Watchflows Cloud

What It Is

Watchflows is local-first and account-free, and it stays that way. Cloud doesn't move your flows, canvas, or data off your Mac — it adds two optional hosted services you can turn on with a subscription:

• Hosted AI (Sparks). Run AI Prompt and Agent nodes without wiring up your own provider key or a local model — Watchflows carries the AI, metered in Sparks.
• The webhook relay. A public HTTPS endpoint at hooks.watchflows.app that lets services on the open internet reach your local Webhook trigger.

Cloud is the home for hosted services generally — more will live here after launch (for example, a dead-man's switch). If you'd rather own everything and run your own AI, you never need Cloud at all: the one-time license gives you the whole app, fully local.

Own It, or Subscribe

Pick whichever fits how you work. Owning and subscribing aren't mutually exclusive — owners can add a small Sparks bundle if they want hosted AI too.

What a Subscription Turns On

An active subscription of any tier turns on both hosted services from day one — the relay, and your monthly Sparks. Sparks are not a trial: you're billed immediately and the full month's allowance is available right away.

If your subscription lapses, those hosted services switch off — but see The App Stays Yours for exactly what that means for owners versus standalone subscribers.

AI Sparks

Sparks are app-action credits — the unit Watchflows Cloud meters hosted AI in. A single AI node run spends Sparks; a longer Agent run that reasons over several turns spends more. Your allowance refreshes every month, and unused Sparks don't roll over.

Sparks only apply to hosted AI. If you point an AI node at your own provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, a local Ollama model, and so on), that call is billed by that provider — not in Sparks — and AI Cost Tracking continues to meter it the usual way.

The Free AI Trial

There's a short, free run at hosted AI — but it's for license owners only. If you own a license, you get 7 days of hosted AI, up to 400 Sparks per day, to see whether it's worth adding the Owner Bundle. The clock starts the first time you use a hosted AI node, not at install — and if you already own a license, you're eligible at launch.

• Subscribers get no separate free-AI period. A subscription bills on day one and hands you the full monthly Sparks allowance immediately — there's nothing to trial. New subscribers still have the standard 14-day app trial to evaluate Watchflows itself.
• Fresh, unpaid installs get no hosted AI. Until you own a license or subscribe, AI nodes run on your own provider or a local model — bring-your-own or offline only.

Identity — No Login, No Second Key

Watchflows Cloud has no accounts and no password. How you're identified depends only on how you bought in:

• If you own a license, the WF- key you already hold is your identity. Add the Owner Bundle and there's nothing new to enter.
• If you subscribe to Standard or Pro standalone, you never buy a license — so checkout mints you an identity credential at subscribe time. It's an identity credential only: it says who your subscription belongs to, and never grants a perpetual, offline-forever copy of the app the way an owned license does.

Either way there's nothing extra to manage. Your email is hashed, never stored raw, and only transits on the roughly-24-hour receipt refresh that keeps your subscription verified — where it travels verified and hashed, not in the clear.

The App Stays Yours

Owning the $49 license means the app is fully local and yours regardless of any subscription. Nothing about Cloud can take that away — drop the Owner Bundle and you lose hosted AI and the relay, but the app keeps running exactly as before on your own AI.

A standalone Standard or Pro subscription is different, because there's no owned license underneath it. If it lapses, automation pauses exactly like the trial expiring: your flows, canvas, and configuration are all preserved, triggers stop firing, and resubscribing resumes everything right where it left off. Owners are never gated this way.

The Webhook Relay

The Webhook trigger listens on a local endpoint — loopback by default, or your LAN with an auth token. That's perfect for scripts and services on your own machine or network, but it can't be reached from the open internet.

The relay closes that gap. It gives you a stable public HTTPS URL at hooks.watchflows.app that forwards incoming requests to your local Webhook trigger — so a GitHub push, a Stripe event, or any internet service can start a flow on your Mac. The relay is included with any active subscription tier; there's no separate or free-only relay.

Subscribing & Managing

Subscribe or change your plan from Settings → Cloud in the app, or from your browser at manage.html once you've subscribed. Either surface lets you upgrade, downgrade, switch between monthly and annual, or cancel — there's no account portal to hunt through.

Current prices and what each tier includes always live at watchflows.app/pricing.

Key Points

• $49 buys the app outright — fully local, bring your own AI, yours to keep. Cloud is optional on top.
• Any subscription turns on hosted AI (Sparks) and the relay from day one — billed immediately, full allowance, not a trial.
• Sparks per month: Owner Bundle 3,000 · Standard 6,000 · Pro 12,000. Annual is 11× the monthly price everywhere.
• The free AI trial is owners-only: 7 days × 400 Sparks/day, starting at first use. Subscribers are billed day one; unpaid installs run on their own AI.
• No accounts. Owners are identified by their WF- license; standalone subscribers get an identity credential at checkout. Your email is hashed, never stored raw.
• Owning is permanent; a standalone subscription lapsing pauses automation like trial expiry — flows and config preserved, triggers stop, resubscribing resumes.