Riverside Pricing 2026: Plans, Real Costs, Refunds and Cancellation

What Riverside costs in October 2026

Riverside sells four self-serve plans and one quoted plan, and the price is per account, not per person. Pro costs $35 a month billed monthly or $24 a month billed annually, which is $288 a year.^[1] Grow costs $45 a month billed monthly or $34 a month billed annually ($408 a year). Webinar costs $99 a month billed monthly or $79 a month billed annually ($948 a year). Business is a custom quote with no trial. A Free plan also exists. For most solo podcasters, Pro is the plan. Grow earns its price mainly if you stream live.

Recording itself is unlimited on every plan. The hours in the table cap one thing only: downloading separate, individual tracks, the high-quality local files that are the reason most people buy Riverside. The hours reset monthly with no rollover, they count session length rather than participants, and live streams count toward them. Deleting a recording gives nothing back. Over the cap, you can still record, edit and export edited videos, but separate-track downloads stop until the next cycle or an upgrade. Unlimited recording is not unlimited tracks.

One account, one person: what a team really pays

Pro covers one user. The Terms forbid sharing a login, and every collaborator on Pro, Grow or Webinar needs the Editor seat add-on, which costs $19 a month or $168 a year and adds one external editor. You cannot add an editor during a trial. An editor can view, download and remove recordings, work in the editor, publish to YouTube, invite guests and start recordings, so the seat is a real working role. Business is different. Editors there come at no extra cost, which changes the math for larger teams.

By our arithmetic, Pro plus one editor seat costs $54 a month billed monthly or $456 a year billed annually. Paying the seat yearly works out to $14 a month, against $228 a year when the seat is billed monthly. The yearly seat pays off only if the editor stays. By our arithmetic, seven monthly payments cost $133 and eight cost $152, both under $168, while nine cost $171; for a freelancer hired for under nine months, the monthly seat is cheaper.

The comparison that trips buyers up is Descript. Descript Creator shows $24 a month billed annually and $35 billed monthly, the same digits as Riverside Pro, but Descript charges those prices per person while Riverside charges them per account. For two people on annual billing, Riverside Pro with one editor seat comes to $456 a year and Descript Creator with two seats to $576 a year. The seats are not equivalent roles, and the tools record and edit differently; our Riverside vs Descript comparison covers that side.

Monthly or annual: find your break-even month

A year of monthly payments costs $420 on Pro, $540 on Grow and $1,188 on Webinar. Annual billing therefore saves $132 (31%), $132 (24%) and $240 (20%). Those savings assume you use the whole year. Monthly Pro stays cheaper if you need it for eight months or fewer; from the ninth month, the $288 annual price wins. On Grow and Webinar the threshold is nine months: nine monthly payments still cost less than the annual price, and the tenth tips it. A six-month podcast season belongs on monthly billing.

Switching later is flexible. You can move between monthly and yearly billing at any time, and leaving a yearly plan for monthly turns the remaining value into account credit rather than cash. Upgrades apply immediately and charge the difference. Downgrades wait until the end of the paid period. Mind the refund window before you commit to annual: a yearly Pro or Grow plan is refundable only in its first 14 days, and the policy does not name Webinar at all. After that, the year is spent. Mobile Plus, at $9.99 a month, is a separate app-store subscription for the mobile apps and is not a web plan.

The limits that push you up a plan

Three gates decide most upgrades. The first is live streaming. Pro has none, and Grow adds streaming to unlimited destinations at up to 1080p, with each stream capped at 8 hours and a small Riverside logo shown unless you hide it. The second is webinars, which start on the Webinar plan with registration, Q&A and polls for up to 100 registrants; 10,000 registrants is a Business feature. If you only need people to watch, the audience link lets up to 100 viewers follow a session inside Riverside on every plan, Free included.

The third gate is separate-track hours. A weekly 90-minute interview show records four or five episodes a month, which is 6 to 7.5 hours, well inside Pro's 15. A daily show changes the math. By our arithmetic, a daily 30-minute show uses about 15 hours a month, Pro's whole cap; at 45 minutes a day (about 22.5 hours) it outgrows Grow's 20, and past about 50 minutes it outgrows Webinar's 25 too. Then only Business, with unlimited separate-track downloads, fits. Live streams draw from the same allowance, so add streamed hours before you choose. Paying more does not raise resolution: 1080p, 4K and 48 kHz audio already start at Pro, while exports from the editor are always 24 FPS at 44.1 kHz.

AI credits are the other variable. Paid plans include a starting balance of credits, and those credits do not renew monthly, are never refunded and do not carry forward. Riverside labels the credit system beta and is rolling it out gradually. Extra packs are one-time purchases: 100 credits for $2, 1,000 for $20, 3,000 for $60, up to 20,000 for $400. Video features burn them fast. AI Translation uses 100 credits a minute, about $2 a minute at pack prices, so translating a 30-minute episode takes 3,000 credits, the $60 pack. AI Twin uses 200 credits a minute. Magic Clips, Magic Audio and Co-Creator use none.

Trial, refunds and cancellation

The 14-day trial covers Pro, Grow or Webinar, never Business. It needs a card. On day 15 it converts to the full price in effect when you started, unless you cancel first. Long trial recordings may need a paid plan before they export, and recordings stay in the account if you cancel during the trial. Existing paid users can also trial a higher plan and fall back to their current plan if they cancel. Discount codes work only for new users, once, and never on Business. The Free plan is a separate thing; our guide to whether Riverside is free covers it.

Refunds are narrow. A monthly Pro or Grow subscription cancelled within 24 hours of purchase, or a yearly one within 14 days, gets a full refund on request.^[2] After that, fees are non-refundable, and the policy names only Pro and Grow, so a Webinar or Business buyer should not count on a refund. Refunds go back to the original payment method and can take up to 14 business days. AI credits are never refunded. Purchases through the Apple App Store or Google Play are handled by the store, and uninstalling the app cancels nothing. If Riverside announces a fee increase and you reject it, you can cancel before it takes effect and get a pro-rated refund.

To cancel on the web, open Settings, then Plan & Billing, then Cancel plan, and answer the exit questions; the mobile app offers the same steps for web subscriptions.^[3] Access runs to the end of the paid period. The catch is the Terms, which ask you to cancel at least 30 days before the period ends.^[4] The help page and the Terms disagree here. Cancel well before renewal. That one habit removes the risk of arguing about a charge you did not want.

After cancellation the account drops to Free. Recordings are not deleted, but Free means 720p with a watermark, and the inactive-account policy deletes an account and its content after 120 days unused. Download separate tracks and edited exports before the cycle ends, while the paid allowance still applies. Mobile Plus cancels only through Apple or Google, never from Riverside's settings. If you hold both a web plan and Mobile Plus, you have two subscriptions to stop, in two different places, and missing either one keeps it billing.

Old prices and plan names still online

Riverside's own pages still carry outdated numbers. Older blog posts and the static text on the pricing page show lower monthly prices than the live plan data, and a September 2026 blog post claims there is no free plan. Both are wrong today. The figures above come from the live plan data behind the pricing page. Prices exclude tax and are adjusted by region, so a non-US checkout can show different figures.

You will also meet plan names that are no longer for sale: Standard, Live (the predecessor of Grow), Basic Access, the Live Studio add-on and Teams, the old name for Business. Pro Plus appears only in plan data, not on the public plan cards, so it is not a plan you can choose. If you sit on a legacy plan, Riverside can discontinue it with 30 days' notice, and annual legacy plans change only at renewal. If you reject the migration, you can cancel before it takes effect and keep access on the old terms until the current cycle ends.

The bottom line

Riverside's pricing is simple on the card and stricter in the details. Pro at $24 a month billed annually covers one person and 15 hours of separate tracks a month, which suits most solo shows. Grow is for live streaming, Webinar for registration-based events, and Business for teams that need editors at no extra cost or unlimited separate-track downloads. Pick monthly billing for anything under nine months, buy credits only for the AI features you will use, and cancel well ahead of renewal. Full refunds on Pro or Grow come only within 24 hours of a monthly purchase or 14 days of a yearly one, plus a pro-rated refund if you reject a price increase.