Learn/App & Interface/Account & plans
Free / Hobby Tier
Updated v2.4.3At a glance
- Sign in with a free jetcad.io account for the FULL feature set — Mill included — metered by active-use time
- 1 hour a day, 5 hours a week — and evenings (7 pm–midnight) and weekends count double, so an evening hour only costs you thirty minutes
- Only real activity counts: walk away and the clock pauses; the Design workspace and GcodePilot machine control are never metered
- Live meters lead with Available now — the REAL working time you have left, with the allowance behind it and the 2× rate spelled out
- Bonus hours via promo codes and referrals — refer a friend and you both earn time (usually 2 hours each)
- Prefer no account? The offline Free / Hobby mode keeps working with feature limits instead of a meter
JetCad3's free tier comes in two forms, and you can use either — or both.
Signed in (metered). Create a free account at jetcad.io and sign into the app. Any account without a paid subscription is the Free / Hobby tier — there's nothing to activate. You get the complete JetCad3 feature set: the full Drafting solid modeler, Plasma, Laser, Router, and Mill CAM, unlimited components and sketches, DXF nesting, and full-length G-code posts — the same features as the paid Drafting + Full CAM plan, metered by time instead of limited by features.
Offline (feature-limited). The account-free Free / Hobby sign-in option works exactly as it always has: no meter and no clock, with feature limits instead — 1 component, 5 sketches per project, 500 lines of posted G-code, no Mill. It's the right choice for air-gapped shop computers, and it's always available as a fallback.
How the meter works
- Your allowance: 1 hour per day and 5 hours per week of active use. Whichever runs out first pauses the CAD/CAM side until its reset.
- Only active time counts. The meter runs while you're actually working — moving the mouse, typing, modeling. Step away and it pauses within a few minutes; idle time is genuinely free.
- 2× windows. On weekday evenings (7 pm–midnight) and all day Saturday and Sunday — your local time — the meter runs at half speed, so an evening hour costs thirty minutes of allowance. Put the other way round: inside those windows your 1-hour day is worth two hours of real work, and a weekend can stretch the 5-hour week to ten. A "2× active" chip appears whenever a window is live.
- Resets on your clock. The daily allowance resets at your local midnight; the weekly allowance resets Monday. Countdowns to both are shown in the app and on your dashboard.
Available now is real time
Your profile-picture menu leads with Available now — and that number is the working time you actually have, not the allowance it's drawn from. During a 2× window those differ: 25 minutes of allowance is 50 minutes of work, and Available now says 50.
Underneath it you'll see where the number came from — the allowance balance and the rate applied to it — so you can always check the arithmetic. If a 2× window is going to close before your balance runs out, the meter splits it honestly rather than quoting the whole thing at the better rate: "30 min at the 2× rate until midnight, then 10 min after that."
The Today and This week bars below it show your allowance balances, with what each is worth in real time while a 2× window is on. If one of them is spent, the other stops advertising time you can't reach — it says which limit is holding you up and when it resets. When a pool runs out while bonus time is covering you, the meters turn amber with a "Running on bonus time" note; red means you're actually out. Click through for the full usage view with allowances, reset countdowns, the 2× schedule in your timezone, and a promo-code box. The same numbers appear on your account dashboard at jetcad.io.
Design and GcodePilot are never metered
Time in a GcodePilot workspace — jogging, probing, setting up, streaming a job — never counts against your allowance, and running out of CAD/CAM time never interrupts or locks a machine. GcodePilot entries in the workspace menu carry a green Not Metered badge, and if your time expires while a job is streaming, JetCad3 waits quietly until the machine is done. Running the machine you own is free for everyone, on every tier — that's a promise, not a limit.
The Design workspace is never metered either. Design has no limits on any Free / Hobby form — no meter signed in, no feature caps offline — so time spent in Design never counts, it carries the same green Not Metered badge, and it stays fully open even when your CAD/CAM allowance is used up.
Running out — and getting time back
You'll get a warning toast as you get low — counted in real working time, so it matches the meter — with a heads-up if a half-rate window is about to start. If you do hit zero, JetCad3 saves your work first, then shows a lockout screen with a live countdown to your next reset, a Save your work button, promo-code entry, an upgrade link, and one-click access to Design and your GcodePilot machines — both keep working while the clock is out. Anything that restores time — the reset arriving, a promo code, a bonus grant, or upgrading — unlocks the app instantly, no restart needed. You can also sign out and continue in the offline Free / Hobby mode at any time.
Lose your internet connection and nothing dramatic happens: JetCad3 keeps tracking locally through a grace period, then falls back to the offline feature set until you're back online.
Bonus time
Bonus time is spent only after your daily/weekly allowance for the moment is used up, and it shows as its own line in every meter — you always see exactly how much is left.
- Promo codes redeem in the app (usage view or lockout screen) or on your dashboard for extra hours.
- Referrals: share the invite link from your dashboard. When a friend signs up through it and puts real time into JetCad3, you both receive bonus hours automatically — usually 2 hours each. The exact amount can change during promotions, so check the pricing page for what's on offer right now.
Which form is right for you?
| Signed in (metered) | Offline (no account) | |
|---|---|---|
| Features | Everything, including Mill | Core set with limits (1 component, 5 sketches, 500-line posts) |
| Time | 1 hr/day, 5 hr/week active use — worth double in the evenings & all weekend | Unlimited |
| Design | Unlimited, never metered | Unlimited, no feature limits |
| GcodePilot | Unlimited, never metered | Unlimited, never metered |
| Needs internet | Yes (with offline grace) | No |
If your hobby starts making real money, that's what the paid plans are for — and it's exactly what keeps this tier free.