Help & How-To

Add your first plant

Repot is photo-first — you point the camera at the plant and it identifies the species for you.

1. Tap the round + button in the bottom-right corner. (On the Plants tab you can also tap Add plant.)
2. The camera opens immediately — no form first. Snap the plant, or pick from your library. Multi-select works; the first photo becomes the cover.
3. The AI identifies it in the background — species, scientific name, and category fill themselves in. If you own others of the same species, a "N of this species already" note appears.
4. Pick a location from the dropdown (your real rooms, plus + Add new…). The name auto-fills; edit it if you like.
5. Tap save. The new plant opens with a watering schedule already derived and, when the species is in the catalog, a full care guide — with zero typing.

Big haul? Turn on Batch mode — snap many plants in a row, each identified in the background, then tap Add all. Set one location and category at the top and they apply to every plant.

Plants vs. species

Each plant you add is one physical plant — its own row, its own photos and care history. The species groups them (all your Pileas together, for example).

• On the Plants tab, toggle between Species (grouped cards), All plants, Location, and Props (what's actively propagating).
• Tap a species card to open the species page — the shared care guide, all your plants of that species, and the collection goal.
• Collection goals live on the species page. Tap Add goal to set a target (e.g. "collect 5 Hoyas"); progress shows as a bar.

The Explore catalog

The Explore tab is a built-in encyclopedia of 417 plants — real photos, full 8-section care guides — that works completely offline.

1. Tap the Explore tab (compass icon, far right).
2. Search by common, scientific, or species name, or use the filter chips: category, difficulty, and water frequency.
3. Tap any card for the full guide (Overview, Light, Watering, Soil, and more).
4. Tap Add to my collection — the plant lands with its curated watering schedule and care guide already set. No photo, no AI, no signal.

The daily Round

The Round tab shows your plants one card at a time, thirstiest first.

1. Tap the Round tab.
2. Each card is a full plant photo with its water/feed status:
   • Watered (blue button) → opens the watering sheet.
   • Water all N [species] → waters every plant of that species at once.
   • Snap photo → one tap saves a dated photo to the timeline.
   • The flag-issue button → opens the pest report.
   • Looks good · Next → the plant's fine; mark it reviewed and move on.
3. Any real action (water, feed, photo, flag) counts as the check-in and auto-advances — no separate confirm tap.
4. Finish for a completion screen: your stats, your daily streak, and a "While you're out here…" nudge to feed a hungry worm bin.

Quick-log by voice or text

The Quick log hero on the Today tab lets you say or type what you did in plain English, and Repot files it as real log entries.

1. On Today, tap Quick log.
2. Tap the mic and talk — "watered everything on the deck, fed the monstera with fish emulsion, and moved the jade to the kitchen window." The words stream in live (Apple's on-device dictation). Or just type.
3. Repot parses the note against your own plant names, species, nicknames, rooms, and fertilizers. "The deck" expands to every plant on the deck; "it/them" carries over.
4. Review the parsed actions card, untick anything wrong, tap confirm.
5. The entries land in your Journal, correctly typed, and watering schedules update.

Watering & feeding

1. Open a plant (or use the Round). Tap Watered.
2. Choose Just water or Water + feed:
   • Just water → an amount picker: Light (~100ml) · Medium (~250ml) · Deep (~500ml), or Exact.
   • Water + feed → pick a fertilizer from your cabinet (with its dilution), or No product — just fed.
3. It's logged, the plant is marked reviewed for the day, and a Watered or Fertilized entry appears in your Journal.

Editing the schedule

On a plant's page, the Watering section shows status and lets you edit the water and feed intervals directly. Repot also derives a schedule automatically from the catalog when you set the species.

Season-aware

Repot shifts intervals with the season — roughly 30% more often in summer, 50% less often in winter, and feeding pauses in winter (Dec–Feb). A one-line note on Today explains the current shift, so it's never a mystery.

Fix a mistake

In the watering history (or the Journal), tap the trash icon on an entry to delete an accidental or duplicate watering — the status recalculates from what's left.

Bulk water a whole species

• On a species page: tap the Water all pill on the "Your plants" section header.
• In the Round: when the current plant has same-species siblings, the card shows Water all N [species].

Both open the same watering flow and apply it to every plant of that species in one go — one log entry per plant.

Photos & the timeline

Every plant has a Timeline — a reverse-chronological photo grid plus a GitHub-style year heatmap of activity.

• Snap in the Round: the Snap photo button saves a dated photo in one tap.
• Change the cover: tap the big hero photo on a plant's page, or tap the star on any timeline photo to pin it. Tap again to unpin.
• View tags: tag a photo (Full plant, Roots, New growth, Close-up, Issue, Top/Side view) to follow the same angle over time; filter the timeline by tag.
• Add old photos: pick images from your library — each photo's real capture date is read from its EXIF and back-dates the entry, so your history lines up correctly.
• Lightbox: tap a photo for full-screen; swipe to page through. A two-tap trash deletes just that photo.
• Time-lapse: render an ~8-second time-lapse GIF of a plant's photos, with an optional caption — great for sharing growth.

Moving & repotting

• Move (change location): tap the location line → pick a known room, add a new one, or Remove (Unsorted). A Moved entry ("Kitchen → Deck") is journaled.
• Repot (change container): tap the container line → pick from presets (2"–8", grow bags, prop trays, ground…) or type your own. An Up-potted entry ("4" → 6"") is journaled.

Tasks & recurring reminders

1. From Today, open the tasks card and add a task.
2. Give it a title, a due date, an optional note and plant, and a repeat: One-off · Weekly · Monthly · Yearly.
3. Completing a recurring task automatically spawns the next one, due one interval out.

Locations

• Set a location when you add or move a plant.
• Manage locations: Settings → Locations → add, rename (moves every plant there), or delete (those plants become "Unsorted" — plants are never deleted).
• See them: the Today dashboard has a Locations overview; the Plants tab's Location view groups everything at full size; the Round can be filtered to one location.

Week Ahead

The daily plan owns today; Week Ahead owns the next 14 days.

1. On Today, tap the Week Ahead card (the 14-cell strip, today ringed in terracotta).
2. The overlay shows a summary, a sticky day strip, and a day-by-day agenda of every watering, feeding, task, and worm-bin feeding coming up.
3. Projected rows are muted with a dotted border and read "if …on time" — honest about being forecasts, not promises.

It re-derives live: water a plant now and its next occurrence moves immediately. No AI, no server — computed on your phone from your own schedules, and part of the one-time unlock.

Collection analytics

The Collection tab shows:

• Collection over time — cumulative plants added by month.
• Care consistency — waterings and feedings per week.
• A Care activity year-grid heatmap — this one is always free.
• Your species goals and totals; a worm-bin summary.

Tap a chart bar to drill into that month or week. The two trend charts are part of the one-time unlock; the care heatmap and totals are free.

Plant valuation

1. Open a plant. In the Value section, tap Estimate value.
2. Repot's AI appraises it from the latest photo plus its details (species, size, age, container). Takes about a minute; needs a credit or your own key.
3. You get a headline $N, a likely $low–$high range, the reasoning, comparable listings, and "Sources searched:" — the actual sites it checked.

The Today dashboard and Collection tab show a running total across your valued plants; tap it for a highest-first breakdown.

Health checkup

1. Open a plant. In the Health section, tap Health checkup.
2. The AI weighs the latest photo, recent care history, watering/feeding urgency, and any active pests, then returns a score out of 10, a status (thriving → critical), and a breakdown: Going well, Concerns, Recommended care, plus light and repotting notes. (~1 minute; uses a credit or your own key.)
3. Tap Re-check any time.

Pests & diseases

1. Open the plant (or tap flag-issue in the Round) → Report an issue.
2. Snap a photo of the problem. The AI diagnoses it — likely name, type (pest vs. disease), severity, and suggested treatments — or Log without a photo and enter it yourself.
3. Review and confirm. Repot creates an incident, tags the photo as an "Issue", journals it, and adds the pest to your reference Library.
4. While an incident is open, log a treatment, mark it resolved, or mark the plant lost — each is journaled.

Location awareness: the dashboard warns when a room has an active infestation and lists neighbouring plants at risk. The full pest view has Active / History / Library tabs.

Propagation tracking

1. On a plant's page, open the Propagation section and set the method (cutting, seed, division, pup, air layer, graft), the start date, the stage, and optionally a parent plant.
2. As it develops, tap Advance to [next stage] to walk it along cutting → rooting → establishing → mature. Each advance is journaled, and the section shows "Week N."
3. The Plants tab's Props view groups everything actively propagating by stage; Today summarizes it.

Worm bins: setup & feeding

Worm bins live in Settings → Worm bins.

Create a bin: Settings → Worm bins → Add → name it, pick a type (Standard / Stacking / Flow-through / Tumbler), set the worm type and start date. Optional container details (dimensions, brand, purchase price) live in a collapsible section.

Log a feeding (the headline action — ~2 taps)

1. Open the bin → tap Log feeding.
2. Tap a food chip (coffee grounds, veggie scraps, etc.) — it logs instantly and closes.
3. Optional before you tap: an amount (Light/Medium/Heavy), a note, a When date to backdate, or a photo.

The Today dashboard shows a worm-bin card whenever you have a bin — quiet white "fed X days ago," or urgent orange when the hungriest bin is unfed 5+ days. Bins also appear on the Collection tab and at the end of the daily Round.

Harvests, castings & the plant pipeline

1. On a bin, tap Log harvest → record the amount, quality, and weight (lb/oz/g), and tag the plants you used the castings on.
2. On a plant, open the watering sheet and choose Worm castings → pick the bin. The plant journals a feeding, and its Castings section shows "Fed worm castings from [bin]."

So the compost and the collection are one system — both sides remember. Harvest weights roll up into totals and the bin's ROI.

Towers, conditions & costs

• Tower / stacking: a bin's Tower section shows its layers; Add layer on top creates a fresh top layer for the migration move.
• Bedding: log bedding changes (type + amount).
• Conditions: log temperature and moisture; Repot flags too hot (>85°F), too cold (<40°F), too wet, or too dry, and banners the warning on the bin.
• Population: log estimates; Repot shows a growing / stable / declining trend.
• Costs & ROI: track expenses (chow, bins, bedding, tools, worms) against the value of castings harvested — watch the bin pay for itself.

The AI modes explained

Repot's AI features are photo identification, pest diagnosis, health checkups, and plant valuation. (The daily plan, Week Ahead, and quick-log parsing are not AI — they run on your phone, free, always.) Choose a mode in Settings → AI settings → Mode:

• Repot Cloud — no setup (→ Google Gemini). Zero configuration, no API key. Runs on Repot's own metered service using credits. Photos are processed per request and never stored.
• On-device (Apple) — free, private, offline. Uses Apple Intelligence for the text tasks it can handle (quick-log parsing) — no cost, nothing sent anywhere. (Availability depends on your device.)
• Anthropic API key (BYOK) — the default. AI calls go directly to Anthropic from your device with your own key. No server, works anywhere, and you pay the model provider at cost — a few cents per call, depending on the model.
• Self-hosted server (advanced) — for people running their own Repot server on their network; AI calls go there. No API key needed.

Every mode asks for consent — naming the exact company — before the first call to a new destination. Switching between BYOK and Repot Cloud re-asks, because a different company is now involved.

Bring your own key (BYOK) setup

1. Get an Anthropic API key (from Anthropic's console — a string starting sk-ant-…).
2. In Repot: Settings → AI settings → make sure the mode is Anthropic API key → paste your key.
3. Accept the one-time consent naming Anthropic.

That's it. Calls go straight from your phone to Anthropic, and you pay Anthropic at cost — no markup, no middleman. The AI settings screen shows a "What it costs" section with rough per-use prices so it never feels like a blank check. Costs depend on the model you choose: parsing a quick-log note is well under a cent, most photo features run a few cents, and a plant identification on the largest model (Opus) can run around 8¢.

The unlock, credits & top-ups

Repot is pay once — there is no subscription, no account, and no ads.

Free tier

• Up to 10 plants and 1 worm bin.
• The daily Round, Quick log, the daily plan, the full 417-plant Explore catalog, the care-activity heatmap — all free.
• 5 free trial AI credits to try Repot Cloud, and BYOK is free forever (you pay your model provider at cost).

The one-time unlock — $14.99

• 🌱 Unlimited plants · 🪱 Unlimited worm bins · 📊 Collection charts · 🗓 Week Ahead · ✨ 200 cloud AI credits · plus every pay-once feature added down the road.
• The 200 credits are a rollover bucket — they never expire.
• Buy it from Settings → Unlock Repot, or when you hit a limit. Restore purchase re-applies it on a new phone or reinstall (same Apple ID).

Credits (Repot Cloud only)

• One credit per identify, pest diagnosis, or health checkup; a value estimate costs more (currently 5).
• Credits are a rollover balance (free trial + unlock + top-ups) — not a monthly allowance. Nothing resets or refills on a schedule.
• Out of credits? Top-up packs add more and also never expire (100 credits / $4.99, 250 credits / $9.99), or switch to BYOK for unlimited AI at cost.
• Every AI action shows its credit cost up front and logs it in Settings → AI credits → history.

Privacy: where your data & photos go

• Your collection lives on your phone — plants, care history, notes, photos are stored in an on-device database and photo files. Repot has no account and no cloud sync.
• Photos are shared with an AI provider only when you personally run an AI feature — and only that photo, for that request. They're processed, not stored, by the provider.
• Which provider depends on your AI mode: BYOK → Anthropic; Repot Cloud → Google (Gemini); on-device → nobody; self-hosted → your own server.
• Before the first call to any provider, Repot shows a consent sheet naming that company and listing what's sent.
• The one third party Repot contacts besides AI is Planta, and only if you use the Planta importer.

Full details: the privacy policy.

Backup, restore & moving phones

Export a backup: Settings → Storage & backup → Export backup. This writes a JSON snapshot of everything — plants, care history, notes, pests, worm bins, tasks.

Restore: Settings → Restore from backup file… → pick the file.

• On a fresh install it loads straight in.
• On a non-empty collection you choose Merge (add, keep existing) or Replace (exact restore) — it never clobbers without asking.

Moving to a new phone

1. On the old phone, Export backup and save the file (AirDrop, Files, etc.).
2. Install Repot on the new phone, open it, and Restore from backup file…
3. Re-apply your purchase with Restore purchase (same Apple ID).

Importing from Planta or CSV

1. Settings → Import plants.
2. Choose a source:
   • Planta: paste your one-time export code; Repot fetches your plants.
   • CSV: pick a CSV file (forgiving about header names) and, optionally, photo files.
3. Review the list — duplicates are flagged — then commit. Each plant is created with a best-effort cover photo.

Notifications

Repot schedules a single 9:00 AM daily summary for each of the next 7 days that has something due — waterings, open tasks, and hungry worm bins (unfed 5+ days).

Permission is asked lazily — only the first time there's actually something to schedule, never on a cold empty launch. The schedule refreshes whenever you open the app. (Notifications are iPhone-only.)

Offline use

Repot is offline-first. Browsing, logging care, running the Round, the Explore catalog, Week Ahead, and quick-log's on-device parse all work with no connection — your data is a database on your phone.

The only things that need the internet are the AI features (identify, pest, health, value) and the Planta importer, since those talk to an outside service.

FAQ

Contact & support