Upgrade to PRO
Understand when Starter Free reaches its limits and how upgrading unlocks production wiring.
Starter Free helps you validate and ship fast. PRO helps you wire and scale safely.
Starter Free focuses on product surface and UX contracts. PRO focuses on production wiring and infrastructure patterns.
You can stay on Starter Free as long as you want.
Upgrade when your product needs real infrastructure.
You’ll learn
- When upgrading makes sense
- What PRO adds on top of Starter Free
- How migration works
- Answers to common concerns
When should you upgrade?
Upgrade when your project starts needing real backend wiring.
Use this checklist.
You likely need PRO if you need:
- Real user authentication
- Email verification and password reset
- Stripe Checkout and Customer Portal
- Multi-organization support
- Role-based access control
- Production data layer
- API contracts and backend patterns
Starter Free provides the surface.
PRO provides the wiring.
Free vs PRO comparison
| Capability | Starter Free | PRO |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | Screens + states (mocked) | Provider wiring (Auth.js / Clerk / Supabase) |
| Billing | Billing UI surface | Stripe Checkout + Portal integration |
| Organizations | Single-org UI | Multi-org + organization switcher |
| Roles & permissions | Basic roles UI | RBAC + permission patterns |
| Data layer | Mock data | Production data + API contracts |
| Backend patterns | None | API structure + backend guidance |
| Deployment readiness | Local development | Production setup guidance |
| Packaging | Demo-ready | Production-ready foundation |
What you gain by upgrading
Time saved
Authentication, billing, and backend wiring can take weeks.
PRO provides a structured baseline so you start from a working architecture.
Reduced risk
Auth and billing systems are easy to get wrong.
PRO provides safe integration patterns and architectural guidance.
Production readiness
Starter Free proves the product idea.
PRO prepares it for real users and revenue.
Migration path
Upgrading is designed to be incremental.
You keep:
- Routes
- Pages
- Components
- UI structure
- Design system usage
You replace:
- Mock data → real data
- Mock auth → real sessions
- Mock billing → Stripe integration
No rewrite required.
Typical upgrade flow
Most teams upgrade in this order:
- Add authentication provider
- Add session protection
- Introduce database layer
- Add Stripe billing
- Replace mock sources progressively
Migration happens feature by feature.
Common concerns
“Will I lose my changes?”
No.
Starter Free and PRO share the same architecture.
Your pages and components remain compatible.
“Can I upgrade later?”
Yes.
Starter Free has no lock-in.
Upgrade whenever your product requires real wiring.
“Do I need to migrate everything at once?”
No.
You can wire parts independently:
- Auth first
- Billing later
- Data progressively
Migration is incremental.
“Why not wire everything myself?”
You absolutely can.
PRO exists to:
- reduce risk
- remove uncertainty
- save engineering time
It’s a leverage decision, not a requirement.
Mental model to keep
Starter Free → validate the product PRO → productionize the product
Both are part of the same development path.
Next steps
You now understand when and why upgrading becomes useful.
Start building with Starter Free and upgrade when your product requires real production wiring.