Short answer: LiquidText Basic is free. LiquidText Pro 2023 is a one-time purchase of $89.99 for one platform. LiquidText LIVE, the cloud subscription that works on iPad, Mac and Windows together, costs $8.99 a month billed yearly or $10.99 month to month, and LIVE Unlimited costs $15.99 a month billed yearly or $18.99 monthly. Those are US prices; LiquidText charges less in some other countries.
Most pages that answer "how much is LiquidText" quote $4.99 and $7.99 a month. Those numbers are real, but they are not what a buyer in the United States pays. LiquidText sets prices by country, and its own pricing service returns a higher price list for the US than for many other markets. The figures on this page come from that service with the country set to the United States, so they match what you will see at checkout from a US address, before sales tax.
LiquidText pricing for every plan
| Basic | Pro 2023 | LIVE | LIVE Unlimited | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $89.99 once | $8.99 a month billed yearly, or $10.99 monthly | $15.99 a month billed yearly, or $18.99 monthly |
| Yearly cost | $0 | $89.99 in year one, then $0 | $107.88 yearly, or $131.88 paid monthly | $191.88 yearly, or $227.88 paid monthly |
| Platforms | iPad, Mac, Windows | One platform, up to 5 personal devices on it | All platforms on one subscription | All platforms on one subscription |
| Multi-document projects, inking, tagging, OCR | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cloud project storage | None | None | 1 GB | Unlimited |
| Real-time sync and backup | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Collaboration | No | No | One colleague | One colleague, or unlimited for $20.99 a month billed yearly ($24.99 monthly) |
| Feature updates | Basic features | The 2023 feature set | Included | Included, plus priority support |
LIVE starts with a one-week free trial. Pro 2023 has no trial of its own, but the free Basic app lets you test the reading and excerpting workflow on your own PDFs before you pay for anything.
Is LiquidText a one-time purchase?
It can be. Pro 2023 is a one-time payment of $89.99 that keeps working with no subscription. The catch is in the name: you buy the 2023 feature set for one platform. If you read on an iPad and write on a Windows laptop, a Pro license covers only one of them, and features added after 2023 go to LIVE subscribers. LIVE is the only plan that is one price for every operating system you use.
That makes the choice simpler than it looks. One device type and no need to sync, buy Pro once. Two device types, or a need to have the same project open on a tablet and a desktop at the same time, and you are really choosing between LIVE and LIVE Unlimited.
LiquidText LIVE vs LIVE Unlimited
The difference that matters for most buyers is storage. LIVE includes 1 GB of cloud project storage. That is plenty for a semester of journal articles or a few dozen contracts, but scanned exhibits, image-heavy reports and deposition transcripts fill it quickly. LIVE Unlimited removes the storage cap and adds priority support, document replacement (swap in a revised version of a file without losing your notes on it) and extra search actions.
Collaboration is the second difference. Both LIVE tiers let you share a project with one colleague in near real time. Only Unlimited can be upgraded to unlimited collaborators, at $20.99 a month billed yearly. A litigation team of three or four people reviewing the same record needs that upgrade, which puts the real price closer to $252 a year for the account that owns the projects.
Is LiquidText free?
The Basic version is free on iPad, Mac and Windows and is genuinely useful: the reading view, excerpts linked back to the source, pinch search, notes and export. What it cannot do is hold several documents in one project, so the moment you want to compare a contract against its amendments, or pull quotes from ten papers into one workspace, you are into Pro or LIVE.
Does LiquidText have a student discount?
Yes, but only inside the app. LiquidText's pricing page says student pricing is available when you upgrade from within the LiquidText app, and it does not publish the discounted rate on the web. If you are a student, install the free version first and check the upgrade screen before paying the full price on the website.
What LiquidText really costs over three years
| Setup | Year 1 | Years 2 and 3 | Three-year total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pro 2023, one platform | $89.99 | $0 | $89.99, no new features |
| LIVE, billed yearly | $107.88 | $215.76 | $323.64 |
| LIVE Unlimited, billed yearly | $191.88 | $383.76 | $575.64 |
| LIVE Unlimited with unlimited collaborators, billed yearly | $251.88 | $503.76 | $755.64 |
| MentalClone Starter, billed yearly | $288 | $576 | $864, AI answers included |
On price alone LiquidText is good value, especially Pro for someone who works on a single iPad. For close reading with a pen, building an argument out of excerpts and linking every note back to the exact line in the source, very little does it better. Our LiquidText alternative comparison says so too, and lists where it beats us.
When LiquidText is the wrong purchase
The price is rarely why people look elsewhere. These are:
- You are on Android or a Chromebook. LiquidText runs on iPad, Mac and Windows. There is no Android app and no browser version.
- You want answers, not a workspace. LiquidText is built for you to read, excerpt and connect ideas by hand. None of its pricing tiers lists an AI assistant that answers questions across your whole collection. If what you need is "which of these 40 contracts has a change of control clause, and what does it say", reading each one in a better reader is still reading each one.
- Someone else needs to ask the questions. Collaboration means a colleague working inside LiquidText with you. A client or a partner who just wants answers from your files would need their own copy and a seat on your project.
That second case is what MentalClone is for. You upload PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets, scans and notes once, ask in plain English, and the answer comes only from those files, in the voice of your own writing. It runs in any browser, so Android and Chromebook are fine, and you can give a client a private link that works without an account. Plans are on the MentalClone pricing page, and the demo box at the top of this article answers three questions about a paragraph of your own writing before you sign up.
Attorneys who use LiquidText to work through a record often pair it with a separate case law search tool for the research side, since annotating the documents you have and finding the authorities you do not are different jobs. If your reading tool is DEVONthink rather than LiquidText, the same cost breakdown is in our DEVONthink pricing article.
Questions people ask before buying LiquidText
How much does LiquidText cost?
In the US, LiquidText Basic is free, Pro 2023 is $89.99 once for one platform, LIVE is $8.99 a month billed yearly or $10.99 monthly, and LIVE Unlimited is $15.99 a month billed yearly or $18.99 monthly. Unlimited collaborators raise Unlimited to $20.99 a month billed yearly. Prices are lower in some countries.
Why do some sites list LiquidText at $4.99 a month?
Because LiquidText prices by country. Its pricing service returns $4.99 for LIVE and $6.99 for LIVE Unlimited in some markets, and those numbers get copied into software directories. From a US address the same plans are $8.99 and $15.99 a month billed yearly, so budget with the US figures.
Is LiquidText worth it?
For people who read long documents closely on an iPad or Windows tablet, such as attorneys, researchers and students, yes. Pro at $89.99 once is hard to beat for a single device. It is less worth it if you need Android, want AI answers across many files, or need clients to query your documents.
Can I use LiquidText on multiple devices?
Pro 2023 runs on up to five personal devices on the same platform, for example several iPads. To use it on an iPad and a Windows PC together, with projects synced between them, you need a LIVE subscription, which is one price for every platform.
Does LiquidText have an enterprise plan?
Yes. LiquidText has an Enterprise Edition for organizations. Its price is not on the public pricing page, so firms that want central licensing ask LiquidText for a quote instead of buying individual LIVE subscriptions.