Membership & advertising
Last updated: October 11, 2026
Free, Plus and Premium
Individual and Family each offer Free, Plus and Premium memberships. Free needs no payment details and includes clearly labelled ad spaces, an introductory portion of the quest curriculum and a daily fresh-puzzle allowance. The plan page lists learner and practice limits before selection. Fresh-puzzle allowances reset at 00:00 UTC per learner; retries of the current puzzle do not use another allowance. Previously completed lessons remain available for review. Plus and Premium both unlock the full curriculum and ad-free learning for the learner allowance shown in the agreed plan. Plus includes a larger daily fresh-puzzle allowance; Premium includes unlimited fresh puzzles. The plan page shows the exact allowances. Existing subscribers keep the price, learner allowance and puzzle allowance they approved. Free profile allowances apply immediately. Curriculum and puzzle restrictions begin when live memberships open. Existing learner profiles and progress are preserved after cancellation or downgrade; creating additional profiles is subject to the current plan limit. Tournament fees and prizes are handled separately.
Coaches, Clubs & Schools
Coach Studio is a separate paid subscription with monthly or yearly billing. It has no Free tier and no free trial. Starter includes one coach and ten active students; Growth includes three coaches and fifty active students; Academy includes ten coaches and one hundred fifty active students. The owner counts as one coach. Each learner counts once across the club’s active enrollments. Classes hold up to thirty active learners, within the plan’s student allowance. Included staff use the owner’s paid seats and are not billed separately. Individual and Family subscriptions do not grant coach access.
Active club students receive full curriculum access, twenty-five fresh puzzles per day and ad-free learning on their enrolled profile while the club subscription is active. Higher personal benefits remain available. Coaches receive teaching tools and full lesson and puzzle access. The Kids experience includes the Parent Dashboard; coach tools require an active coach plan or included staff seat. Account security and payment controls remain account-level.
The account holder must approve a learner’s class enrollment. Club coaches see classroom nicknames, completion of assigned lessons and class attendance; they cannot open unrelated family profiles or family billing. Included staff share the club’s teaching library. Only the club owner manages staff access, billing and branding. When an enrollment is archived, earlier records are kept, future lesson progress stops being shared through that enrollment, and its active seat is released unless the learner remains active in another class in the same club. The account holder can leave an archived class to remove that enrollment and its attendance records. Personal learning progress is preserved.
Academy includes a public club page and an installable web app under this site’s club address, using the owner’s chosen name, logo and colours. Publishing is optional. Public pages do not list student rosters. This is a browser-based app that needs internet access; a custom domain and a native app-store release are not included. Signing in and billing use the platform’s shared services. Use only branding you are entitled to publish.
Coach renewal can be cancelled from Membership → Coaches, Clubs & Schools or the payment provider. Confirmed paid access continues until its displayed expiry. After expiry or a payment hold, coach tools, included student benefits and the public branded site become unavailable; club records and personal progress are retained. A lower-capacity plan requires active enrollments and staff to fit its allowance before checkout. Prices shown for new offers do not change an existing subscription’s agreed price. Paid time is not prorated by this application.
Free trial and automatic renewal
Paid checkout is the default. Eligible accounts may choose an optional Premium trial after declining a paid plan. Continuing with Free alone never starts a subscription or a trial.
Where offered, a free trial requires the adult account holder to approve a recurring PayPal subscription. The exact trial length, currency, total price and monthly or yearly payment schedule are shown before approval. The account is automatically charged after the trial and then at the selected monthly or yearly interval until renewal is cancelled. Yearly subscriptions are charged the full yearly total in one payment, after any eligible trial; they are not paid in monthly instalments. Annual savings compare the yearly total with twelve monthly payments for the same plan. There is one free trial per account across Individual and Family, both paid tiers and both billing periods; returning subscribers pay the displayed price for their selected billing period without another free trial. A checkout redirect alone does not activate membership: the payment service must confirm approval.
Cancel renewal
Open Membership and choose Cancel automatic renewal, or cancel through PayPal’s automatic payment settings, before the next scheduled charge. Cancellation stops future renewals. Already confirmed trial or paid access continues to its displayed end date, and saved progress remains when the account returns to Free. Cancellation does not automatically refund an earlier charge. For a billing concern or refund request, contact the account’s merchant through the payment transaction details. Applicable consumer rights remain unchanged.
Account-holder approval
Children should not create subscriptions or approve payments. Membership controls sit inside account tools and use the account PIN when enabled. The adult account holder must confirm their authority and explicitly agree to automatic renewal.
Advertising & privacy
Free pages may show a labelled Advertisement served by Google AdSense, or a direct sponsor card. Placements are limited to dashboards and learning-library pages, away from active games, puzzle boards, analysis and lesson dialogs. Plus and Premium accounts, active coaches and profiles with included club learning do not request these ads. AdSense remains off until the site owner configures it and confirms approval and privacy setup.
When enabled, Google and its advertising partners may receive technical information such as an IP address, browser or device information and page context. They may use cookies or similar storage for ad delivery, fraud prevention, measurement and other permitted purposes, subject to the applicable privacy choices and restricted-audience settings. Chess242 does not deliberately send learner names, usernames, photos, country selections, puzzle answers or account identifiers as ad-targeting parameters. This is different from claiming that an ad network receives no device or browsing information.
Our ad requests use child-restricted treatment across learning experiences. A learning level is not proof of age. Kids placements are disabled unless the owner separately enables them after audience and category review. Restricted treatment limits interest-based advertising; it does not make ads cookie-free or remove applicable consent requirements. Where required, a published consent message provides choices before eligible advertising proceeds. Use the Ad privacy choices control beside an ad to reopen the applicable message. Regional opt-out links are also provided by the consent service.
Read how Google uses information from sites that use its services and Google’s privacy policy. Controls for Google advertising preferences are available through My Ad Center.
Direct sponsor cards
Direct cards are labelled Sponsored and do not load an advertising-network script themselves. Only messages separately approved for children appear in Kids, without outbound sponsor links. Other learners can choose to visit a sponsor’s website, where that site’s policies apply. These cards are hidden on Plus and Premium accounts.
Payment and data processing
PayPal handles payment approval and recurring billing. Chess242 stores subscription identifiers, status, plan terms and the account holder’s consent, but not payment passwords or card details. Billing notifications are verified before membership is updated.