Which sync do I need?
Frame Photos is a one-time purchase. Sharing your albums between devices or between people needs storage, and there are two ways to arrange that: on your own iCloud, or on ours. This page explains which one fits your house.
The short answer
- Only you, only one device? Frame Photos for $9.99. Nothing else.
- Several Apple devices, or several people, all on Apple? Add iCloud Sync for $14.99 once, which is $24.98 in total.
- Anyone on Android, or unwilling to use your own iCloud? Frame Photos Monthly at $2.99/mo, with Frame Cloud included. The app comes with it.
Why sync costs anything at all
Uploading a photo to your Frame does not need a cloud: the app talks straight to the TV over your own WiFi. That is why the app is a one-time purchase, and why plain uploading never passes your photos through us at all.
The moment your albums have to exist in more than one place, your iPad as well as your iPhone or your partner’s phone as well as yours, they have to be stored somewhere in between. That storage is the only thing you are ever paying extra for, and you can choose whose it is.
iCloud Sync: on storage you already have
A one-time purchase of $14.99 on top of the app. Your albums sync through your own iCloud account, which means:
- You manage the same albums from your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- People in your household can manage them too. They need the app; only one of you buys the sync.
- Your photos stay with Apple. We host nothing, so we bill nothing monthly.
- It never stops working, because you bought it rather than rented it.
- It works on Apple devices only, so an Android phone cannot join.
The one thing to watch: it uses your iCloud storage. We cannot tell you how much, because that depends entirely on how many photos you sync and at what resolution, and a handful of large photos can take more room than a hundred small ones. So look rather than guess: check Settings → your name → iCloud on your iPhone to see how much room you have left, and check again after your first few albums. If you are on Apple’s free 5 GB plan it can fill up, and increasing your Apple storage is usually still cheaper than a monthly subscription.
Frame Cloud: on storage we run
Included in Frame Photos Monthly at $2.99/mo, cancel anytime. We built it for one specific reason: an Android phone has no free iCloud to sync on. If even one person managing the photos is on Android, there is no shared Apple storage to use, so we host it instead.
- Works across Apple and Android in the same household.
- Never uses your own iCloud space.
- The app is included, so you do not buy it separately.
- It is a subscription because running that storage costs us money every month. Charging once for an ongoing cost would not be honest.
All-Apple households sometimes pick this one on purpose: it keeps your own iCloud free for your photos and backups.
One difference to weigh if there are several of you: on this route everyone who manages photos has their own subscription, because each of them uses storage we pay for. On the one-time route, a single iCloud Sync purchase covers the whole household.
What happens if you stop paying
iCloud Sync never stops. You bought it once, so there is nothing to cancel and nothing that expires.
Frame Cloud does stop, because it is our storage, but not abruptly. If the subscription lapses the cloud becomes read-only for 30 days, is then suspended, and its contents are deleted 90 days after that. So there is time to resubscribe or to save what you want to keep.
Meanwhile every device that was using it keeps its own copy, and whatever is already on your Frame stays on your Frame. It is only the shared copy in our cloud that goes. The exact retention periods are in our privacy policy.
Three houses
Anna, on her own: $9.99 once
Anna puts her own photos on the Frame in the living room. She always does it from her iPhone.
What they need: Frame Photos. Nothing is shared and nothing has to travel between devices, so there is no sync and no storage to pay for.
The Bakker family, all Apple: $24.98 once, plus $9.99 for whoever joins
Two parents with iPhones, an iPad in the kitchen, a Mac in the study. Both parents want to add photos to the same albums.
What they need: Frame Photos + iCloud Sync. Everything runs on one parent's iCloud. That parent buys iCloud Sync once; the other only needs the app to join in. After that the family never pays again.
Watch the iCloud plan of whoever hosts it: the free 5 GB fills up.
The De Vries family, one Android in the house: $2.99/mo each
Mum has an iPhone, dad has a Samsung, their daughter has an iPad. All three add photos to grandma’s Frame.
What they need: Frame Photos Monthly. Dad's Android has no free iCloud, so there is nothing of his own to sync on. Frame Cloud runs on our storage and works for all three at once. The app comes with the subscription, so nobody buys it separately. But each of the three pays their own $2.99/mo, because each of them is using storage we host.
Changing your mind
You can start with the app alone and add iCloud Sync the day a second device or a second person appears. You never pay for the app twice.
If your household changes, say someone switches to Android or your iCloud fills up, you can move to Frame Photos Monthly instead. Your one-time purchases stay yours.
Still not sure?
Answer a few questions in the chooser on the pricing page and it will tell you which option fits, and why. Everything starts free: find your Frame, preview the matte, and send your first uploads before you decide anything.