# Is Riverside Free? The $0 Plan, Its Limits and the 14-Day Trial

> Riverside has a $0 Free plan with no card: 720p, a watermark and a one-off 2 hours of separate tracks. What it covers, and how the 14-day trial bills you.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/is-riverside-free — The Professional's Toolkit · updated October 2026_

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Yes. Riverside has a permanent Free plan at $0, and it needs no credit card.[1] The catch is what Free leaves out. Video is capped at 720p, every edited video and audio export carries a Riverside watermark (the raw separate tracks download clean), and separate audio and video tracks, the main reason people choose Riverside, come as a one-off two hours rather than a monthly allowance. The paid plans Pro, Grow and Webinar each offer a 14-day trial, which is a different deal: it takes a card and bills you on day 15 unless you cancel. Use Free to learn the studio. Use the trial to judge paid output.


**2 hours** — Separate-track recording on Riverside's Free plan: one time, not a monthly allowance.



- **$0** — Free plan, no credit card
- **720p** — Free plan video cap, watermarked edited exports
- **Day 15** — Paid-plan trial charges automatically


## What $0 buys you, and what it caps

Free gives you the recorder and the editor with no limit on recording time. Single-track recording and editing are unlimited, text-based editing works, captions are on, and the AI cleanup tools that run on every plan come along: removing pauses and filler words, Smart Mute, Smart Layouts and the Co-Creator chat agent in the editor. Guests join from a link with no account and no install. You can share your screen as its own track, open an audience link for up to 100 viewers, and publish to LinkedIn, Spotify, Transistor or Castos. The Mac and mobile apps work too.

The caps sit on quality and output. Video records at 720p and audio at 44.1 kHz, while 1080p, 4K and 48 kHz start at Pro. Edited video exports show a small Created with Riverside mark, and edited audio exports open with a short Powered by Riverside intro. The raw separate tracks never carry it. **The watermark has a practical cost**: clips that carry it cannot be published to TikTok. Free also gets a single AI clip in the plan data, no AI credits, and no transcript downloads. Ignore Riverside's September 2026 blog post claiming the free plan was replaced by the 14-day trial. The live pricing data says otherwise.

| What you get | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Recording resolution | 720p | Up to 4K |
| Audio quality | 44.1 kHz | 48 kHz |
| Export watermark | On edited exports (raw separate tracks clean) | Removable |
| Separate-track downloads | 2 hours, one time | 15 hours a month |
| AI credits | None | Starting balance included |
| Transcript download | No | Yes |
| Live streaming | No | No (starts at Grow) |
| Unused account | Deleted after 120 days | Exempt |

## The two hours that matter: separate tracks

Riverside records every participant locally on their own device and uploads as the session runs, which is why its separate tracks survive a shaky connection. On Free, that multitrack recording is **a one-off two hours**, not a monthly allowance. After it runs out, you keep recording and editing, but only as a single mixed track. You lose the clean per-person files an editor needs to fix crosstalk or tame a loud guest. A weekly one-hour interview uses it up in two episodes. Pro raises the cap to 15 hours a month, Grow to 20 and Webinar to 25, with no rollover.

The second limit is time. Riverside treats a free account left unused for 120 days as inactive and deletes it along with its content.[2] Paid plans are exempt. Cancelling a paid plan drops the account back to Free, so the same clock then applies to everything you recorded while paying. Download separate tracks and finished edits before the billing cycle ends. Never treat a free account as your archive. Riverside's own Terms say it is not a backup service, and free accounts fall under the same AI-training terms as paid ones.


> 💡 **Download tracks before you downgrade:** Cancelling a paid plan moves the account to Free, and free accounts unused for 120 days are deleted with their content. Save separate tracks and edits before the billing cycle ends.


## The 14-day trial is a different deal

The 14-day trial covers Pro, Grow or Webinar. Business has none. A credit card is required to start, nothing is charged during the 14 days, and the trial converts to a full-price subscription on day 15 unless you cancel first.[3] The charge uses the full price in effect on the day you started. Cancelling keeps your recordings. You cannot add an Editor seat while trialing, and the Terms say long trial recordings may need a paid plan to export, so test with shorter sessions and download the separate tracks to check them yourself.

If you forget, Pro converts at $35 a month billed monthly or $288 a year billed annually. Grow costs $45 a month billed monthly or $408 a year billed annually. Webinar costs $99 a month billed monthly or $948 a year billed annually. The published refund policy covers Pro and Grow only: a full refund on monthly Pro or Grow cancelled within 24 hours of purchase, and on yearly Pro or Grow within 14 days.[4] Webinar is not named. We found no line saying whether a trial conversion counts as that purchase. Do not test it. Cancel before day 15 in Settings, then Plan & Billing.


> ⚠ **The trial charges full price:** A card is required to start the 14-day trial, and it converts to a full-price subscription on day 15 unless you cancel in Settings, Plan & Billing, Cancel plan.


## Free tools that need no account at all

Two web tools sit outside the plans. The free transcription tool takes MP3, WAV, MP4 or MOV files without sign-up, in more than 100 languages by Riverside's count. It assigns all text to one speaker, and uploaded files are removed 24 hours after the transcript is generated. Fine for a solo draft. Weak for interviews. The free screen recorder runs in a desktop browser on PC or Mac, not on mobile, with no download or sign-up. Each recording stops at 30 minutes, though sessions are unlimited. Output is a 720p MP4 at 24 FPS, and every file is watermarked.


> 💡 **Test the trial with short sessions:** Trial footage exports free only below a size or length threshold. Record one or two shorter episodes, download the separate tracks and check them in your own editor.


## How Riverside's free tier compares

Free allowances in this category count different things, so compare the unit before the size. Riverside's 2 hours cover separate-track recording only, while single-track recording stays unlimited. StreamYard Free gives 2 hours a month of local recordings, shows the StreamYard logo and allows 6 people on screen. SquadCast Free gives 1 recording hour per editor a month and exports up to 720p with watermarks. Podcastle Free gives 1 hour of remote multitrack recording for the life of the account and exports up to 720p. Descript Free counts 1 media hour a month, with 100 one-time AI credits and 720p watermarked exports.

**Riverside's two hours of separate tracks never come back.** For anyone who needs clean per-person tracks every month at no cost, StreamYard's or SquadCast's monthly recording hours reset where Riverside's do not. What Riverside's Free plan does offer is unlimited single-track recording with the full editor and the AI cleanup tools, none of it on a monthly clock, against Descript's 1 media hour a month. Free live streaming is another gap. Riverside Free has none, while Restream Free streams to 2 channels at once with Restream branding. Our [Riverside alternatives guide](/articles/riverside-alternatives) covers each in full.

## When to pay, and how to bill it

Pay when one of three things bites: you need clean separate tracks every month, you need 1080p or 4K, or a watermark is unacceptable. Pro covers all three at $35 a month billed monthly or $24 a month billed annually ($288 a year). Pro is for one person. Each collaborator needs an Editor seat add-on at $19 a month or $168 a year. Live streaming starts at Grow, so a streamer should skip Pro. Our [Riverside pricing guide](/articles/riverside-pricing) breaks down every plan and add-on.

Annual billing is not automatically the better buy. By our arithmetic, eight months billed monthly cost $280 and nine cost $315, against $288 for the year, so the annual price wins only if you keep paying for nine months or more. Under that, stay monthly. For a one-off project, the 14-day trial plus one monthly Pro payment of $35 buys about six weeks of full-quality recording. Cancel well before renewal. The Terms ask for 30 days of notice, even though the help center lets you cancel any time.


## FAQ

**Is Riverside's Mobile Plus a free upgrade?**

No. Mobile Plus is a separate app-store subscription at $9.99 a month with a 3-day trial; it unlocks 1080p, 4K, WAV exports and watermark removal in the iOS and Android apps, and you cancel it only through Apple or Google.

**Does Riverside offer a student or nonprofit discount?**

We found none. Discount codes exist only as promotions for new users, usable once, and they cannot be applied to Business plans.

**How many people can join a session on the Free plan?**

Riverside's rebuilt studio records up to 100 participants per session, each on its own track, with up to 9 shown on screen. Guests join from a link with no account or install.

**Do Free accounts get AI credits?**

No. AI credits come with Pro, Grow, Webinar and Business, so credit-based tools such as AI Translation are out of reach on Free. Magic Clips use no credits, but the Free plan data allows one AI clip.


## The bottom line

Riverside is free in a real but narrow sense. The $0 plan never expires while you use it, records without a time limit and includes the full editor, yet it caps video at 720p, watermarks every edited export and gives separate tracks only once, for two hours. That makes Free a good place to learn the studio and a poor home for a running show. The 14-day trial is the honest way to test paid quality, as long as you cancel before day 15. If you record every month, budget for Pro.



## Sources

[1] Plans & Pricing — https://riverside.com/pricing (2026-10)
[2] Riverside Help: Inactive Account Policy — https://support.riverside.com/hc/en-us/articles/20262801180957-Inactive-Account-Policy (2026-10)
[3] Riverside Help: Can I try Riverside for free — https://support.riverside.com/hc/en-us/articles/22576984609949-Can-I-try-Riverside-for-free (2026-10)
[4] Riverside Help: Refund and Cancellation Policy for paid subscriptions — https://support.riverside.com/hc/en-us/articles/7633971223325-Refund-and-Cancellation-Policy-for-paid-subscriptions (2026-10)
[5] Riverside Help Center — https://support.riverside.com/hc/en-us
[6] Riverside Terms and Conditions — https://riverside.com/terms-conditions
[7] G2, Riverside reviews — https://www.g2.com/products/riverside/reviews