personal plans costs?

The experts are very close to me and I will find answers. : )

Best,
Jessica

Perhaps somebody can explain me the costs for the personal plans. Of course I have read the homepage:https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/

but it’s not clear for me.

For example: if I only need it from 15.08.-14.09. per year and for November. Have I to pay only for two month the safety plan or is it for three months? Can I pause the other months and have only to pay the annual fee once? Is the annual fee starting at the first activating period (for example 15.08.18 until 31.07.19) or is it every time 01.01.-31.12?

In my understanding, this is two months. You'd activate safety plan on 15.08. and suspend it afterwards (you can suspend it immediately, it will take effect after 30 days). Then you'd switch on Safety plan again 01.11. - 30.11. In US, your first bill (due on 15.08.) would be 14.95 for Freedom Safety plan plus 24.95 annual fee.Your second bill, would be only 14.95. As long as you kept you plan suspended you wouldn't pay anything until 15.08.19 at which point your annual fee of 24.95 would be due again.

The only thing here is, you need to suspend you plan, not cancel it. ;)

With freedom plan, any time you change to higher plan, you're committing to 30 days in that plan. You cannot suspend/lower your plan during those 30 days. But once those 30 days is over, your plan can by suspended for a day or for year. Technically I believe suspension is for 30 days at a time, but it hardly matters, since you can unsuspend it any time by committing to the new 30 day term.

what about SOS message- the inReach contract is only personal for me, but if I meet/find someone during my hikes who needs help, what about the costs? Of course I would trigger a SOS anyway...

As you should. GEOS SOS service is tied to your device, so they will coordinate the rescue for you or anybody else.

Additional services that you can pay for extra for, like GEOS SAR or MEDIVAC are only available to you. But you don't need those to use SOS service.

As a side note: if you meet someone who's in critical state, of course use SOS. But if they're not in immediate danger, sometimes just the ability to communicate with someone from their group using your device can help them with self-rescue.

The inreach mini is an extremely interesting device to me as I almost spend enough time in the mountains out of cell range that having an easy way to notify my family that I'm okay or get help via SOS would be comforting to all. I think however that I'm misunderstanding the text on this web page https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/

This text

The following 2 subscription options are available: Choose our monthly Freedom plan or an annual contract to meet your airtime service needs.

• Monthly Freedom plans are ideal for your next adventure or seasonal use, requiring only a 30-day commitment with the ability to suspend service when you don’t need it.
  
• Annual contract plans are great for year-round use, with lower monthly cost and peace of mind that your inReach is always ready to use.
  

seems to indicate that only the freedom plan can be suspended. The post directly above this reply indicates that both can be suspended, but that the freedom plan allows you to go up or down in service level as well.

JessicaT can you clarify? I almost picked up one of these while I was walking through the REI flagship store on a recent trip to Seattle, but the subscription model is confusing and I wasn't sure exactly how much the device would cost me over time.

To me it makes sense that the "Annual contract" is just that. A contract that lasts a year. You cannot cancel it until 1 year has lapsed. Upside of this is that is less per month.

seilogramp that was my assumption, but as i mentioned the post right above mine appears to contradict that as it claims you can suspend an annual contract. Also how often do i have to pay the activation fee? Once? Once a year? Bottom line, what does this cost for someone that is doing most of their remote backpacking in the summer months and wants to have the device active for a climbing trip in the fall?

I don't see anything in the referenced post that implies the ability to suspend an annual plan. In any case, you can't. It's a 12-month commitment. Subject to various charges, you can change your annual plan's "tier" - but you cannot suspend service. Once you sign up for an annual plan, you've made a 12-month commitment to continuous service. I believe you can cancel an annual plan at any time, but you're going to pay for the full year regardless.

The best reference I've found is this video, which was linked from on the of the various support articles. Even the video does not answer all the questions, but it's a lot clearer than the various text explanations. It shows you the choices you will have as you activate the device - which is where most of the details live. But yes, you will have to sit through the video.

seilogramp that was my assumption, but as i mentioned the post right above mine appears to contradict that as it claims you can suspend an annual contract. Also how often do i have to pay the activation fee? Once? Once a year?

I guess my post was too long and confusing. ;-)

But no, you cannot suspend annual contract plan, and it was never my intention to indicate that you could. I was mostly just talking about Freedom plans. With annual plans, you're signing up for annual contract. For that, you get benefit of lower monthly cost.

As for the fee, and maybe this is a confusing part. Freedom plans have annual (once a year) fee (currently 24.95). This is charged every year, even if your plan is suspended. Annual contract plans have activation fee (currently 19.95). This is only charged once.

If you do the analysis, ability to suspend the plan is the main benefit of Freedom plans. That and obviously the fact that you could just cancel if you don't like it.