Free is not the trial. Free is the app.

Yes, for everything you use at 3am, and the free tier never expires. Logging bottles, nursing, diapers, sleep, growth and solids, voice logging, Siri, the Apple Watch app, undo, the Summary and History tabs, care summaries, sharing one log with a partner or anyone else you invite, night mode in either style, reminders, the last seven days of trends, and full JSON export are all free. Beacon Baby Plus is $24.99 a year or $2.99 a month, starts with a 7-day free trial if your Apple ID hasn't had one, and adds 30- and 90-day trends, more than one child, photos and milestones, highlights, pumping and baths, and medicines and vaccinations.

Both Plus plans start with 7 days free if your Apple ID hasn't had a Beacon Baby trial before, and the app only offers the trial when it applies. You start it from the Plus sheet inside the app and confirm with Apple; nothing is charged during the trial. Unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the trial ends, it becomes a paid subscription at the plan you picked — $24.99 a year or $2.99 a month — charged to your Apple ID. The free tier is not part of this: it never expires.

If you expect to keep Plus for more than about eight months, yearly costs less: $24.99, against $35.88 for twelve months of monthly. If you want one thing for a short stretch — pumping for a few months, say — monthly lets you stop when you are done. Both start with the same 7-day trial if your Apple ID hasn't had one. And if all you need is the 3am part, pick neither: the free tier never expires.

A second child is part of Plus. One child is free; with Plus you add more from the Family tab, each with their own name and their own log. Children sync over sharing, so everyone you share the log with sees them. If Plus lapses, children you have added stay and can still be logged, and adding another one needs Plus again.

Yes, if you are in the same Apple Family Sharing group: both Plus plans can be shared that way, so one subscription unlocks Plus on each family member's own iPhone. Sharing the log is a separate thing. It is free, and inviting someone from the Family tab shares the log, not the subscription — Plus only ever comes through Apple. Someone you share the log with outside your Apple Family Sharing group gets every free feature on the shared log, and would need their own Plus for the Plus screens.

From your Apple ID's subscriptions in the iPhone Settings app, or from Manage subscription in Beacon Baby's own Settings (the gear on Today), which opens the same screen. There is no web account to sign in to and nobody to email. Plus stays on until the end of the period you have already paid for; cancel at least 24 hours before it renews to avoid the next charge.

Nothing is deleted. Children you have added stay and can still be logged; adding another one needs Plus again. Trends go back to showing the last 7 days, but the older data is still there. Pumping, baths, medicines, vaccinations and milestones you recorded stay in History, Summary, the care summary and your export, and recorded vaccinations still print on the visit report. What locks is the Plus screens themselves, and voice and Siri stop logging pumping and baths. While Apple is retrying a failed payment, Plus stays on; a refunded subscription ends it straight away.

Nothing you logged is ever taken away — if a Plus subscription lapses, your entries stay on your device, stay in History, and stay exportable. Deleting the app removes every entry and photo from that device. If you never used sharing we hold nothing, so there is nothing for us to delete. If you did, Delete my account, under Family → Account and sync, removes your account. If nobody else is in your household, the server copy of the log goes with it; if your partner is still in it, the shared log stays with them. Either way your own log stays on your phone.

Yes, at any time, from the Trends tab: the full history exports as plain JSON with no proprietary wrapper, and can be restored from the same file. The point of keeping everything on your device is that leaving has to be as easy as arriving.

An iPhone running iOS 26 or later. There is an Apple Watch app included for watchOS 26 or later, which logs a bottle, a wet diaper, or the start or end of a nap in one tap; each tap is logged when your iPhone app next receives it. Portrait only on purpose — a landscape layout is one more thing to get wrong at 3am — and there is no iPad, Android, or web version. The app is in English.