Author42 is an AI-powered writing platform designed for authors. It provides a suite of tools to help you write, edit, and publish your work more effectively. The platform includes fiction writing assistance with StorySpark, content generation, story planning, character development, and more.

Whether you're writing a novel, short story, or non-fiction book, Author42's AI tools help you work smarter at every stage of the creative process.

Author42 offers monthly and annual billing cycles. When you subscribe to a paid plan, you start with a 14-day free trial. After the trial, your payment method is charged automatically at the start of each billing period.

You can view your billing history, current plan, and usage on your Billing page. Invoices and receipts are available as PDF downloads.

If your usage exceeds your plan's token limit, overage charges are calculated at $0.0002 per token and added to your next invoice.

Tokens are the unit of measurement for AI processing on Author42. When you use any AI feature (generating text, editing, brainstorming), both your input and the AI's output are measured in tokens.

As a rough guide, 1 token is approximately 0.75 words. So 100,000 tokens is roughly equivalent to processing 75,000 words of combined input and output.

Each plan includes a monthly token allowance:

• Free: 10,000 tokens/month
• Starter: 100,000 tokens/month
• Pro: 500,000 tokens/month
• Studio: 1,000,000 tokens/month

Your token usage resets every 30 days.

Author42 uses shared session cookies across the .author42.com domain. When you log in at author42.com, your session is automatically recognized by all Author42 applications, including fiction.author42.com (StorySpark) and any future vertical apps.

This means you only need to sign in once. If your browser doesn't support third-party cookies, we fall back to JWT-based authentication passed between apps.

Yes, you can cancel your subscription at any time from your Billing page. When you cancel:

• Your paid features remain active until the end of your current billing period
• You will not be charged again
• Your account reverts to the Free plan after the billing period ends
• Your content and data are preserved even on the Free plan

You can resubscribe at any time to regain access to paid features.

We accept all major credit and debit cards through Stripe, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. Stripe also supports Apple Pay and Google Pay in supported browsers.

All payment processing is handled securely by Stripe. Author42 never stores your full card number.

We take data security seriously. Here's how we protect your information:

• Passwords are hashed with scrypt and random salts (never stored in plain text)
• Sessions use secure, httpOnly cookies with CSRF protection
• All data is transmitted over TLS-encrypted connections
• API keys are stored as SHA-256 hashes
• Rate limiting protects against brute-force attacks
• We do not use your content to train AI models

For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

Each plan offers progressively more tokens and features:

• Free ($0): 10,000 tokens/month. Great for trying out the platform.
• Starter ($20/mo): 100,000 tokens/month. All core AI tools, export features, and email support.
• Pro ($40/mo): 500,000 tokens/month. Everything in Starter plus advanced AI models, priority queue, and API access.
• Studio ($80/mo): 1,000,000 tokens/month. Everything in Pro plus team collaboration (coming soon), custom integrations, and dedicated support.

All paid plans include a 14-day free trial. Annual billing saves approximately 17%. Visit our Pricing page for full details.

Discount codes can be applied on the Pricing page before checkout. There are three types of codes:

• Percentage discount: Reduces your subscription price by a percentage (e.g., 25% off).
• Fixed amount: Reduces your price by a fixed dollar amount.
• Token grant: Adds bonus tokens to your account immediately.

Some codes may have usage limits, expiration dates, or restrictions to specific plans. Each code can typically be used once per account.

API keys allow you to access Author42's features programmatically. You can create and manage keys from your Account page.

• Each key has a unique prefix (e.g., a42_xxx...) for identification
• The full key is shown only once at creation -- save it securely
• Keys are rate-limited to prevent abuse
• You can set an optional expiration date
• Revoke keys instantly if compromised

Use API keys in the Authorization header: Bearer a42_your_key_here. API keys are available on Pro and Studio plans.