Plans and limits
Compare the DS Manager Free, Pro and Lifetime plans for your shadcn design system: systems, published registries, AI usage, API keys and billing.
DS Manager has a Free plan and a Pro plan. You pay for Pro monthly or yearly, or once with Lifetime. All prices are in US dollars. To see your plan or upgrade, open the account menu, choose Settings… and go to Plans.
Compare plans
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0, free forever | $19 per month, $180 per year ($15 a month), or $249 once for Lifetime |
| Systems in your account | 3 | 30 |
| Published registries | 1 | 10 |
| AI usage | $1, once | $5 every month on Monthly and Yearly; $5 once on Lifetime |
| Full editor | Yes | Yes |
| Share links | Yes | Yes |
| ProBlocks | The first block of each category (24 blocks) | All 205 blocks |
| Custom components | No | Yes |
| Your own AI API keys | No | Yes |
| Future Pro features | No | Yes |
Lifetime is Pro paid once, with the same limits and features as the subscriptions. It costs $249 as a one-time payment. The one difference is AI usage: Lifetime includes $5 once, and the subscriptions add $5 each month.
You can use the editor without an account, and those systems stay in your browser. The limits above count the systems in your account. See Using it without an account.
Buy Pro
- Open Settings… from the account menu and go to Plans.
- Pick Monthly, Yearly or Lifetime above the cards.
- Click Get Pro Monthly, Get Pro Yearly or Get Pro Lifetime.
Payment runs through Polar (Stripe), and tax is added at checkout where it applies. Your plan is active as soon as the payment is confirmed. Settings > Account then shows the plan and when it renews.
You can also buy from the DS Manager pricing section on this site. The checkout then asks for your GitHub account email: enter the email on the GitHub account you sign in to DS Manager with, and the plan attaches to that account the next time you sign in.
Systems and registries
Systems counts every design system in your account, published or not. At the limit, the New design system dialog explains it and won't create another. On Free it reads: "Your plan holds 3 systems and you have 3. Pro holds 30." Delete a system from Manage systems… in the system switcher to make room.
Published registries counts the systems you have published as a shadcn/ui registry. Unpublish stops a registry serving but keeps its slot. To free the slot, use Destroy in the Publish tab of Get code. Destroying a registry stops its install command for good and can't be undone. See Publish and install.
AI usage
AI usage is a dollar balance that pays for the design agent. It is charged at the model provider's own rate. Settings > Account shows what is left.
- Free: $1, added the first time you open the Agent tab, once your account is at least ten minutes old and owns at least one system. It is never refilled.
- Pro Monthly and Yearly: $5 every month, which is about 90 turns. On Yearly the $5 arrives each month of the year.
- Lifetime: $5 once.
When the balance reaches zero, the agent stops. DS Manager never bills you for more usage.
Your own API keys
On Pro you can run the agent on your own Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI or Google account. Add a key in Settings > API keys. Keys are checked with the provider, stored encrypted and never shown again. That provider's models then appear in the agent's model menu. Turns on them are billed by your provider and don't spend your DS Manager balance.
On Free, the API keys tab shows Get Pro to access API keys.
What Pro unlocks
- More room: 30 systems and 10 published registries.
- Monthly AI usage: $5 every month on Monthly and Yearly.
- Custom components: ask the agent for a component shadcn/ui does not ship, and it joins your system with the rest.
- All ProBlocks: Free includes the first block of each category. Pro unlocks all 205.
- Your own API keys for the agent.
- All future Pro features, on every Pro option including Lifetime.
Cancel or change your plan
Open Settings > Account and click Manage billing. It opens the customer portal, where you cancel a subscription or switch between monthly and yearly.
A cancelled subscription keeps Pro until the end of the period you paid for. Settings > Account shows "Ends" with the date Pro stops.
There are no refunds.
When Pro ends
When a subscription ends, your account moves to Free. Nothing is deleted:
- Every registry you published keeps serving, and projects keep installing from it.
- While you hold more registries than Free covers, publishing again is refused with "Your plan covers 1 registry and you hold 3. Everything you published keeps serving. To publish again, upgrade or destroy a registry."
- While you hold more systems than Free covers, you can't create a new one.
- Custom components you already made stay in the left navigation, and adding new ones needs Pro.
- Style edits you made to Pro-only ProBlocks stay, but you can't change those blocks any more.
Upgrade again, or destroy registries and delete systems until you are within the Free limits.