What Bricks costs
Bricks is a genealogy assistant for Windows. It reads your family tree, takes the ancestor you cannot get past, and writes you a research plan in plain English.
You start free, and no card is asked for. A new account comes with 25 credits — about a dozen pieces of research — which is enough to find out whether the program helps you before you pay anything at all.
The plans
| Plan | Price | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Free | — | 25 once, to start with |
| Standard | $12 / month | 120 each month |
| Premium | $30 / month | 320 each month |
Your research is yours to keep. Every report is saved on your own computer and stays there — there is no time limit, and nothing is deleted if you change plan or stop paying. An analysis can take a while, so if you close the program while one is running it finishes on our server and waits for you to come back: up to 7 days on Free and Standard, 14 on Premium. Once the program has collected it, our copy is deleted.
Prices are in US dollars. Tax is added at checkout where it applies, and the total is shown to you before you pay. You can change plan or cancel at any time, from inside the program — a cancelled plan runs to the end of the month you have already paid for.
Prices can change. What Bricks can do depends on AI services bought from other companies, and those change price and ability as new models come out — sometimes cheaper, sometimes more expensive. So plan prices, bundle prices, and the number of credits a piece of research costs may all change over time. If a subscription price changes you will be told before it affects you, and you can cancel instead. And the credit cost of any single piece of research is always shown on screen before you start it — that figure is what you pay for that run.
What a credit is
A credit is simply how the program measures the work it does for you. Different kinds of research take different amounts of effort, so you choose how thorough to be each time — and the cost is shown on the screen before you start, never after.
| Kind of research | Costs about | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Look | 2 credits | A fast first pass over the problem. |
| Careful Search | 21 credits | Several AI models cross-check the places, the reasoning and the sources. |
| Unhurried Deep Dive | 22 credits | The same work as a Deep Dive for fewer credits, if you are happy to wait — usually under an hour. |
| Deep Dive | 40 credits | The most thorough, and the most carefully checked. |
Smaller helpers — reading old handwriting, drafting a letter to an archive, checking a family story — cost 1 credit each.
You are only charged for what is actually used. The figure above is the most a piece of research will cost; if it takes less, you are charged less. The program shows you exactly what each one cost afterwards, and keeps a running list you can look at any time.
Buying extra credits
If you would rather not subscribe, or you simply want more this month, you can buy a one-off bundle of 100 credits for $20 from inside the program.
Bought credits never expire. Not at the end of the month, not at the end of the year, not if you stop subscribing — they sit in your account until you use them. Your monthly credits are always spent first, so the ones you paid for stay untouched until you actually need them.
A bundle costs more per credit than a plan does — about 20¢ against 10¢ on Standard. You are paying for the freedom not to commit: nothing renews, nothing is charged again, and nothing is lost if you put the research down for a year. If you research most months, a plan is better value; the bundle is for people whose research comes in bursts.
Because the credits are yours to use immediately and never expire, bundles are not refundable — see the refund policy. Your free credits are there so you can try the program before buying any.
Unused credits
On a monthly plan, credits you have not used carry over to the following month — up to half a month's worth. A Standard subscriber can carry up to 60 credits, and a Premium subscriber up to 160, on top of the new month's allowance. A quiet fortnight is never wasted this way.
If your research comes in bursts rather than every month, buying a bundle of credits suits you better than saving them up: bought credits never expire at all, and your monthly credits are always used first, so the ones you paid for stay untouched until you need them.
Questions people ask before paying
- Is my family tree sent anywhere? Your tree stays on your own computer. Only the details of the person you ask about are sent for research.
- Do I need a card to try it? No. The free credits are given when you make an account, and nothing is asked for beyond your name and email.
- What if I stop paying? Your account returns to Free and keeps any credits already in it. Nothing is deleted because you stopped subscribing.
- Can I get a refund? Yes — see the refund policy.