What one account seat costs

Every way of keeping accounts apart has a price, and only some of them print it. The rest charge in hardware, memory, electricity and hours, which is why the free looking method is rarely cheapest at fifty accounts.

Five things a seat is paid for

A price tag answers one question and hides four. Holding one account apart costs hardware, memory, power, licences and hours.

Hardware
Bought once, replaced when it dies.
Memory and disk
What an open account holds, and what it leaves behind.
Power and space
Anything switched on draws current and takes a desk.
Licences
A guest system, a network subscription or the tool itself.
Hours
Setup, switching, waiting for a boot, keeping copies current.

Why free hardware is not zero

A second laptop has no monthly line, so the day after purchase it reads as free. Its cost is paid in another currency: the price spread over its working life, the current it draws, the spare kept for the day it fails.

The hour is the part most people underestimate. One device you pick up out of habit, and fifty is a job of its own.

Purchase
Spread across the years the device stays usable.
Its own route out
A separate line or SIM, or the device loses its point.
Replacement
A device that dies takes its signed in sessions with it.
Attention
Charging and updating, times every device you hold.

Memory decides how many open at once

Every method that opens a real browser per account meets the memory of the machine underneath. You do not get that ceiling by guesswork: it is computed from your machine's memory, with a share left to the system.

Yours will land between four and thirty two, and on the Engine screen you can set your own.

Two limits that look alike

The pace bar only counts pages opened per profile and colours itself, and it never stops your work. The refusal comes from the other limit, the one computed from this machine's memory.

The unit that gets counted

The line item here is a profile, not a machine and not a person. Machines are billed separately, so moving your work to a second computer costs you no profiles.

The free plan carries two profiles on the same engine the paid plans run. The honest test of this axis costs nothing to start.

A profile
One seat: own storage, own readings, own route out.
A device seat
A computer allowed to sign in, counted apart.
A team seat
A colleague with their own login and a role.
The exit address
Bought from a provider, never part of a seat here.

Cost lines side by side

An empty cell means the line does not exist for that method, not that it costs nothing. A tool that never offered to separate accounts has no seat to price.

The last row is ours, and you can check all of it yourself. No cell carries anyone else's price.

Method	Hardware	Memory per open seat	Hours	Recurring
An ordinary browser as it is	Already owned	One seat for all	Sign out, sign in, repeat
Incognito mode	Already owned	A window beside the first	Sign in again after every close
Separate profiles of the browser	Already owned	A data directory each	Arranging and switching windows
An extension that rewrites values	Already owned	A tab of the same browser	Values set by hand per account	The tool, wherever it is paid
A VPN	Already owned		Switching the exit by hand	One subscription for all
A virtual machine per account	A host big enough for guests	Gigabytes of memory, tens on disk	A boot before the first click	A guest licence, where it is paid
Separate hardware per account	One device per account	Its own, entirely	Picking up, charging, updating	A line per device, and replacement
A browser with the engine itself patched	Already owned	A share of this machine's memory	A window, with no system to boot	One profile, machines counted apart

What grows with the account count

Cost per seat matters less than the slope. Hardware rises in a straight line, a guest system rises in memory, and a profile rises by a row in a table.

The slope decides where a plan stops working. Fifty accounts is fifty machines to buy, power and replace.

When a cheaper method wins

The cheapest correct tool is the one to take, and for a throwaway login that is the window already open. Nothing here argues otherwise.

A paid seat earns its price where accounts must last, stay apart and open again tomorrow.

One throwaway login
Incognito costs nothing and forgets on purpose.
A whole machine's traffic
A subscription reaches apps that are not browsers.
Walls deeper than a process
A guest system has its own kernel.
An account worth more than a laptop
Give it a laptop and pay knowingly.

What this does not claim

It does not price other tools. We publish no numbers about products we have not measured, and a figure copied from another page ages faster than this text.
It does not claim that cheaper is safer. A separate session and a steady device remove two reasons for a block out of many.
The memory ceiling is a calculation from your machine, not a measurement taken on every machine. Yours gives a different number.
The exit address is not part of a seat here. It is bought from a provider, and the catalogue in the app links outward rather than selling routes.
Hours are not converted into money above. What an hour is worth only you know, so the table says where the hours go.

How to check this

Each line below is a file you can open, and most carry a stand that turns red when behaviour stops matching the text.

The ceiling on browsers open at once comes from this machine's memory: apps/desktop/src/lib/engine-config.js · apps/desktop/test/предел-открытых.js
One limit really refuses and the other only counts: apps/desktop/src/main/main.js · apps/desktop/src/lib/pace.js · apps/web/test/потолок-это-ориентир.js
The profile quota follows the plan table and a full team refuses the next seat: packages/shared/src/index.js (PLANS) · apps/server/test/quota-follows-plan.js · apps/server/test/team-money-seats.js
The proxy catalogue links to outside providers and delivers nothing automatically: packages/shared/src/index.js (PROXY_PROVIDERS, PROXY_AUTO_DELIVERY)

Questions

Why does the hardware option look free?: Its bill arrives before the work starts and never returns as a monthly line. The purchase, the spare and the minutes of carrying it are costs no invoice repeats.
How many accounts fit on one computer?: Your plan decides how many profiles you keep, and memory decides how many open at once. That second ceiling is computed from your machine, not set the same for everyone.
Do computers count against the accounts?: No. Profiles and device seats are separate counts, so a second computer spends no profile.
Is the exit address included in a seat?: No.
What is the cheapest way to test this axis?: Open two profiles on the free plan and decide from your own readings.

Price the axis on two profiles

The free plan carries two profiles on the engine the paid plans run, so this comparison costs nothing to begin.

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