Membership
The email is free. This is how it stays free.
The weekly email is free to everyone, forever, and so is the whole site. We never paywall the town. Membership is how the free part gets paid for.
What your $5 pays for
The Friday email going out. The map. The community board, and the checks that read every post on it before it goes up. None of that is expensive. None of it is free either, and the bill arrives again next month whether anyone joined or not.
We are a business, not a charity. Thames Coast is run by Elevare Studio LLC, so this is not a donation and it is not tax deductible. Most of the money comes from local businesses paying for a listing. Membership is the part a resident can carry, and it is deliberately small.
What comes with it
Four small things. They are the thank-you, not the reason, and we would rather say that here than have you work it out after you have paid.
- Thursday morning, not FridayThe weekend lineup reaches you a day early. Everyone else gets the same email, free, on Friday. Nothing is held back from them.
- The archive, as it fillsWe only started keeping editions in August 2026, and the most recent 8 weeks are free for everyone. So the members’ half of the archive started at nothing and fills by one edition a week. If you join now, you are paying before this one is worth much.
- A member badgeA small word next to your name on the community board. It gives you no say over anyone else’s post. It says you helped pay for the place.
- Save an eventSave anything from the events list or from an archive edition and it is on your account page, on whatever you sign in on next.
Pick how you pay
Same either way. The yearly plan is $50, which is two months free.
We are not taking payments yet.
There is nothing to buy today and no card to enter. When it opens it will be $5 a month, exactly as shown here. Everything the site does today is free, and the email stays free after that.
Get the Friday email in the meantime. It is free.
Leaving is three clicks
Cancel any time at thamescoast.com/cancel or from the Membership row in your account. No survey, no retention offer, nobody to get past. Refunds are prorated on request.
Is it worth $5?
For those four things on their own, probably not. A day of early access and a small word next to your name is not much, and we are not going to dress it up as more.
For the other reason, we think so. The email and the board cost money every month, and almost all of that money currently comes from businesses buying a listing. Members are the part that does not depend on how a sales month goes.
And if it is not your $5, take the free email instead. We mean that. It is the same email.
What stays free, whatever you decide
- The whole site. Every event, every town page, the map, the search.
- The Friday weekly email, for everyone, forever.
- Posting an event to the calendar. You do not even need an account.
- Reading and replying on the community board with a free account.
If you subscribed to the email before we started charging for anything, it stays free for you for life. That was the promise and we are not quietly taking it back.