F5Bot

Pricing · read 20 October 2026

F5Bot pricing explained (2026)

F5Bot is best known as the free one, and the free tier is genuine and permanent. It now has four paid tiers above it, and the thing most people get wrong is where the API sits.

Start freeSee the full comparison
[01] THE TIERS/ F5BOT

F5Bot pricing as published on 20 October 2026

Every figure here was read from F5Bot pricing on 20 October 2026. That date is the point of this page rather than a footnote: when we re-checked all ten tools in this category, three had repriced during the year and every third-party figure we cross-checked was out of date. Confirm anything you are about to sign for.

Free

$0
  • 5 keywords
  • 10 results/day per keyword
  • 20 alerts/day
  • Within 2 hours
  • Ads in emails

Silver

$9.99/mo$109/yr — one month free
  • 20 keywords
  • 30 results/day per keyword
  • 100 alerts/day
  • Within 5 minutes
  • Ad-free, filtering

Gold

$49.99/mo$549/yr
  • 200 keywords
  • 5,000 alerts/day
  • Instant or scheduled
  • 1 Slack or Discord channel
  • RSS/JSON feeds

Platinum

$214.99/mo$2,364/yr
  • 300 keywords
  • 200,000 alerts/day
  • 3 Slack or Discord channels
  • API and webhooks

Diamond

From $500/mo
  • Custom keywords and volume
  • Custom integrations
[02] WHAT IT METERS/ THE REAL LIMITS

Three separate caps, and the per-keyword one bites first

Keywords, results per day per keyword, and total alerts per day are metered independently. On Free that is 5 keywords at 10 results each with 20 alerts a day overall — so a single popular term exhausts the account. Over-limit keywords are disabled until you re-enable them by hand.

Speed is a tier feature

Free delivers within two hours, Silver within five minutes, and Gold and above are instant or scheduled. For a category where threads go cold in hours, the two-hour figure is the main practical limit of the free tier.

The API is Platinum, at $214.99

Not Gold, which is the surprise. It is the single most misquoted fact about F5Bot’s pricing, and it means the API is above every other tool in this comparison except an enterprise plan.

AI filtering is metered on top

Included on Gold and Platinum up to the first $10 a month of token usage; beyond that it is billed by consumption in addition to the plan. It is a keep-or-drop decision against a description you write rather than a score.
[03] WHAT IS GATED/ BY TIER

Features that are not on every plan

A tier table shows prices; it rarely shows which features the prices are actually buying. These are the gates that decide the plan for most people — No trial, because the free tier is permanent and needs no card. It is capped at five keywords, twenty alerts a day and two-hour delivery, carries ads, and rejects keywords it considers too common. It is also stated to be for personal use only.
REST API and webhooksPlatinum and above — $214.99/mo
RSS and JSON feedsGold and above
Slack and Discord deliveryGold and above
AI filteringGold and above, metered above $10/mo of tokens
Ad-free emails and keyword filteringSilver and above
Monitoring very common wordsNot available on Free
[04] WHAT CHANGED/ AND AGAINST US

Recent changes

F5Bot has run since 2017 and now delivers a claimed 430,000+ alerts a day. The multi-tier paid structure is newer than its free-only reputation, and its AI filtering was previously called Semantic Alerts.

F5Bot against FishOut

Nothing in this category competes with F5Bot on price, and its keyword control is more precise than most paid tools. It covers three sources — Reddit, Hacker News and Lobsters — against our ten, does not score anything, and ends at the alert with no inbox, assignment or status. Our free plan overlaps it on the two main sources and adds the API, MCP server and webhooks that F5Bot puts behind $214.99.
The full comparison, row by row →
[05] COST TO GET IT/ SAME NEED

What you would pay F5Bot for each need, and what FishOut charges

The tiers above answer “what does each plan cost”. This answers the question most readers actually arrive with: which plan would I need for the thing I want?
To getFishOutF5Bot
5 keywords by emailFreeFree$0Free
Platforms beyond Reddit, HN, LobstersFreeFreeNot offered
An APIFreeFree$214.99/moPlatinum

Monthly-billed prices. Keywords are not always identical units — a keyword rule or filter can hold several terms.

[06] SEE IT ON YOUR KEYWORDS/ FREE PLAN

What you get instead of F5Bot

This is the free plan. Instead of a feed of matches, a list sorted by who is asking — and unlike F5Bot, alerts go to whichever of thirteen places your team reads.
Leads· Best first14
91
r/startupsferrous_owl2h

Is there a cheaper Notchmail for a three-person team?

Reply nowAsking for recommendationsComparison
80
GitHubacme-mail/sdk#2123h

Webhook retries fire twice when the endpoint is slow

Reply nowHas a problemBug report
84
GitHubopen-desk/issues1d

Looking for an alternative now that Bramblemail dropped its API

Reply, carefullyAsking for recommendationsHas a problem
r/startupsferrous_owl2h

Is there a cheaper Notchmail for a three-person team?

Notchmail wants a per-seat annual contract. We are three people and pre-revenue. What are other early teams using?

Relevance

91
Price sensitiveCompetitor namedAsking for options

Labels · Reply call

Reply nowAsking for recommendationsComparison

Answer the price question plainly

Draft reply

Three people pre-revenue is exactly who the free tiers are for. AcmeMail (where I work) has no seat pricing; there are two or three others worth a look too.

  • Says who you are
  • Names other options
  • Follows the subreddit rules
Copy and open threadFishOut never posts
Start freeSee every plan

Questions

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