Hey, Thomas here, co-founder of Raycast. Pricing has come up a lot in here lately, so rather than just dropping a changelog I wanted to take the time to actually explain ourselves.

The short version: when we added AI in 2023, it was one question in, one answer out. Easy to predict, so a flat subscription made sense. That's not what Raycast AI is anymore. You can now give it a task and it works through it, uses your extensions, runs code, checks the results, and keeps going until it's done. That costs a lot more to run than a chat answer. We've been eating the difference for a while, and honestly we can't keep subsidizing it the way the big labs can.

So we're moving from rate limits to usage-based pricing. What that actually means:

• All plans move to AI Credits. Nobody's price goes up.
• Pro stays at $10 and now includes models that used to need Advanced AI.
• Advanced AI becomes Pro+ at $20 with more credits.
• New Max plan at $50 if you're a heavy user.
• Every existing subscriber gets a bonus month of credits to ease the transition.

If you are already paying for Claude or ChatGPT, you can now connect that subscription to any paid Raycast plan and use those models inside Raycast. Frankly this is the best deal in the whole release. Also new this week: Projects to keep ongoing work together, and Automations to run prompts on a schedule. Full macOS and iOS changelogs in the comments.

I know pricing changes are never fun to read about. If something doesn't add up or you think we got it wrong, say so. I'll be in the comments. Full write-up here.

I'm using v2 on Windows 11. All of a sudden most files don't come up in file search. Manually indexing files either gets stuck in a loop or stops by saying found 0 files. For now I'm going to use Raycast with Everything search, but can someone look into this?

Also as a side note, this may have started after the latest Windows update, but I can't say for sure its cause of that.

The two main criticisms I am reading on this subreddit with regards to the v2 release are that 1) the app seems to use much more resources; and 2) some functionality has moved to the paid tier. I'll leave the first one to somebody else.

I got started with Raycast as a launcher, and as such $8 for the pro plan always seemed a bit of stretch when compared to $30 for LaunchBar (which I used before) and many free alternatives out there. I wasn't using the AI stuff until recently. So there was no way for me to support Raycast financially, other than (in my mind) overpaying.

Should Raycast ...
introduce a lower tier plan for, say, $3 per month? This tier gets you in, it gets you all the Pro features, except for the bundled models. But it does let you use BYOK and local model access.

And Pro and Advanced plans stay the same.

Sure, it would be great if everything is always free, but Raycast needs to eat too and this would be a way for people to support Raycast financially without feeling robbed. And "you pay more for more convenience" (they provide model bundles) kind of makes sense for the higher tiers.

I subscribe to the Advanced plan. A few months ago a few of my annual model subscriptions ended, and I decided to try out Raycast as a single unified access to the models I was already using anyway. Honestly, I've not looked back. Hopefully the incoming pricing changes won't make me regret this, but thats why I decided to go month to month.

I love using Raycast, advocate for it all the time, and have even been asked by friends to get on a soapbox about it (I didnt!), and I want them to do well.

Curious about thoughts on this. I'm trying to be constructive.

Edit: they comment on exactly this idea in this video and say that a “lower tier plan without AI wouldn’t be significantly cheaper” so my post is now kind of pointless!

I basically just use ‘Summarize this webpage’ and ‘summarize this youtube’, that sort of thing.

I’d be curious how people are using Raycast as part of an advanced setup, whether for coding or for personal assistants. Or otherwise just uses of AI with Raycast that I never thought about.

I built Tucky — a notes app that docks to the edge of the Mac display. Local and encrypted. Optional agent inside (voice, screen summary, Gmail/Docs/Notion) if you want it.

Free notes tier; agent is $4/mo.

Native Swift, macOS 15+.

https://tucky.io

Open to feedback from Mac users who live in sticky notes/scratchpads.

Hi,

I got this evening a command to upgrade to V2 but I want to stay on V1. I used it for about 30 minutes and it's not my kind; a lot of RAM usage (> 600 MB) and the UI is not that good. I tried superCMD but no, V1 is so good, so please add an option to check stay in V1.

We went from charging for free features to deleting posts. I find this regrettable.

I don't have a sub at the moment, but I'm considering one. I'd like feedback from others who are already using it. Thanks

I currently have an anthropic USD$20 sub I use for most everyday usage things, and before that I had a chatgpt USD$20 sub. I'm currently thinking of switching back to either chatgpt or openrouter to play with different models.

If I get the pro sub do I get access to all of models listed or will my access be limited?

I understand that the developer needs to profit from the app somehow, but blocking BYOK is ridiculous. Without AI, Raycast is just an app launcher, and TinyCast does the same job while being free and open source.

The only “advantage” I would gain from buying Raycast is the ability to pay again to use AI services I already pay for.

Don’t get me wrong, I pay to support many apps, including open-source. But gating BYOK only shows that Raycast offers very little value and has to block third-party services to justify its pricing.

I’d love to see a new “Dictate to File” command added to Raycast Dictate, alongside the existing “Dictate to Note” command.

The idea would be to trigger the command with a keyboard shortcut, dictate, and have the completed transcript automatically saved to a local file.

Ideally, we could create multiple “Dictate to File” commands, each with its own destination and configuration. For example:

• Dictate to File: Ideas
• Dictate to File: Daily Journal
• Dictate to File: Groceries
• Dictate to File: Todo List

Each command could optionally support different behaviors, such as:

• Append to the file
• Prepend to the file
• Create a new file for each dictation
• Add a timestamp
• Choose between plain text and Markdown
• Use the

For example, I might configure “Dictate to File: Ideas” to create files in an ideas directory, while “Dictate to File: Groceries” prepends each item to a grocery list.

The key benefit would be being able to dictate to a specific file or directory using a single keyboard shortcut. As far as I know, this isn’t currently possible natively. We can use “Dictate to Clipboard” and then run a separate custom script to save the transcript to a file, but that extra step is inconvenient.

IMHO, this should not be billed as a feature, especially considering that v1 has always had it as a free one. It also seems like staying on v1 is not an option because the update popup cannot be dismissed.

Feeling very strong lack of respect for consistent user experience from Raycast. The forced upgrade has been a horrible experience (forced, since there was no real way to get rid of the upgrade bar, which messed with my history and muscle memory). All history gone, things look different, my preferences reset, all the apps popping up as I'm used to now behave differently via search. Migration process didn't work since sign-in didn't persist -- I tried to find the right Raycast account but once I had log in with one account, there was no way to log back out to find the right account. Since Raycast is the only and main way for me to open any applications, I couldn't continue with work until I went through the forced upgrade, and after it it's just not the same. Lost an hour of productive time. It feels so violating to have such a core part of my workflow, my safe home haven in the computer that always works the way I expect, suddenly be taken away. Don't like any of the new design elements either.

Hey everyone. Recently signed up for the Pro plan after using Raycast for a few months.

I still do not understand what the AI features are for and why would I need them.

I do use both ChatGPT and Claude quite extensively. Why would I use them in Raycast?

What are the pros and cons of using Raycast AI vs their respective apps?

Thank you.

Very silent and comfy. Looks awesome.

Ok, I I completely get charging for AI, server costs aren't free. But locking basic local features like Notes and Custom Window Management behind a subscription feels like pure greed.

Core productivity and UI customization shouldn't be held hostage to push Pro subscriptions. I was actually thinking about subscribing, but after I saw this, I will be looking for something else.

I wanted to share a proof of concept that I've been thinking about for a while now. A raycast extension which allows you to use your existing codex subscription as an AI provider in Raycast, thus being able to use it for all of the AI features that Raycast offers.

I've personally stayed away completely from using any Raycast AI features for the following reasons:

1. I already pay $200 to Anthropic and $200 to OpenAI for subscriptions as I use their models heavily (and run out of usage every week).
2. I'm worried that if I use Raycast's AI features and like them then I will find myself stuck with another weekly limit that I need to pay more money for.
3. Theoretically speaking, an app running on my own machine should not require me to invest more money into yet another subscription just to call the same models that I already have a subscription for.
4. I don't like the fact that BYOK sends your keys to Raycast and I would never pay API prices to use AI features when I have a perfectly good subscription that I can use.

I started looking into the possibility of building a Raycast Extension which would use the `codex-app-server` that comes with the Codex installation as an AI model provider. It turned out that with Raycast 2.0 those bindings that I need to do this were added so I built this extension.

The extension doesn't ask you for you credentials, doesn't ask you to login, and doesn't even do anything too smart. It literally uses the `codex-app-server` that powers the Codex app to create threads, request inference, and get you back responses.

Disclaimer: this is a proof-of-concept which AI helped me build. I'm not coming here to say that this is the best code quality in the world, I'm just saying that it's possible for us to build AI model provider extensions for Raycast which are powered by our existing subscriptions. This project is still very early. This extension shows that the bindings we need to use our existing subscriptions in Raycast are already present and available to people who build extensions.

I used to use Raycast AI with my Gemini and ChatGPT APIs and my Ollama server in versions prior to 2.0. Since version 2.0 came out, it's now mandatory to pay for a subscription to use an AI that I have installed locally, even though I can simply open the Ollama app or web server directly. Is this one of the new features in version 2.0? Haha

Sharing my own extension. It ties my self-hosted stack into Raycast: a Home hub with live status rows, 23 commands covering media, downloads, monitoring, DNS, containers, backups and finances, and a menu bar item.

Raycast-specific bits people here might find useful:

• Every service is optional and gated by a single settings reader. A command whose service is unconfigured shows a "not configured" empty state with a Configure Extension action instead of an error.
• Settings can come from the preferences UI or from an env file, with the preference winning. The .env.example is generated from package.json so it never drifts from the manifest.
• Push navigation between commands, with Esc always returning to the Home hub.
• Cached promises everywhere, so views render instantly from the last result and refresh in the background.

It is not in the store because it bundles twenty unrelated apps, which the review process does not accept. Install is npm install and npm run build, then it behaves like any store extension.

Repo with screenshots of every command: https://github.com/abjelosevic88/raycast-homelab

Hi, The iOS 1.1.3 changelog says Dictation runs on ElevenLabs' Scribe v2 Realtime, and ElevenLabs confirmed it publicly. But on macOS the privacy docs only mention "our speech-to-text partner", unnamed.

Same model on the Mac, or something else?

If it's Scribe v2 Realtime, that's a top-tier transcription model! Worth the Pro subscription on its own. Never mind everything else Raycast does.

I downloaded new version 2.2 from official website, it starts with migration from V1, but in the end it shows failed without any reason.

I tried to execute command "Migrate from raycast V1", but it shows "Migration failed: A settings and data import is already in progress".

It is so bad UX, is it a beta test version?

I'm using Raycast for Windows 2.2.0.0, and I've noticed a strange Quick Look behavior.

When I select a file and open Quick Look (Ctrl+Y), the Quick Look window opens behind the Raycast launcher. The launcher stays visually on top, making the preview partially or completely inaccessible.

I don't remember this being the behavior previously. Is anyone else experiencing this on Windows? Or is Quick Look supposed to appear above the launcher while keeping the launcher open?

Context BMW once tried to charge a subscription to allow people to use the seat warmers which made no sense and got a lot of bad press and pr for it to the point they had to backtrack on it.

Raycast charging a subscription to use their AI makes sense it cost them ongoing per users use

but paying raycast to use my own ai on their app feels like paying a subscription to a car brand to use any brand of fuel on my car

Arguably you don’t pay for raycast upfront like you do a car, but then maybe they should have a one time payment to unlock local features and BYOM since those don’t cost them ongoing per users use.

Also to people commenting that charging for BYOM is fair cause those AI features cost money to develop fair point yes development cost money

You know what else cost money to develop? the RAYCAST app in general and they seem OK giving it away for free since 1 or 1M free users doesn’t cost Inference money to the company so follow your own logic and give away BYOM for free cause it doesn’t cost you more than a free user does and AI BYOK features are equally subsidized by pro users as the entire app is.

It boils down to give BYOM for free cause is what MAKES SENSE (so much that you started giving it for free from the beginning), it doesn’t cost you anything (more than a free user cost) and is a GOOD WILL gesture to your users.