What's Free and What's Paid
Free to try. One-time purchases. No subscription, ever.
Plain answers about what TideStitch costs, what you get for free, and what each purchase unlocks. Prices are US dollars; the app always shows the live price in your own currency.
The short version
TideStitch is free to download and free to try. There is no subscription, ever. Everything you can buy is a one-time purchase that's yours for good, on every iPhone, iPad and Mac signed into your Apple ID.
| What it is | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Try the whole app: 4 designs, every block, your full stash, and a preview of every pattern | $0 |
| Basic | The full app: unlimited designs, complete patterns, cut lists, PDF export | $29.99 once |
| Studio | The block designer, for drawing your own blocks from scratch. An add-on to Basic | $29.99 once |
| Complete | Basic and Studio together in one purchase | $49.99 once |
Most quilters only need Basic. Studio is for people who want to draw their own blocks instead of using the ones built into the app.
What you get for free
No card, no trial clock, no account. You can:
- Make 4 designs. This is a lifetime count of designs you create (more on that below). Editing a design you already have is always free.
- Use every block in the app, including the LeMoyne Star, and size them however you like.
- Build your whole stash: photograph your fabrics, tag them, and audition them on your quilts.
- Preview every pattern. The Overview shows your quilt, its finished size, the difficulty, and a rough fabric total. The fabric list, cut list, sewing steps and finishing each show you the first few rows of your quilt's real answer before they fade into the unlock, so you can see it's all there before you pay.
- See one complete pattern on screen. Paint any of the three starter quilts with your own fabrics and you get the whole pattern on screen (fabrics, cut list, sew steps, finishing) for free. It doesn't count toward your 4 designs.
- Make unlimited colorways of a design. They never count.
- Try Quilting on a photo (the longarmer's preview) on 4 tops.
- Use all the free quilting calculators, in the app and at tidestitchquilts.com/tools.
What Basic buys ($29.99)
Basic unlocks the full app. Everything that was a preview becomes the real thing:
- Unlimited designs
- The complete pattern for every quilt you make: fabric list with yardage, cut list, sewing order, and finishing (borders, binding, backing)
- PDF export of the whole pattern
- Design Your Own, for laying out a whole quilt top your way
- The Stars generator, including the classic Lone Star
- Recording how much of each fabric you own, so TideStitch can tell you whether your stash covers a design
- Quilting on a photo on as many tops as you like
One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac.
What Studio is ($29.99 add-on)
Studio is a block designer. You start from a blank block and draw your own: split it, cut it into strips, merge pieces, and get exact cut sizes for every piece. Then turn your block into a full quilt with one tap.
Good to know before you buy:
- Studio is not included in Basic. It's a separate add-on, because it's a separate tool. If you bought Basic and the Studio tab still says locked, nothing is broken: that's this.
- Studio builds on Basic. It's sold as an add-on to Basic, or together with Basic as Complete.
- Foundation paper piecing printouts come with Studio.
- It runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac. An iPad or Mac gives you the most room to draw. Blocks you make on one device show up on the others.
- Drawing blocks is never metered. Draw as many as you want.
You don't need Studio to make beautiful quilts. TideStitch comes loaded with traditional blocks, and Basic gives you everything you need to plan, cut and sew them. Studio is for when you want a block that doesn't exist yet.
What Complete is ($49.99)
Complete is Basic and Studio together, for about ten dollars less than buying them separately ($59.98).
It's only offered if you don't own anything yet. Once you own Basic, the app offers you the Studio add-on instead, so nobody ever pays for the app twice.
Which one should I buy?
- I want to plan quilts from traditional blocks, get cut lists, and print patterns. → Basic ($29.99)
- I also want to design my own blocks from scratch, and I haven't bought anything yet. → Complete ($49.99)
- I already own Basic and now I want to design my own blocks. → Studio add-on ($29.99)
- I'm not sure yet. → Use it free. Make your 4 designs, paint a starter quilt, and buy when you know.
How the 4 free designs are counted
This is the part that trips people up, so here it is plainly:
- It's a lifetime count, not a number of slots. Deleting a design does not give you a free one back.
- Editing is always free. Change fabrics, layout, size, borders, as often as you like. Only creating a new design counts.
- These never count: colorways, your painted copies of the starter quilts, and designs someone shared with you.
- These do count: a new design, a "Save As New" copy, and turning a colorway into its own separate design.
Is it a subscription?
No. Not now, not later. Every purchase is one time, and it's yours forever. No monthly fee, no yearly renewal, no account to sign up for.
I paid, but something still says locked
A few things to check:
- Is it the Studio tab? Basic doesn't include Studio (see What Studio is). If you meant to get both, the Studio add-on is under Resources → Purchases.
- New device or reinstall? Go to Resources → Settings → Purchases → Restore Purchases. Make sure you're signed into the same Apple ID you bought with.
- Got a code from me? Use Redeem an App Store Code in the same Purchases section.
Still stuck? Reach me on the support page and I'll sort it out.
If you were here early
Everyone who used TideStitch while it was free keeps unlimited designs and full patterns for good. That promise rides on your iCloud account, so stay signed into the same one and it follows you to every device. It covers the app itself; Studio came later and was never part of the free app.
The tip jar
Under Settings → Purchases there's a Support TideStitch tip jar. It's completely optional: it buys nothing and unlocks nothing, and nothing changes either way. It's there because quilters who got the app free asked for a way to chip in.
Refunds
All purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too. You can request one at reportaproblem.apple.com.