Frequently Asked Questions

Pricing & quotas

Q1. What does a Report cost?

Each Report uses one unit of your plan's report quota — there's no per-Report dollar charge, and a hard question costs the same as an easy one. Your plan grants a fixed number of Reports each month; see the Pricing page for current limits. Monthly quotas reset at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of each calendar month. The Trial instead gives 3 Reports in total over 7 days.

Q2. Do unused units roll over?

No. Unused Reports don't carry over: the monthly quota resets at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of each calendar month. Refines reset daily at 00:00 UTC. Boost packs expire on their own dates, shown on the Quota page.

Q3. Do higher plans get a better research engine?

No. Every Report — on every plan — is generated with the same multi-model synthesis and adjudication. Plans differ by how many Reports you get each month (and team features), not by output quality. You never have to choose a tier or pay more for a "better" engine.

Q4. Is there a limit on how much I can input?

Yes. Your prompt plus any attachments and Vault context must stay under the input limit (about 250,000 tokens); oversized requests are rejected before they run. If a request is large but within range, the system may trim lower-priority source material mid-flight to stay within cost limits, and shows a banner on the Report when it does.

Q5. What if my Report fails?

Your report count is returned automatically. The Report page will say that the Report could not be completed. Common causes: a backend timeout, an AI model provider outage, or a public source that couldn't be retrieved.

Q6. What if I cancel mid-month?

Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You keep access, with your monthly quota, until then. Except where the law requires otherwise, we don't refund partial periods — see the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

Q7. How do I change plans?

Settings → Billing → Open billing portal, then choose a new plan. You can move between Lite, Plus and Pro, or between Team, Business and Scale. Upgrades take effect immediately and the prorated difference is charged at once; downgrades, and switches from annual to monthly billing, take effect at your next renewal. To move between a personal plan and a team plan, contact sales@essence.report.

Q8. Do you offer annual billing?

Yes. Every paid plan can be billed monthly or annually; choose the billing period on the Pricing page.

Q9. Is there a free trial?

We don't offer free Reports. To evaluate the Service before subscribing, use the low-cost Trial: 3 Reports over 7 days for $1 plus applicable tax, once per account. It's a one-time payment and doesn't renew.

A paid plan is required to keep generating your own Reports after the Trial.

Reports & quality

Q10. How long does a Report take?

It varies with the question and the amount of source retrieval; the progress page shows each stage as your Report runs. If a job exceeds the system time limit without completing, it fails automatically and your report count is returned.

Q11. Can I see the Report being generated live?

The progress page shows how far your Report has got. For privacy and IP reasons, we don't expose live model output during generation. The full Report appears when complete.

Q12. Why are some Reports marked "Complete · Warning"?

The Report finished, but something during processing is worth knowing. A banner on the Report page says which:

Source material trimmed: some source material was trimmed during processing to fit within safe limits
Possible incomplete ending: automated checks flagged that the ending may be cut short; the content is delivered as received

If a Report reaches its length limit, it is marked Truncated instead: you get the partial Report with a banner saying so, and your report count is returned.

Q13. Are the citations real?

Yes. Citations to web URLs are gathered by our retrieval pipeline at the time of your query. We do best-effort verification that URLs are valid at gathering time. URLs may go stale; we don't continuously re-verify after delivery.

Q14. Can I trust the conclusions?

Reports are research artifacts, not professional advice. They're designed to give you a multi-model perspective backed by cited public sources you can open and check. Always verify critical findings independently before relying on a Report for decisions.

Q15. The Report says something I know is wrong. What do I do?

AI models can hallucinate, especially on niche topics, very recent events (last 24 hours), or topics with sparse online coverage. Best practices:

Cross-check key facts against the cited sources
For factual disputes, refine your prompt to ask the system to "cite primary sources only" and re-run

Q16. Can I get the Report in a specific format?

Reports open in your browser. From the Report page's export menu you can download:

Markdown (.md) — most portable
PDF — via Save as PDF
Word (.docx) — opens in Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice
Sources as BibTeX (.bib) or RIS (.ris), for reference managers

Data reports can also be downloaded as JSON or CSV. To put a "Licensed to" watermark with your account name on PDF and Word exports, turn on Watermark in the workspace when you start the Report.

You can also ask in your prompt: "respond as a table" / "respond as bullet list" / "respond in legal memo format".

Privacy & security

Q17. Do you train AI models on my data?

We don't, but one provider may. We do not use your prompts, uploaded files, Vault entries, or generated Reports to train any AI model. Requests to the language models that write your Report are routed only to providers that do not collect or train on prompts. One exception: to rank retrieved sources against your question, your prompt and excerpts of retrieved sources are sent to Google's unpaid Gemini embedding service, whose terms allow Google to use submitted content to improve its products. See § 6.4 of the Terms and § 11 of the Privacy Policy.

Q18. Where is my data stored?

Backend processing and storage, including generated Reports and your Vault: Akamai / Linode, Tokyo region (Japan)
Generated Reports: 7-day TTL in our Tokyo backend
Account data: Clerk (United States)
Billing: Stripe (PCI-DSS Level 1)
Caching and rate limits: Upstash (Tokyo region)
Website hosting: Vercel
AI model and web retrieval providers: see Q17 and Q20

See Privacy Policy § 4 and the Sub-processor List for the full list.

Q19. How long are Reports kept?

7 days on our backend, then auto-deleted. To keep a Report:

Save it to your Vault (kept until you delete it or close your account)
Export it (Markdown is most portable)

Pinning only organises the list in your browser; it does not keep the Report itself.

Q20. Is my prompt visible to the LLM provider?

Yes — generating a Report sends your prompt to several third-party AI model providers, which may include, but are not limited to, Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. Each has its own data-handling policy. Requests that write your Report go only to providers that do not collect or train on prompts, but we cannot guarantee zero retention at every upstream provider. Source ranking is handled differently — see Q17. We never use your data to train our own models.

Q21. Can I use Essence.Report for confidential / regulated data?

Think carefully first. To rank sources, your prompt is sent with excerpts of retrieved sources to Google's unpaid Gemini embedding service, whose terms let Google use that text and advise against sending confidential or personal information (see Q17). Uploaded files and Vault entries skip that step but are sent to the AI model providers that write your Report (see Q20). Our Data Processing Addendum applies to every subscription, but it does not cover special-category data: don't submit EU Article 9 data without first signing an addendum with us, and don't submit HIPAA PHI or classified information. For enterprise arrangements, contact sales@essence.report.

Service operations

Q22. What if the service is down?

We don't currently offer an uptime SLA or a public status page. If you experience an outage, your in-flight job will either complete or fail and return your report count automatically.

Q23. Can I generate Reports programmatically via API?

Not yet. An Essence API is targeted for early 2027 — see the API tab on the Pricing page; usage pricing will be announced at launch. To discuss programmatic access, contact sales@essence.report.

Q24. Which file types can I upload?

Documents (PDF, Word .docx, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF, EPUB), spreadsheets (Excel, CSV, TSV), plain and structured text (TXT, Markdown, JSON, XML, YAML, HTML), emails (EML, MSG, MBOX), images, scanned PDFs, audio and video. Images, scanned PDFs, audio and video are converted to text at upload. You can add up to 5 files at a time, each up to 50 MB; audio and video can be up to 20 minutes long.

Q25. Is there a mobile app?

The web product is fully responsive — works on phone and tablet. There's no native app.

Q26. What languages does the system speak?

Reports are written in the language of your question unless you ask for another; the AI models handle English plus most major languages. The website and app interface are English-only.

Account & teams

Q27. How do I invite teammates?

On a Team, Business or Scale plan, the team admin manages members from the Team page. Enter a teammate's email to create an invite link, then send it to them — it works once and expires after 7 days. Admins can revoke pending invites and remove members; members can leave the team. Each plan includes a fixed number of seats (Team 3, Business 5, Scale 10); for more, contact sales@essence.report.

Q28. Can two people use the same account?

No. Each person needs their own account: sharing an account or its credentials with anyone your subscription doesn't cover breaks our Acceptable Use Policy, which is part of the Terms (§ 4). For multi-user access, choose a Team, Business or Scale plan and invite each teammate to their own account.

Q29. How do I delete my account?

Open the account menu (your avatar) → Manage account → Security → Delete account. Deleting your account deletes your Vault and sets any paid plan to end at the close of the current billing period, so you won't be charged again. Export anything you want to keep first. If you can no longer sign in, email billing@essence.report from your account email to stop billing, or privacy@essence.report for a deletion request. Some records, such as billing records, are kept as the law requires.