What feeders get in return: free subscriptions from FR24, FlightAware, AirNav Radar and Plane Finder

Your own ADS-B station listens around the clock to what is flying over your roof. The big flight tracking services live off exactly such stations – and thank you for it with premium accounts that otherwise cost money month after month. But what exactly do you get as a feeder at Flightradar24, FlightAware, AirNav Radar and Plane Finder? Which conditions come with it, and how do you collect all the benefits at once with a single receiver? This comparison sorts out the rewards, shows the catches and helps you set up the station so that feeding really pays off.

The short answer

All the big commercial services trade data for premium access. Flightradar24 gives active stations an upgraded account with no subscription fee, long known as the Business plan and now called the Contributor Plan. FlightAware automatically unlocks an Enterprise account for data contributors. AirNav Radar, which was called RadarBox until the rename, grants a free Business account. Plane Finder unlocks Premium for data contributors whose station is linked to the account via a share code. What they all have in common: The free account only applies as long as your station delivers data.

The real trick lies in the technology: A single receiver can supply all networks at the same time. How that works is covered in Feeding multiple networks at once with Ultrafeeder. You will find the hardware basics in Building an ADS-B receiver yourself and ready-made solutions in Buying a plug-and-play receiver.

Why the services give anything away in the first place

Aircraft with ADS-B openly broadcast their position, altitude, speed and identifier on 1090 MHz. Anyone who wants to evaluate these signals needs receivers on the ground – and very many of them, because a single receiver only hears a few hundred kilometers depending on antenna and location. The flight tracking services therefore rely on thousands of volunteer stations, most of them at aviation fans’ homes. Satellite ADS-B complements the network over oceans but doesn’t replace the ground stations; more on that in Space-based ADS-B.

Every additional station also improves multilateration (MLAT). With it, the services calculate the positions of aircraft that send Mode S but no ADS-B with a position – via differences in arrival time between several receivers. Without a dense network, this doesn’t work. Exactly how it works is explained in MLAT and multilateration explained.

For the services, a free premium account is therefore a cheap trade: They get data permanently, you get features that other users pay for.

Flightradar24: the Contributor Plan

For many spotters, Flightradar24 is the first stop on the phone. The subscription tiers are called Silver, Gold and Business and differ mainly in the length of the flight history: seven days free, 90 days with Silver, 365 days with Gold, three years with Business. You will find details on the tiers in Flightradar24 Silver, Gold or Business.

Anyone who runs a station and delivers data via the fr24feed software gets an upgraded account with no subscription fee. For many years, that was a Business subscription, the top tier. Today, Flightradar24 speaks of the Contributor Plan, which you use as long as your receiver is online and actively sharing. Flightradar24 itself determines the exact scope – and has changed the name and contents in the past. Flightradar24 also ships complete receiver kits to selected hosts in areas where coverage is lacking; there is no entitlement to one.

You should know two points before you get started:

• Start promptly: After registering in the signup wizard, you should deliver data soon – Flightradar24 deletes unused IDs and sharing keys again after a deadline.
• One sharing key per station: A key is valid for only one active feed at a time. Several receivers need their own keys.

The installation step by step is described in Setting up fr24feed. How to use the app in everyday life is shown in the Flightradar24 guide.

FlightAware: the Enterprise account

FlightAware rewards feeders especially transparently. According to the service’s ADS-B page, sharing your data automatically qualifies you for a free Enterprise account, whose value FlightAware gives as 99.95 US dollars per month. According to FlightAware, the package includes, among other things:

• up to eight months of flight history,
• unlimited flight alerts,
• registrations for airline and callsign flights – perhaps the most valuable point for spotter logbooks,
• any number of saved aircraft in “My FlightAware”,
• ad-free full-screen maps.

On top come feeder extras: On a statistics page, you see your station’s performance in detail, on your home network you follow your receiver’s data without delay, and in the track logs FlightAware highlights the sections that come from your device. On flightaware.com itself, live data appears, according to the provider, with a processing delay of up to two minutes.

The software for it is called PiAware. FlightAware puts the hardware – Raspberry Pi, USB receiver, antenna – at around 100 US dollars, or 80 euros. Alternatively, FlightAware gives out free FlightFeeder devices to suitable locations; this is intended mainly for locations without an existing receiver; the requirements are a clear view of the sky, mains power and a wired internet connection. Setup is explained in Setting up PiAware, and the service itself in the FlightAware guide.

AirNav Radar (formerly RadarBox): the Business account

The service many people still know as RadarBox now operates as AirNav Radar. According to the FAQ, feeders get a free Business account as a thank-you. The upgrade happens automatically within 24 hours after the first data has arrived; if that doesn’t work, support helps. The account is valid as long as your station delivers to AirNav Radar. The software is RBFeeder, which can be attached to an existing dump1090 decoder.

The hardware program is interesting: For regions with weak coverage, AirNav Radar gives out receivers for free. The conditions according to the FAQ:

• satisfactory reception with as clear a view of the sky as possible all around,
• starting to feed within a week of delivery,
• operation around the clock,
• return via AirNav Radar if you can no longer run the station.

If you can’t guarantee continuous operation, AirNav Radar offers the small Flight-Stick as an inexpensive entry-level solution, which has only limited range with the short included antenna. A detail for tinkerers: Ready-made receivers from one service can’t always be reused for other networks without problems. If you want to supply several networks, you are better off building on an open SDR stick. What the service can do otherwise is shown in RadarBox explained and Using AirNav RadarBox.

Plane Finder: share code and receiver program

Plane Finder comes from the British company Pinkfroot in Southampton and has been on the market since 2009. Data contributors use the Plane Finder ADS-B Client, which runs on Linux, macOS and Windows and supports MLAT in addition to ADS-B. You link your station via a share code, which you find or request in your account on planefinder.net in the receiver management.

In return, Plane Finder promises on its help pages free access to Plane Finder Premium on all platforms and devices. On top come leaderboards on which you compare your station’s performance nationally and internationally. Depending on coverage in your area, Plane Finder also provides the necessary receiver hardware for free – in exchange for your flight data.

Whether the Premium package is active, you see in your account as soon as your receiver is registered and delivering. An overview of the app, map and features is given in Plane Finder at a glance.

Community networks: no subscription, but open data

ADS-B Exchange and the community networks adsb.fi, adsb.lol and airplanes.live play by different rules. There is no premium subscription as a trade good here. In exchange, these services show the data largely unfiltered – including aircraft that are hidden at commercial providers. At ADS-B Exchange, you can optionally install a stats package that gives you an online map showing only the reception of your own antenna. And you improve coverage exactly where you live and spot. Everything else is in ADS-B Exchange explained, Feeding ADS-B Exchange and community networks and Unfiltered community trackers compared. The OpenSky Network also accepts data from volunteers, with a focus on research.

All rewards compared

Service	Feeder software	Reward	Condition	Free hardware
Flightradar24	fr24feed	Contributor Plan (formerly Business plan)	Receiver online and actively sharing	Receiver kits for selected hosts
FlightAware	PiAware	Enterprise account, valued by the provider at $99.95/month	Share data, activation automatic	FlightFeeder for suitable locations
AirNav Radar (RadarBox)	RBFeeder	Business account	as long as the station delivers, upgrade within 24 hours	Receivers for regions with weak coverage
Plane Finder	Plane Finder ADS-B Client	Plane Finder Premium on all platforms, leaderboards	Station registered via share code	Receivers depending on coverage
ADS-B Exchange & community	own feeder scripts	no subscription, stats map and open data	–	–

As of October 2026. The providers change names and scope of their packages from time to time, so before deciding it is always worth a look at the current conditions.

How to collect all the free accounts with one receiver

The key is a shared decoder. Programs such as dump1090 or readsb read out the SDR stick’s signals once and make them available on the network. The services’ feeder programs then all tap into this data stream instead of fighting over the stick.

If you like things tidy, put everything in containers: Feeding multiple networks at once with Ultrafeeder shows the way with Docker. The software side of the individual services is compared in ADS-B feeder programs compared, and a lean decoder base is described in Installing readsb and tar1090. For the hardware, SDR sticks for ADS-B compared and Building a 1090 MHz antenna yourself help.

Range pays off twice

For the accounts to be unlocked, what counts above all is that your station delivers permanently at all. For the benefit – yours and the networks’ – range counts. An antenna mounted high and clear, short cables, a filter against cell interference: All of that brings more aircraft, more MLAT partners and better statistics. You will find concrete tips in Boosting ADS-B range, Finding the best antenna location and Measuring reception performance. If your equipment hangs outdoors, Running an ADS-B receiver outdoors helps.

Whether receiving and passing on the data is allowed in your country is summarized in Is receiving and sharing ADS-B data legal?.

What the spotter at the fence gets out of it

The premium accounts are not an end in themselves. With a long history, you can still match photos to the right aircraft weeks later – how to do that systematically is covered in Matching sightings with ADS-B logs and Looking up an aircraft’s past flights. Unlimited alerts and registrations for scheduled flights help you wait specifically for one aircraft; an overview of the alert systems is given in Setting up notifications for aircraft, types and airlines.

A station near an airport brings the most, for example around Munich Airport or Hamburg Airport. There, you also hear final approaches and ground traffic. At the Munich Airport visitors’ hill or at the Affenfelsen in Hamburg, you then use the ad-free map of your feeder account to catch the next exciting approach. And if an aircraft doesn’t show up despite your station, Why an aircraft doesn’t appear on Flightradar explains the usual reasons.

Conclusion

Feeding is one of the few cases where a hobby pays for itself. Flightradar24 rewards active stations with the Contributor Plan, FlightAware with the Enterprise account, AirNav Radar with the Business account and Plane Finder with Premium. The conditions are similar: The station has to deliver permanently, and the provider determines the scope. With a shared decoder, you supply all networks in parallel and use the benefits in combination – plus the open data of the community networks on top.