Questions
The things people ask us first
Answered in the order they usually come up: what this is, what it would take, what it costs, and what happens to your work if you ever want to leave.
Deciding
Is this for us?
- What does Steptree actually do?
- It writes your SOPs. Somebody does a job once on Windows or Mac with the recorder on. Steptree writes the SOP: the goal, numbered steps with screenshots under them, and the judgement calls they flagged. A person approves it. Then your team follows it, and your AI reads it: Claude over MCP, or Steptree AI in the Steptree App.
- Is this a documentation tool or an automation tool?
- A documentation tool. Steptree is documentation with AI: AI writes the SOP from one recording, a person approves it, and your team and your AI read it. If you later want a job done for you, an agent can be built from the same SOPs, but the SOP is what you are buying.
- Do I need to know how to code?
- No, and you do not need anyone technical to set it up. If you can do the job, you can record it. Everything after that is reading the SOP that came back, correcting anything wrong, and pressing approve.
- How long until I get something useful?
- Your first SOP takes as long as the job itself takes, plus a few minutes to read it through. Most people have an approved SOP the same afternoon. You can do that on the free plan with no card. Every AI model is available until your 300 monthly credits are used, so you test it on a real process first.
- Our core system is ancient and has no API. Does that rule us out?
- No. Steptree records any app on your computer, on Windows or Mac, including systems nobody has touched in twenty years. It needs no API, because it records the screen the way you use it.
- Does anything get published without a person?
- No. Every SOP arrives as a draft, and its owner, a manager of its team or an admin publishes it. You choose who reads each one: private, its team, or a public link. Skills and agents work the same way, and nothing runs until somebody deploys it.
- How is this different from pointing ChatGPT at our documents?
- A general AI answers from what it has read, and it answers confidently when it has read nothing relevant. Steptree gives it something worth reading: SOPs written from real work and approved by your team. Connect Claude over MCP, or ask Steptree AI in the Steptree App, and the answer comes from your own SOPs.
- What happens to sensitive information in a recording?
- Password and secure fields are skipped as the recording happens, so they are never captured. Emails and card numbers are stripped from the recorded text before it is stored. Each workspace is sealed off inside the database rather than by application code remembering to check. Credentials for your connected systems are encrypted and never sent to an AI model. Screenshots are kept as taken, and any step can be deleted before the SOP is written.
- Can we take our Documentation with us if we stop paying?
- Nothing is deleted when a paid plan ends. The workspace moves to Free and keeps every SOP, which you can still open, edit and share, and your AI can still read over MCP. Every skill you compiled still downloads as a SKILL.md file. Each person can also download a copy of their own data from Settings, including the SOPs they created. There is no PDF or Word export.
- What does it cost?
- Paid plans start at $23 per user per month on Pro, billed yearly. On Team you only pay for the people who create and edit SOPs, and everyone who only reads and follows them is free. Prove it first on Free: 300 AI credits a month and 2 recordings, no card, and your AI can read the SOPs on Free too.
Starting
What it takes to begin
- What do we need before we start?
- One person, one job they know how to do, and about a minute to set up the recorder. No project, no rollout, and nothing for the rest of the team to learn before it is useful to the first one.
- Which process should we record first?
- The one only one person can do. It costs you the most when they are away, and the person doing it understands it best. The before-and-after is clear enough to judge whether to do the next twenty.
- Do we have to change how we work?
- No. You do the job the way you already do it, once, with the recorder on. Capturing what already happens is the point — and if the process needs improving, it is far easier to see once it is written down.
- What if our process is messy or full of exceptions?
- Most are. When you hit the part that depends on judgement, say so as you go: what you chose and why. It lands in the procedure as a rule instead of being lost.
- Who has to approve things?
- Somebody in your business, always. An SOP reaches your team when its owner, a manager of its team or an admin approves it. Skills and agents work the same way: nothing here publishes or runs itself.
- What if we need help?
- It is all inside Steptree once you are signed in. Guides you can search. An assistant that can see your own procedures and answers for free. And a way to reach a person that keeps the whole conversation in one place. There is nothing separate to sign up for.
Paying
Plans, credits and what you keep
The full plan comparison, including what each one includes, is on the pricing page.
See the plans- What can I actually do on the free plan?
- The whole product, at a small scale, for as long as you like. Record 2 procedures, turn them into SOPs, approve and share them, and connect your AI to read them. You can also compile 2 skills and deploy 1 agent. Recording works exactly as it does on a paid plan, and the 2 are one shared pool across both desktop apps. Every AI model is available while your 300 credits last, frontier ones included; once they are used the free models keep working, so nothing goes dark until the month resets. Delete a recording or a skill and its slot comes straight back.
- Who do I have to pay for?
- Only the people who create — anyone who records a procedure, edits an SOP, compiles a skill or builds an agent. Free and Pro are one user each; Team is priced per user and you choose how many at checkout, up to 100. On Team, everyone who only reads the SOPs and follows them is free, and there is no limit on how many of them you have. Somebody in several teams still counts as one user.
- Is there a free trial?
- Free is the trial. Every model, until your 300 credits are used, no card. After that the free models keep working and you upgrade when you want the rest.
- Can I add a colleague?
- On Team, yes — it is priced per user, so inviting somebody adds one user at the per-user price and anyone who only reads and asks questions stays free. Free and Pro are single-user plans: a second person means moving to Team, and Steptree says so at the moment you type the address rather than after you have paid.
- What happens to my work if I downgrade?
- Nothing is deleted. Recordings, Documentation and skills all stay. Features above your new plan stop, and agents beyond the new limit are paused rather than removed, so upgrading again brings them straight back. If you drop to the free plan holding more than 2 recordings, you keep every one — you just cannot add another until you delete some. People work the same way: nobody is removed from the workspace, you simply cannot add another user until you upgrade again.
- Can I take my Documentation elsewhere?
- Partly, and on every plan. Any SOP can be compiled to a SKILL.md file, plain markdown that other AI tools already read, and a compiled skill downloads on any plan. Your AI reads every SOP over MCP, and each person can download a copy of their own data, SOPs included, from Settings. There is no PDF or Word export.
- What is different about Enterprise?
- Enterprise runs on its own instance: a database and deployment of its own rather than a share of a common one. Single sign-on, automatic user provisioning, audit logs and a service-level agreement come with it. There is no choice of data region and no customer-managed encryption key today. Your own redaction patterns for recorded text come with every plan from Pro up.
- What if I add someone halfway through the month?
- On Team you are charged for the part of the month you used them, and removing someone credits the unused time against your next invoice.
- Can my team just ask an agent in Slack?
- Yes, from Pro up. Bind an agent to Slack, Teams, Discord, Telegram, email, SMS, WhatsApp, GitHub or Linear, and it answers in the thread where somebody asked, from the Documentation it was compiled from. Pro includes 2 channels and Team includes 10. You bring your own workspace credentials, so it posts as your app rather than ours, and Steptree verifies every inbound signature before anything runs.
- What does it mean to publish an agent to the cloud?
- It moves the agent off your machine onto a server that stays up, so it works with nobody watching. A schedule fires on Sunday. An email arrives at 3am. A question lands in Slack. Each deployment carries its own tool list, step ceiling and per-run credit limit. Some jobs genuinely need a real screen. Steptree refuses to publish those to the cloud and names the step that needs a machine. They run in the desktop app instead, with an approval before each action.
- What is an AI credit?
- It is what Steptree charges when it runs an AI model for you — generating a Document, compiling a skill, building an agent, or answering a question. Every plan includes a monthly allowance per user: 300 on Free, 1,500 on Pro, and 1,500 for each user on Team, pooled into one workspace balance. What a run costs depends on the model: the free models cost nothing at all, and the rest cost proportionally more the more capable they are. Every plan reaches every model, frontier ones included — you are buying how much you can run, not which models you are allowed.
- What happens if I run out of credits?
- With a card on file, nothing stops. The extra is billed at $0.015 per credit on your next invoice. An admin can set a hard cap in Settings if you would rather be stopped than surprised. Without a card, on Free, the paid models drop out and the free ones keep working until the month resets. Chat and your agent carry on, and nothing is ever charged.
- I'm on an annual plan — when is AI usage billed?
- Monthly, on its own invoice, separately from what you pay for your users. Your allowance resets each month rather than building up over the year, so a heavy month is settled promptly instead of becoming a surprise at renewal.
- Do credits roll over?
- No. The allowance resets each billing period. It is sized so normal use never gets near the ceiling, rather than as a balance to save up.
- Is there a way to run without spending credits at all?
- Yes. Some models are free of charge to us, and running on those costs no credits on any plan, including the free one. They sit at the bottom of the model list.
Next
Still deciding?
Three jobs, before and after
What actually changed for the people who used to do them by hand.
Why not another way?
Doing it yourself, a screen recorder, an RPA platform, or a chatbot over your docs.
Help when you need it
What happens when something breaks, and how quickly you hear back.
Do one real job once, and read the SOP Steptree writes
Record it on Windows or Mac. Steptree writes the SOP with the goal, the steps and the judgement calls. Approve it, share it with your team, and connect your AI. Free to start, no card.
