The Free plan just got a lot bigger (and a price change on 1 October)

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A member wrote to us last week to say he had not upgraded, and he was good enough to tell us why. He could not get a feel for the trip planner, because the Free plan only let him put one stop in a route. Start, one stop, destination. That was it.

He was right, and it was a backwards way to build it. The whole point of the trip planner is the multi-stop run — the overnight breaks in sensible places, the fuel worked out along the way, the drive times that tell you whether day three is realistic. Capping that at one stop meant the one thing worth seeing was the one thing you could not see.

So we have changed it. On the Free plan you can now add as many stops as you like and see the entire route: distances, drive times, overnight breaks, fuel planning, the lot. Nothing is hidden while you are planning.

The three-waypoint limit now applies only when you save the trip. Plan as far as you want, then decide whether it is worth keeping.

Why Explorer is going from $10 to $19

Now the part we would rather tell you straight.

Every feature in KamperHub costs something to run. Maps and place searches are billed per lookup. Route calculations, fuel price feeds, weather, email — all of it meters, and it scales with use. The more you plan, the more it costs us. That is not a complaint, it is just how it works.

At $10 a year, Explorer recovers a small fraction of what it takes to keep this running, let alone build the next piece. We have held that price since launch and we cannot hold it any longer without slowing the work down.

So from 1 October, Explorer goes to $19 a year. Pro and Family are unchanged.

We thought hard about where to put the squeeze. Making the Free plan smaller to push people into paying would have been the easy move. We went the other way on purpose: open the planner right up, let everyone see what it actually does, and ask a fair price of the people who want to keep their trips.

To be straight with you about the maths: opening the planner up costs us more, not less. Every route you plan is a metered call, and letting everyone plan freely means a lot more of them. We have raised the limits behind the scenes to match, so the planner does not stop on you halfway through a long route.

We have done it anyway because we think more people will see what this app actually does and decide it is worth keeping, and that those upgrades will cover the difference. That is a bet, not a certainty. We will be watching it closely, and if the numbers do not work we will tell you and adjust rather than quietly let things get worse.

What this means for you

If you are on the Free plan, nothing gets smaller. It just got considerably bigger.

If you have been thinking about Explorer, joining before 1 October means you pay $10 for your first year.

If you are already an Explorer member, your current rate holds for the next 12 months.

Haven't tried KamperHub yet? This is a good time to start — plan your next trip stop by stop before you decide whether it is worth paying for anything.

Start planning for free

Thank you for telling us

The change at the top of this email exists because one member took two minutes to reply and say what was not working. That is worth more to us than any amount of guessing.

If something in KamperHub is getting in your way, hit reply. It comes straight to Scott.

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KamperHub Team

Helping travellers tow safely and confidently. KamperHub provides tools for trip planning, weight compliance, and adventure management.