Ploomily

Changelog

What we’ve shipped

We build Ploomily in the open and write these in plain language — no “various improvements and bug fixes.” Here’s what’s new.

September 21, 2026

Rescue payments that survive a reload

  • Paying for Plant Rescue and reloading the page before Paddle has told us about it no longer risks a lost hand-off or a second checkout in the same tab. While we cannot yet see the payment, the screen says so and keeps checking rather than guessing.
  • Starting a rescue plan for a plant that already has one open now points you at the saved plan instead of failing quietly. A photo added to a rescue has to belong to that plant, and a finished rescue still accepts its after photos.
  • The email that warns a Plant Rescue account its window is ending counts only the steps you can still log, so it no longer over-counts what is left.
September 17, 2026

Reference photos to compare against, and a few more true numbers

  • When a photo ID offers candidates, each one shows the library's reference photo of that species beside your picture, so you compare a plant to a plant rather than to a name.
  • Every plant's page shows a reference photo of its species, captioned as exactly that — a photograph of the species from Wikimedia Commons, not your plant. A plant running on a relative's care sheet says so in the caption.
  • The toast after tapping Done prints the next date the schedule moved to. An overdue task can be logged on the day it was due. The add flow shows the first watering date the engine set, with its reason.
September 16, 2026

A photograph for every species

  • Every species in the care library has a real photograph from Wikimedia Commons — in the library, on every public guide, in search and in the light tool — with the photographer and licence credited under each one and on a photo-credits page.
  • Seventeen of the twenty rescue protocols carry a photograph of what the problem looks like on someone else's plant. Every caption says so, and beside a diagnosis it adds that the photo does not confirm the match. Three protocols have no photo on purpose, because a photo that does not show the problem is worse than none.
September 12, 2026

A light tool you can see, and a long list of fixes

  • The light tool is visual now. Point the camera at a spot and watch the reading settle, or pick a band by hand if the camera isn't an option — and either way you can save the result straight onto a plant, which feeds its watering schedule.
  • A band you pick by hand is labelled as your choice, not as a measurement. The camera gives an estimate with real limits — window glare, a phone case, auto-exposure — and those limits are on screen before you save anything, rather than in a footnote after.
  • Fixed a crash on the billing page for paused or cancelling subscribers, plain-text email links, and dozens of smaller honesty and recovery fixes. Several of these were places where a failed read could look like an empty answer: no care logged, no problems found, no plants. A screen that cannot reach its data now says so and offers a retry, instead of quietly telling you there is nothing there.
  • Public care guides: the pet-safety note under every guide now names both lists we follow and points you at the one that particular plant is matched to. It used to send you to the ASPCA's list even for the handful of plants whose record comes from Pet Poison Helpline instead — a list that does not carry them.
September 11, 2026

Plant Rescue, annual only, and results by email

  • Plant Rescue is live end to end: a symptom-and-photo check, an honest diagnosis, and a dated recovery plan saved to the plant and laid out on Today. While a plan is running you can re-check the plant without starting a second one.
  • A rescue step and its care history are saved together, in one transaction. A step can no longer show as done without the log behind it, and if the app can't tell whether a save landed it says so and lets you retry rather than guessing.
  • Requesting a refund now shows you exactly where it stands. Paddle, our merchant of record, may review a request before approving it: a pending request leaves your access exactly as it was, and only an approval ends the subscription it covers. Reloading the page shows the real state rather than creating a second request.
  • The monthly payment option is retired. Ploomily is one annual subscription plus the one-time Plant Rescue, and nothing in checkout, on the billing screen or in our emails offers a month-to-month plan. If you are reading an older page of ours that mentions one, it is out of date — tell us and we will fix it.
  • The free tools can send you their result: the pet-safety card, or a watering estimate for a plant you haven't added yet. One email, to the address you type, and asking for it does not sign you up for anything. Every one carries an unsubscribe link, and if you have unsubscribed before we will not send it at all. The results stay on the page whether or not you give us an address.
September 4, 2026

Refunding now cancels the subscription too

  • Take a refund inside the 30-day guarantee and the subscription now ends at the same moment. You get the whole charge back, so the access it paid for stops rather than running on to the end of the year, and nothing renews later.
  • Why: someone asking for their money back inside 30 days wants out. Leaving them subscribed meant a charge landing twelve months later for a product they had already been refunded for — which is the exact surprise this whole brand is built against, aimed at the one person who had just asked to be made whole. We used to cover that with a disclosure screen. A disclosure is not a fix for a default that is wrong.
  • What it costs you, said plainly: if you refund on day 2 of a year, you lose the other 363 days. That is a real loss and it is the reason this is announced here rather than left in the fine print. Refunding and canceling are now two different things — canceling still stops future charges and keeps your access to the end of the period you already paid for, because we haven't given that money back.
  • Nothing is deleted, ever. My Jungle and Today stay open to read, your plants, photos, notes and history stay saved, and the export never goes behind the paywall.
  • If a refund goes through but the cancellation doesn't, the app tells you both things and puts the cancel button right there. It will never confirm a refund as a clean exit while a renewal is still armed.
September 4, 2026

Photo ID: 10 a month, and the reasoning

  • Photo plant ID is now 10 a month on Ploomily Base, down from 20. Photo health diagnoses stay at 10 a month, and the 25-plant limit is unchanged.
  • Why: ten a month is 130 a year, more than five times a full 25-plant collection, and identifying a plant is usually a one-time act — you snap it when it arrives and then never again. Twenty a month was double that, and we were paying for the difference on every account whether it was used or not.
  • We should be straight about what this is. We have no usage data yet — nobody has bought the plan — so this is a judgement, not a measurement. And we are not going to claim twenty was unreachable: you can archive plants to make room for new ones, and you can identify a plant you don't own yet. What we can say is that ten is generous against a collection capped at 25.
  • Why diagnoses are not being cut: a sick plant is worth photographing more than once — before, during and after a rescue — and with 25 plants more than one can be struggling at the same time. That limit is doing a job, so it stays.
  • We are saying the cost part out loud too: every photo call is billed to us per photo, and this trims a tail that had a real price and no real use. We made the change before anyone had bought the plan, so it changes the terms for nobody. If the new number turns out to bite people who are using the app normally, it goes back up — we can see that in our own usage records, and we will look.
  • Free access now includes 5 photo IDs for the whole trial rather than 10, for the same reason: free access is there to show you the mechanism, and it should not quietly equal a full paid month.
September 4, 2026

A number on Ask Ploomily

  • Ask Ploomily now includes 100 questions a month, counted and shown on your billing page alongside your plant, photo-ID and diagnosis limits. It resets on the 1st. If you reach it, the app says so and tells you when it comes back — it does not fail silently or quietly stop answering.
  • Why we did it, plainly: every answer costs us money to generate, and until now nothing in the app bounded that. We set the number before anyone had bought the plan, so it changes the terms for nobody. Three questions a day is well above what the feature is for; if that turns out to be wrong once real usage exists, the number goes up, not down.
September 2, 2026

A simpler offer, and a guarantee with a name

  • One price, paid on the day you join — the founding rate current when you sign up, shown in full by Paddle before you confirm. No free period to track, no conversion date to brace for.
  • The No-Crispy-Leaves Guarantee — 30 days from any charge, request a full refund inside the app, with no reason required. Paddle may review before approval. For help, email hello@ploomily.com.
  • A founding price that rises about 20% after every 10 members join, stated publicly rather than hidden behind a countdown. Whatever you join at is locked for as long as you stay subscribed.
  • The old 21-day free period is retired for new members. Anyone already inside one keeps it to the end and will never be charged without entering a card.
August 31, 2026

A smarter library and real photo ID

  • Real photo Plant ID and health diagnosis — snap a picture to identify a species or check a struggling plant.
  • A free, public plant library: 200 in-depth care guides, honest cat-and-dog toxicity records compiled by following the ASPCA's published lists, and curated collections like pet-safe, low-light, and easy-for-beginners.
  • A camera light meter that gauges how much light a spot gets and suggests plants that suit it.
  • Ask Ploomily — a care assistant that answers questions grounded in your own plants and our library, keeps cats and dogs separate on pet safety, and tells you when it isn't sure.
August 30, 2026

A calmer, more capable app

  • A ground-up redesign in a warm, botanical style — editorial type, real icons, and a genuinely premium feel.
  • Dark mode, with a Light / Dark / System toggle in Settings.
  • Deeper care tracking: repotting and propagation history, room-humidity context that feeds the schedule, and 'how much water' guidance per pot.
  • Our own transactional email — reminders, digests, magic links and billing notices — now sends from ploomily.com, fully authenticated (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Payment receipts and invoices still come from Paddle, our merchant of record.
August 29, 2026

Ploomily launches

  • An adaptive care engine, not a fixed timer: watering reads your home, the season and your local climate; feeding follows the growing season and pauses in the plant's own rest season.
  • Your logged jungle, with photo timelines for every plant.
  • 20 step-by-step rescue protocols with dated recovery plans.
  • Vacation mode and a shareable sitter link.
  • Radical-trust billing: a 3-day heads-up before every renewal, one-tap cancel, and 30-day self-service refunds.
  • Installable as an app, offline-tolerant, with email digests and one-tap logging.