The second bill: what the Ember Console plan covers, and where your own AI takes over

Ember Console, a session-report builder for coaches, is in closed beta, and the plan you pay for does not buy the writing. Ember runs everything around it: the recording, your letterhead, the boxes, and the prompt and eval behind each box. The sentences come from the ChatGPT, Claude or local model you already pay for. Two bills then, and the pricing page quotes only the first: the second bill is yours.

What does the Ember Console plan buy?

It buys the workflow around the writing, the part ChatGPT alone leaves to you. The landing page puts it in one line: “Ember handles the workflow your AI doesn’t, while staying accessible directly from ChatGPT, Claude, or Littlebird.”

What the plan covers:

1. It records the session, or takes a recording you made.
2. Your template carries your letterhead and a set of boxes.
3. Each box has one prompt and one eval of its own.
4. Every build sends them all to your AI.
5. Your AI reworks each box until it passes your standard.

Plan	What it covers
Free, $0, no card	4 reports a month
Individual, $8 a month billed yearly or $12 month to month	Unlimited reports and templates, team seats, no Zoom transcripts
Professional, $18 a month billed yearly or $22 month to month	Everything in Individual, plus Zoom transcripts

Every plan “keeps your letterhead, exports to PDF or Word, and your data stays yours.” No row names an AI subscription, because no plan includes one.

Who pays the second bill for the writing?

You do, on whatever plan you hold. The landing names ChatGPT, Claude and Littlebird as where Ember is reachable from, and the writing stays in the one you open.

The pages ranking highest for “ChatGPT Plus vs free” answer a narrower question. TechRadar, intuitionlabs.ai and overchat.ai each price the free ChatGPT tier against Plus for one person’s own typing.

Nobody there prices an account a tool sends work to. A comment at 187 points under the big r/ChatGPT thread on Plus names what decides it: “it just depends on how much you use it.” A workflow that sends every box to your AI moves that, and I cannot say by how much.

Which subscription to use is its own post.

What is not stated yet?

Four things, and the fact sheet that would answer them is empty:

• Which ChatGPT or Claude plan can reach Ember, and whether a free tier can.
• Whether any AI use is included in the price.
• What counts as a report against the free four.
• When the monthly allowance resets.

The first is the question to ask me before day one. A coach on a free AI tier that cannot take what a build sends it pays $8 a month billed yearly for a workflow with no writer at the end.

So ask me which plan yours needs before the first report. The workflow is the part I can price.

Questions people ask next?

Do I need a paid ChatGPT plan?

The published pricing does not say. The free plan lists “API & MCP, connects to any AI”, which tells you the connection exists, not which tier of theirs it needs. Ask me before day one.

Does the Ember Console price include any AI use?

Nothing in the published pricing says so. Individual at $8 a month billed yearly covers unlimited templates and reports inside Ember. The model writing the sentences bills you on its own plan.

What can I test on the free plan?

Four reports a month at $0, with no card and no countdown. Enough to find out whether the AI you pay for handles what a build sends it, before anything changes hands.