The Scout subscription

Launches and warm-ups are one-time purchases, because they are jobs that complete. The Scout is the exception: daily scanning never completes, so it is priced like what it is, a subscription. It is the only one Nilkick sells, and this article is the whole billing picture.

01 · The priceWhat it costs

The Scout is $20 per month, per scout. A scout watches one product, so a second product means a second scout and a second subscription. There are no tiers, no annual lock-in, and no retention flow when you leave.

02 · CheckoutStarting one

You start a scout from the Scout page in the app, or from the Billing page. Checkout runs through Stripe, the same as every Nilkick purchase: Nilkick never sees or stores your card. The moment payment confirms, the first sweep starts, backfilling the last month of Reddit and Hacker News conversations before settling into the daily rhythm.

03 · Tracking itWhere it lives on the Billing page

The Billing page shows the Scout beside your credits without pretending to be one. Each scout gets its own row: which product it watches, its renewal date, and its status. The Manage menu on a row opens Stripe’s billing portal for that subscription, where you update the card, see invoices, or cancel. With more than one scout, the portal labels each subscription with the product’s domain, so the rows never blur together.

Every charge also appears in your purchase history below, with its date, amount, and status.

04 · The honest switchPause is not cancel

The two switches do different things, and the app says so right where you use them:

• Pausing stops the daily scans, in one tap, and resumes them in one tap. It does not stop billing. It exists for holidays and busy weeks, not for leaving.
• Canceling stops the billing and the scans. It happens in the Stripe billing portal, anytime, with no retention flow. If you cancel mid-period, the scout keeps running daily until the end of the time you have already paid for.

After a cancel, everything already in your inbox stays readable. You can restart the scout later and it picks the product back up.

05 · Past dueIf a payment fails

If a renewal charge fails, nothing dramatic happens: scans continue during a short grace period while you fix the payment method, from the same billing portal. The Billing page and the scout’s inbox both flag it plainly, with a fix-payment link. Sort the card and nothing is interrupted.