Is Redline free, and when would a designer need to pay for it?

Redline is free for one active project, and costs $9/mo for unlimited projects. The free tier is not a stripped-down demo — it includes the core workflow of no-login client review, pinned comments, threaded replies, version history, one-click approval, and PDF export. The upgrade decision comes down to one variable: how many client projects you need running at the same time.

What the free plan actually includes

According to the site's pricing section ("Free until it earns you money"), the free tier covers:

• 1 active project — for "your next client. And the one after that," meaning you can reuse it sequentially
• Pinned + threaded comments — clients click the pixel and notes land exactly where they belong
• No-login clients — clients open a link and start commenting, no accounts or password resets
• One-click approval — a stamped, timestamped "yes" both sides can point to
• PDF export — every comment with pins, names, and timestamps for invoices or developer handoff
• Version history — v1 to final tracked automatically, with comments preserved along the way

In other words, the free plan is a complete single-project workflow, not a trial with features locked behind a paywall.

When $9/mo becomes worth it

The paid tier is $9/mo for unlimited projects. The trigger to upgrade is straightforward: you have more than one client project in flight at the same time.

That happens faster than most freelancers expect:

• Two clients are both in a feedback round this week
• One project is waiting on approval while the next one starts
• You want to keep a finished project open for reference while a new one begins

If your work is strictly sequential — finish and archive one project before opening the next — the free plan can carry you indefinitely. If your projects overlap, you'll hit the one-active-project ceiling and the $9/mo removes it.

How to decide

A practical test: count how many projects you'd need open today to keep every client moving. If the answer is one, stay free. If it's more, the paid plan pays for itself the first time it prevents a feedback round from stalling.

What the site doesn't say

The page doesn't specify whether the free plan has limits on comment volume, file size, or storage duration, and it doesn't describe a trial period for the paid tier — the free plan itself functions as the trial. If those details matter to your workflow, verify them before committing a large project to the platform.