is held back. Mode switching works, per site permission controls work, the built in ad blocker works, user scripts and styles work, and the app can be edited an unlimited number of times. Changing its URL, swapping its icon, moving it from a menu bar popover to a full window: all of that is free, repeatedly.

That design pushes one decision to the front. Instead of evaluating a feature matrix during a trial window, the reader has to pick which single site earns the slot. Three questions settle it faster than a feature list:

• Which site stays open longest during a working day
• Which site gets lost among other tabs, costing a search every time it is needed
• Which site sends something worth a real macOS notification

Mail, chat, and task tracking usually clear all three. Video and reference sites rarely do, because time spent on them is not the same as time lost finding them. A well chosen first app tends to last several weeks before a second one is wanted, and those weeks function as the real trial.

Four things the free app should be used to test

Because the free tier withholds no features, it doubles as a full evaluation. Four checks are worth running deliberately before any money changes hands, since each one behaves differently from site to site.

Does the session survive. A created app stores its data separately from the browser and from every other created app, so signing in happens once more even on a service already signed in elsewhere. Two factor prompts appear again at that point. The check is what happens afterwards: run the app for several days, restart the Mac, install a macOS update, and see whether the session is still there. A service that signs out repeatedly turns every additional app into recurring maintenance.

Do notifications arrive. Notification permission is granted per site, and the payoff of a standalone app often rests entirely on this. Ask somebody to send a message, then confirm two separate things: that the alert reaches Notification Center, and that an unread count appears on the Dock icon.

Do links land where intended. Links inside the app can be kept inside it or handed to the default browser, with rules per address. Work services tend to scatter links across internal domains, so the rule needs testing against a real link rather than assumed.

Do the keyboard shortcuts collide. Sites define their own shortcuts, and so does the app wrapper around them. Where the two overlap, the site usually loses. For anyone with a shortcut already in muscle memory, this is the friction that never fades.

Running those four on one free app answers more than a feature comparison would, because the answers are specific to the sites actually in use.

The four things a licence removes

According to the activation documentation, a Pro licence changes exactly four things.

Capability	Free tier	Licensed
Number of apps	One	Unlimited
Export apps as backup files	No	Yes
Import apps from backup files	No	Yes
Migrate apps built with Unite 6	No	Yes
Updates within the current major version	Yes	Yes

The export line is the one that gets underestimated. Exporting is not only a backup feature, it is the documented path to a new Mac: export each app to a config file, move the files, install on the new machine, import. Without a licence, a machine change means rebuilding by hand. For one app that costs under a minute. For a dozen apps built over a year, with startup tabs and link rules configured on each, it is an afternoon.

Migration matters for a narrower group. Apps built with Unite 6 can be converted to the current format, and that conversion requires an active licence. Anyone arriving from the previous generation should count that as part of the price rather than as a bonus.

The one time prices

Direct purchase is priced by the number of Macs, as a one time payment rather than a recurring charge.

Licence	Macs covered	Price
Single	1	$39.99
Three Macs	3	$59.99
Five Macs	5	$99.99
Enterprise	Custom	Quoted on request

Every tier includes unlimited apps, bug fixes and minor updates, support, and the ability to hand exported apps to other licensed users. Payment runs through Paddle, which delivers the licence details by email. The purchase page states a 14 day refund window.

The gap between the first two tiers is worth a pause. Twenty dollars more covers three times as many machines. A laptop plus a desktop is an ordinary setup, and a licence is active on one Mac at a time, so the single tier commits the buyer to a deactivate and reactivate step every time the work moves between machines. That step needs an internet connection and a bit of attention, and it is the most common reason a licence key later reports that it has already been used.

The subscription route, and its monthly check in

The same software is also available inside a subscription bundle. The purchase page lists it at $9.99 per month with seven days free, covering more than two hundred Mac and iOS apps in total.

One condition comes attached to that route and appears nowhere near the price. When activation happens through the subscription, the main application has to be opened at least once every 30 days so the subscription can be verified. Pass 30 days without opening it and the created apps display a verification prompt instead of the site. Opening the main app clears it immediately. This matters most for exactly the people this tool suits best: those who launch the created apps from the Dock every day and never think about the builder again.

The arithmetic against the one time price is simple. At $9.99 per month, the subscription passes the single Mac licence in four months. It only comes out ahead when several of the other bundled apps are genuinely in use, in which case this tool arrives at no marginal cost at all.

Three costs the pricing page does not list

Major versions are paid again. The licence sold today covers the 1.x series. Minor updates and fixes arrive free inside that series, and a future major version is a separate purchase. This is not hidden: the vendor states plainly that major version licensing exists to avoid recurring charges while still funding development. The practical evidence is recent. The previous generation, Unite 6, was replaced by the current generation on 9 March 2026, and owners of the older version were offered up to 35% off to move across. Budgeting for a similar step in a year or two is realistic.

The macOS floor rules some Macs out entirely. The current version requires macOS 15 or later and is described as built for macOS 26 Tahoe, on both Apple silicon and Intel hardware. On a Mac still running Ventura or Sonoma, price is not the deciding factor, compatibility is. Check that first, before reading any of the numbers above.

A licence is not a household licence. Activation is per Mac, one at a time, and exported apps cannot be handed to somebody without a licence of their own. The multi Mac tiers exist precisely because sharing one key across a household or a team is not how the licensing works.

Discounts that exist before paying full price

Three documented routes reduce the cost, and none of them are on the main price card.

• Owners of Unite 6 are offered up to 35% off when upgrading to the current generation
• Students are offered 20% through a student software retailer
• Buying alongside the same vendor's Chrome based tool saves 20% versus buying both separately

The bundle with the Chrome based sibling is priced at $59.99 for one Mac, $79.99 for three, and $139.99 for five. That pairing is only interesting for a specific situation: some sites need Chrome extensions such as a password manager or a grammar checker, and this tool does not support third party extensions at all. Anyone whose daily sites split into an extension dependent group and an extension free group has a reason to look. Everybody else is buying a second tool to solve a problem they do not have. Prices are in US dollars and tax may apply on top.

How to tell whether one app is enough

The decision reduces to three counts, and none of them require a trial period to establish.

The first is how many sites qualify. One qualifying site means the free tier is the correct answer indefinitely. The moment a second site starts competing for the same treatment, the ceiling is real and the question becomes a purchase.

The second is how many Macs the work actually happens on. Two or more, and the three Mac tier is the honest starting point rather than the single.

The third is how many years of use the purchase has to cover. Inside the current major version, the cost is fixed. Across generations, it repeats at a discount.

A useful way to make the first count concrete is to look at which services are commonly turned into standalone apps at all, and the Supported services list is a fast way to sanity check a shortlist before paying for anything. Seeing the categories laid out tends to reveal either that the list stops at one, or that it was always going to reach five. For the mechanics of what gets configured at build time and what can be changed afterwards, the Guide walks through the creation flow step by step, which is worth reading before spending the free slot on the wrong site.

When comparing paid tools of this kind in general, two attributes separate them faster than a feature grid: whether the money is one time or recurring, and whether the free tier is bounded by time, by features, or by count. A tier bounded by count behaves like a permanent product with a ceiling. A tier bounded by time behaves like a deadline. Reading any Pricing page with those two questions in hand removes most of the ambiguity in about a minute.

What to change first

Spend the free slot deliberately rather than on the first site that comes to mind, because the slot is the trial and a badly chosen first app teaches nothing. Run it for two weeks and watch whether a second candidate appears; if none does, the correct spend is zero. If a second one does appear, price the three Mac tier rather than the single, since the extra twenty dollars buys away a recurring deactivation chore, and a tool like Kagemusha is worth checking against the same two questions before committing either way.