Stop Paying for June: How to Buy Student Software by the Semester

A four-month course does not need a twelve-month subscription. For most student software the cheapest way to pay is month by month, only in the months you actually use it, cancelling before the break. This post works through the arithmetic, the questions to ask before you subscribe to anything, and exactly what LetX does and does not offer.

Why student software bills by the year

Courses run in terms with breaks between them. Subscriptions run on a calendar of their own: they renew every month or every year on the date you signed up, whether or not you have an essay due. A yearly plan is usually discounted to win the longer commitment, and the discount is real, but it only saves money if you would have paid for most of those months anyway. If your heavy use is a thesis term and an exam season, a year’s subscription pays for the summer too.

The other cost is the renewal you forget. A monthly plan left running over a long break costs a month’s price each month until someone notices. Neither problem needs a special semester plan to solve. It needs monthly billing, a cancel button that works without a phone call, and a free tier that keeps your files when you stop paying.

The break-even rule: monthly or yearly?

Divide the yearly price by the monthly price. The answer is the number of months of use at which the yearly plan becomes cheaper. Many plans, LetX’s included, price a year at ten months (“two months free”), so the yearly plan wins only if you need it for more than ten months. Here is the arithmetic for LetX Academic Pro, which is $9 a month or $90 a year before tax:

Pro has the same ratio at twice the price, $18 a month or $180 a year, so the same ten-month rule applies. Checkout adds any sales tax, VAT or GST that applies where you live. The rule only holds if you really do cancel when the term ends, which is the point of the next sections.

What LetX sells, and what it does not

LetX does not sell a semester plan. When this post first went up in January 2026 we announced a 120-day “Semester Pass”. It never shipped, and nothing is sold under that name. What LetX does sell keeps the two rules that pass was meant to deliver: pay only for the months you write, and keep your work when you stop.

• Free: no time limit, unlimited projects and collaborators, and 40 compiles a day, which covers most coursework.
• Academic Pro: $9 a month or $90 a year for verified students, faculty and university staff. It matches Pro on compiles, build time, version history, the priority queue and GitHub sync, with a smaller monthly Lexi allowance. How verification works.
• Pro: $18 a month or $180 a year, for anyone.
• Billing: monthly or yearly by card. Cancel any time from Plan and billing; you keep access until the end of the period you paid for. Payments are non-refundable except where the law requires, and partial periods are not refunded, as the refund policy explains.

How to pay for one term on LetX

1. Start on Free. Write the first weeks of the term there. Many students never need more.
2. Verify once, before you need it. Upload a current transcript or a student or staff ID. Approval lasts a year, and approval unlocks the price, not a plan: nothing is charged until you subscribe.
3. Subscribe monthly when the work gets heavy, for a thesis chapter, a long lab report or a build that needs more than the free plan gives.
4. Note the renewal date. Plan and billing shows the date your plan renews. Put the day before it in your calendar.
5. Cancel when the term’s work is handed in. After you cancel, Plan and billing says the plan will not renew and shows the date your paid access runs to.
6. Subscribe again next term. Inside the year your verification lasts, there is no new document to upload.

What happens to your work when you cancel

Your projects stay where they are and stay editable, because the free plan has no limit on projects or collaborators. Co-authors keep their access. What stops at the end of the paid period are the paid features: unlimited compiles go back to 40 a day, builds go back to the free plan’s length, version history shows the recent versions rather than the full history, and GitHub sync and the monthly Lexi allowance stop. One thing to check before cancelling in the middle of a crunch: a very large thesis that needs the longer paid build time may not finish within the free plan’s, so compare the two on the pricing page first. And whatever plan you are on, Download Source gives you the whole project as a zip.

For teachers: seats for the length of a course

A teacher can do the same for a class. Collaborators are free on every plan, so students can share their projects with you and every teaching assistant without paying anything. When some of them need Pro for the term, a Team buys seats for exactly those students: $20 per seat a month or $200 a year, for 2 to 50 people on one bill. Give the seats out at the start of term and take them back when the course ends; adding seats is charged for the rest of the period, and paying for fewer starts at the next renewal. Team can be paid month by month too. More on running a course in LaTeX for classes and the TA’s grading guide.

A checklist for any student subscription

These apply to every tool you pay for as a student, not only LetX:

• Does cancelling end access now or at the end of the period? If now, cancel on the last day; if at the end, cancel as soon as you know.
• Is there a refund for a yearly plan you stop using? Read the refund policy before paying for twelve months, not after.
• What happens to your files on the free tier? A tool that locks or deletes your work when you stop paying turns a monthly plan into a yearly one.
• Does academic pricing need re-verification, and how often? Plan it around the start of term, not the week of a deadline.
• Does a group plan exist? If your supervisor or department already pays for one, you may not need your own.

For how LetX checks academic status, and why an email address is not the proof, see academic pricing explained. If you are weighing editors on cost, Overleaf pricing in 2026 walks through its plans and how LetX compares.