Pricing

Start free. The universe awaits.

Every plan comes in two editions. STEN Lite covers a curated collection of the universe's most iconic objects. STEN Full opens up the complete live catalog. Switch below to compare what each unlocks and what it costs. See the STEN Editions page for the full comparison.

TheStarDB pricing plans are for individuals, students, educators, and researchers who want ongoing access to TheStarDB as a service, without building anything. These plans include the STEN stellar renderer running live in your browser, the star catalog, and the full suite of study and management tools. You pick a plan, you use the site. No installation, no local setup. You just need it to work.

If you wish to instead, embed STEN in your own software, deploy it inside your mission critical apps, integrate the catalog into a product you’re building, or secure an institutional arrangement with custom terms, those use cases are not covered with these plans. See the Licensing page for standalone software licenses and developer API tiers for data-related deployments built around the flexibility to ship your own products.

Explorer
Free Forever
$0

Everything you need to start exploring the universe. No credit card required, ever.

  • Preview catalog curated selection of notable objects
  • Full STEN renderer (all 16 object types)
  • 9 IAU constellations in browser
  • Basic stellar data panels
  • STEN Explorer full-screen viewer
Create Free Account
Student
STEN Student Mode LITE
$4.99 / month Save 10%

All the tools you need for coursework, priced for students on a budget.

  • Everything in Explorer
  • STEN's full renderer across every object type
  • Curated catalog of iconic named stars, pulsars, and black holes
  • Star Lab: up to 100 HR diagram pins
  • Star Comparison Lab: HD PNG exports
  • Assignment packs by stellar topic
  • Star Diary log your observations & notes
Get Student Lite
STEN Student Mode FULL
$16.99 / month Save 12%

Every coursework tool, plus the complete live catalog for research that goes beyond the basics.

  • Everything in Student Lite
  • Full deep star catalog, all object types
  • All 3,300+ pulsars (real ATNF periods)
  • 5,500+ confirmed exoplanet database
  • Unlimited Star Lab HR diagram pins
  • Built for thesis work, independent research, and papers that need to cite a specific real catalog entry, not just the famous examples
Get Student Full
Most Popular
Standard
Curated Catalog LITE
$9.99 / month Save 10%

Explore the sky's most iconic stars, pulsars, exoplanets, and black holes, each rendered in full.

  • Everything in Explorer
  • Curated catalog across all 18 STEN object types
  • The IAU's (International Astronomical Union) full list of officially named stars
  • Advanced search and filters scoped to the curated collection
  • Bookmark & personal collection lists
  • Export stellar data (CSV)
  • Star Diary log your observations & notes
  • 1 active session at a time
Get Standard Lite
Full Catalog FULL
$33.99 / month Save 12%

Unlock every star, pulsar, exoplanet, and black hole in the complete live catalog.

  • Everything in Explorer
  • Full deep star catalog, all object types
  • All 3,300+ pulsars (real ATNF periods)
  • 5,500+ confirmed exoplanet database
  • Advanced search & filters
  • Bookmark & personal collection lists
  • Export stellar data (CSV)
  • Star Diary log your observations & notes
  • 1 active session at a time
Get Standard Full
Family
7 Devices LITE
$49.99 / month Save 10%

One account. Seven devices. The same curated collection, the same Star Diary, everywhere you go.

  • Curated catalog across all 18 STEN object types
  • The IAU's full list of officially named stars
  • Advanced search and filters scoped to the curated collection
  • Bookmark & personal collection lists
  • Export stellar data (CSV)
  • Star Diary synced across all devices
  • Up to 7 simultaneous devices on one account
  • Bookmarks & collections synced across devices
  • Same screen, any device pick up where you left off
Get Family Lite
7 Devices FULL
$169.99 / month Save 12%

One account. Seven devices. The complete live catalog on your TV, laptop, tablet, and phone.

  • Full deep star catalog, all object types
  • All 3,300+ pulsars (real ATNF periods)
  • 5,500+ confirmed exoplanet database
  • Advanced search & filters
  • Bookmark & personal collection lists
  • Export stellar data (CSV)
  • Star Diary synced across all devices
  • Up to 7 simultaneous devices on one account
  • Bookmarks & collections synced across devices
  • Same screen, any device pick up where you left off
Get Family Full
Academic
Managed Accounts LITE
$999.99 LIMITED TIME$849.99 / mo from Save 12%

For schools, universities, and research departments that want the curated collection under one institutional dashboard, for up to 200 managed accounts.

  • Everything in Standard Lite
  • Up to 200 managed student & staff accounts
  • Admin dashboard seat management & usage stats
  • Class groupings & shared collections
  • Teacher assignment tools
  • Student Star Diary teacher-visible logs
  • STEN embed course pages, LMS, portals
  • Custom institution logo on embeds
  • Priority email support (12h response)
  • Annual usage & engagement report
Get Academic Lite
Managed Accounts FULL
$2,399.99 LIMITED TIME$2,039.99 / mo from Save 12%

For schools, universities, and research departments that need the complete live catalog under one institutional dashboard, for up to 200 managed accounts.

  • Everything in Standard Full
  • Up to 200 managed student & staff accounts
  • Admin dashboard seat management & usage stats
  • Class groupings & shared collections
  • Teacher assignment tools
  • Student Star Diary teacher-visible logs
  • STEN embed course pages, LMS, portals
  • Custom institution logo on embeds
  • Priority email support (12h response)
  • Annual usage & engagement report
Get Academic Full
Institution
Observatory / Planetarium LITE
Contact Us For Pricing

For museum floors, classroom kiosks, and visitor exhibits, where a fast, curated collection is the better fit than open search across millions of objects.

  • Everything in Academic Lite
  • Unlimited managed accounts
  • Individual logins for every visitor, staff, and researcher
  • Full white label & custom domain
  • Kiosk mode large format display & touch panel ready
  • STEN embed lobby displays, planetarium domes, visitor kiosks
  • Branded public star pages
  • Dedicated account manager
  • On site setup & staff training included
  • 99.9% uptime SLA with incident reporting
  • Custom contract & invoice billing
Inquire About Lite Pricing
Observatory / Planetarium FULL
Contact Us For Pricing

We work closely with observatories, planetariums, science museums, and large research institutions to put together a package built around the complete live catalog that fits your space, your audience, and your budget.

  • Everything in Academic Full
  • Unlimited managed accounts
  • Individual logins for every visitor, staff, and researcher
  • Full white-label & custom domain
  • Kiosk mode large-format display & touch panel ready
  • STEN embed lobby displays, planetarium domes, visitor kiosks
  • Raw data pipeline access (CSV/JSON export at scale)
  • Branded public star pages
  • Dedicated account manager
  • On-site setup & staff training included
  • 99.9% uptime SLA with incident reporting
  • Custom contract & invoice billing
  • Early access to new features & instruments
Inquire About Full Pricing

All prices in USD. Annual billing saves up to 12%. Observatory, planetarium, and museum pricing is custom, submit an inquiry.

Common questions
What is STEN actually rendering, a simulation or a photograph? ▾
Real-time simulation, not a photograph or pre-rendered video. STEN uses custom GLSL shaders for every stellar class, each physically motivated. A G-class star renders live convection cells, limb darkening, and chromospheric glow computed per frame on your GPU. A black hole renders the geodesic light-path equations of general relativity in real time the photon sphere, accretion disk Doppler shift, and gravitational lensing you would see from actual physics. Every frame is computed fresh on your hardware, on demand.
What's the difference between STEN Lite and STEN Full? ▾
Lite and Full are about how much of the catalog you can search. Lite covers a curated collection of the universe's most iconic objects. Full opens up the complete live catalog, millions of real cataloged objects. Every tier above, Student, Standard, Family, Academic, Institution, is about which tools and features you get, and that choice is independent of which edition you pick. See the STEN Editions page for the full breakdown.
What does Student Mode include, and how is it different from Standard? ▾
Student Mode is built around coursework tools: Star Lab HR diagram pins, Star Comparison Lab exports, and assignment packs by topic. Standard is built around search and data management: advanced filters, bookmarks, and CSV exports. Both are available in Lite or Full, so a student doing a class project can stay on Student Lite, while a student writing a thesis that needs a specific real catalog entry can move up to Student Full.
Does this run on a Raspberry Pi or a classroom tablet? ▾
Yes. A Raspberry Pi 5 with a browser open to thestardb.org handles STEN at reasonable frame rates. The entire renderer is WebGL2 shader code delivered as a single file, no installed software, no cloud GPU, no IT department required. Schools build kiosks for under $100 in total hardware. A tablet or Chromebook works just as well. Rendering quality adjusts automatically to available GPU performance.
Is Family for one person or multiple people? ▾
Family is one account and one login, meant to be shared. Create an account and share your credentials with your family, and up to 7 devices can be active at the same time with no limit on what each person can do on their device. Your son can render on his PC while your daughter views the stars on her phone. Your spouse can examine a constellation while you peer at a black hole, all simultaneously. Render on devices owned by different people, or log in on all of your own devices at once. You have the flexibility to choose. If you need each person to have their own separate profile, Star Diary, and history, you can purchase additional individual accounts or a second Family account. Academic provides fully managed individual accounts for teams and institutions of up to 200 users.
Can I cancel my subscription at any time? ▾
Yes. Monthly plans cancel at the end of the current billing period with no further charges. Annual plans are non-refundable for the current year but can be cancelled to prevent renewal. Your bookmarks and saved data remain accessible through the end of your paid period.
Can STEN be embedded in a website, planetarium, or kiosk display? ▾
Yes, via iframe on Professional plans and above. The URL parameter system (/explorer.html?obj=NAME) makes deep-linking to any specific object straightforward for course pages, museum exhibits, or research portals. For institutional installations needing custom branding, event hooks, or kiosk mode for public displays, Institution licensing covers all of that. Contact us with your setup requirements.
How often is the catalog updated with new data? ▾
Our core catalogs are re-synced on major astronomical release cycles as new data becomes available. New exoplanet confirmations and pulsar discoveries are added on a rolling basis. STEN shader updates, new object types, and render improvements ship more frequently and take effect immediately with no action required on your end.
Do I need an astronomy background to use TheStarDB? ▾
Not at all. TheStarDB was built for students, educators, science enthusiasts, and professionals alike. Each object page includes a plain-language description alongside the full technical catalog data. The filter system uses real spectral types but explains them in accessible terms. The deeper you want to go, the data is there, but you do not need to go deep to enjoy it.

The Universe Calls. Millions of Stars Await.

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Create Free Account Browse the Catalog