Bee's new paid plan doesn't mean every existing owner suddenly owes a subscription. People who bought a Bee Pioneer before October 15, 2026 keep their existing features free, according to the company's published terms. New buyers need to look more carefully at which features come with the hardware and which require Bee Pro.
The distinction matters because the service is expanding alongside two new devices. In its October 15 announcement, Amazon introduced the $74.99 Frontier, which you can wear on your wrist or clip to clothing, and the magnetic Eclipse phone attachment, starting at $99.99 and listed as coming soon. Both are intended to turn conversations into useful notes. The purchase price alone doesn't include every way of using those notes.
What stays free, and what requires Pro
The Bee Pro plan page lists conversation processing, summaries and 14 days of history in the free tier. Pro adds unlimited history, automatically suggested to-dos, conversation templates, a desktop app and connections to services including email, calendars, Alexa and Amazon.com.
Pro costs US$11.99 a month or US$99.99 a year, with 30 days included for new customers. The annual option is worth noticing: it's listed on the plan page, although the launch announcement mentions only monthly pricing. Check the plan shown in your app before subscribing.
For a new buyer, the useful question is how long you need to keep a conversation and what you want to do with it afterward. A short-lived recap may fit the free tier. If your reason for buying is to revisit months of discussions or move follow-ups into other apps, assess the paid service before deciding whether the hardware is good value.
Pioneer owners have a different decision. The published cutoff protects the features they already had; it doesn't promise every future addition free of charge. The FAQ specifically places new features such as the desktop app under Pro. Check whether you actually want an added feature before changing a plan that already does what you need.
Deleting audio doesn't erase the resulting notes
The Private Compute explanation says audio is transcribed and discarded, while the resulting transcripts and insights are encrypted using keys controlled by the customer's device. Processing uses an isolated environment on Amazon's servers. These are the company's descriptions of its protections, rather than findings from our own security testing.
That leaves two separate choices for you: whether to capture a conversation at all, and whether to retain or share the information produced from it. An audio-deletion promise doesn't answer both. Ask the people involved before capturing their conversation, and be selective about connecting other services.
Start with the feature you need, check whether your existing account already includes it, and use the trial to judge the summaries before committing to a paid plan.