Flightradar24 subscription: Silver, Gold or Business – what is worth it for spotters?

At the fence, almost everyone has Flightradar24 open. At some point the question comes up whether the subscription is worth it: the app shows hints about Silver and Gold, the history ends after a week, and alerts for a particular registration need a paid tier anyway. This article is about the Flightradar24 subscriptions from a spotter’s point of view. You will learn what Silver, Gold and Business actually offer, which features you really use at the airport and when you can save the money. If you first want a neutral overview of all the features of the tiers, read Flightradar24 Silver, Gold and Business explained beforehand.

The short answer

For most spotters, Silver is the tier with the best balance of value and price. With it you get alerts and filters, can scroll back 90 days in the flight history and see additional aircraft data such as serial number and age. Gold is only worth it if you really use the extra features: weather layers, airspace boundaries, extended Mode S data and a whole year of history. Business is aimed at companies and hardly comes into question for hobby spotters. If you are thinking about your own ADS-B receiver anyway, you should check the feeder route first. It gets you an upgraded account without paying for a subscription.

What the free version can already do

Before you think about a subscription, it is worth taking an honest look at the free version. It does a surprising amount:

• Live map with all the aircraft that Flightradar24 locates from ADS-B, MLAT and other sources.
• Basic flight data: flight number, callsign, departure and destination airport, aircraft type, registration, altitude and speed.
• Airport view with arrivals and departures. At the spot, that is the most important list of all.
• Flight history of the last seven days, for example to check which route an aircraft flew yesterday.

In return you have to put up with ads, and extras such as alerts or additional aircraft data are missing. How to make the best use of the free version in everyday life is shown in the Flightradar24 guide. Which free alternatives exist is in the overview Free flight trackers.

One point is often forgotten: every paid tier uses the same raw data. A subscription doesn’t make more aircraft appear on the map. Aircraft that Flightradar24 hides at the owners’ request stay invisible even with Gold. Why that is, is explained in Why an aircraft doesn’t appear on Flightradar.

Silver: the tier for active spotters

According to Flightradar24, Silver is the entry tier for private use and is aimed at users who work with the app regularly. These features are interesting for spotters:

• 90 days of flight history. You can check when a special livery was last at your airport or on which rotations a particular registration is currently being used. How to build such research is shown in Looking up an aircraft’s past flights.
• Filters and alerts. With filters you hide everything that doesn’t interest you, for example everything except widebodies or except a particular airline. Alerts go off as soon as a particular registration, type, airline or flight number shows up. Setup is explained in Setting up notifications for aircraft, types and airlines.
• More aircraft data. That includes the aircraft’s serial number and age. That is handy for everyone who documents their sightings cleanly. You can also find out the age by other means, see Finding out an aircraft’s age by registration.
• Additional flight data such as climb and descent rate and the squawk code. If you want to know what is behind an emergency code, read Squawk codes 7500, 7600, 7700.
• Current airport weather for more than 3,000 airports directly on the map, so you can quickly assess wind and visibility at the destination.

According to common price overviews, Silver also hides the ads. In everyday life at the fence that is more pleasant than you would think.

Gold: for data and weather fans

Gold includes everything from Silver and adds some features that sound more like flight planning than photography:

• 365 days of flight history. That lets you recognize seasonal patterns, such as when a charter oddity came regularly the year before.
• Detailed weather layers with clouds and precipitation on the map.
• Aeronautical charts as well as airspace boundaries, which show which air traffic control unit is responsible for an area.
• Extended Mode S data. Depending on the aircraft, this is additional information on altitude, speed, wind and temperature that the aircraft itself transmits.

For photography, the weather layers deliver less than they promise. Whether you have sun or clouds at the spot, you can see just as well with a weather map app like Windy, see Windy and weather maps for spotters. Gold is therefore mainly worth it if you are interested in the technology behind the flight, such as approach profiles, altitudes, wind conditions and airspace structure, or if you regularly research further back than 90 days.

Business: for companies, not for the hobby

Business is the top tier. According to Flightradar24, it is the only one that allows commercial use of the data. On top of that come a flight history of three years and additional views. The fleet view, exclusive to the Business subscription according to Flightradar24, displays a single airline as a departure board and on the map, with fields such as registration, type, callsign, flight number, departure and destination airport and scheduled and actual times. A board view for airports turns the screen into a departure or arrivals board and also shows the flights on the map.

For a spotter who wants to collect a particular airline with all its registrations, the fleet view sounds tempting. But the price is well above Silver and Gold, and with a filter on the airline you get very much of the same in Silver. Business is therefore only worth considering if you are not paying for it yourself, for example as a feeder.

The tiers compared directly

Feature	Free	Silver	Gold	Business
Flight history	7 days	90 days	365 days	3 years
Filters and alerts	limited	yes	yes, more slots	yes, the most slots
Aircraft details (serial number, age)	basic data	yes	yes	yes
Squawk, climb and descent rate	no	yes	yes	yes
Weather layers clouds and precipitation	no	no	yes	yes
Airspace boundaries and aeronautical charts	no	no	yes	yes
Extended Mode S data	no	no	yes	yes
Fleet view	no	no	no	yes
Ads	yes	no	no	no
Use	private	private	private	private and commercial

The table summarizes the information from Flightradar24 and common price overviews (as of fall 2026). Flightradar24 keeps adjusting its feature set and prices. Before signing up, therefore, check the current overview in the app or on the website. What the competing offer looks like is shown in Flightradar24 and FlightAware compared.

What does it cost?

Silver and Gold are meant for private use. According to price overviews from 2026, they are in the low single-digit euro or dollar range per month. Business costs a multiple of that. The specific prices depend on whether you sign up through the website, the App Store or Google Play and can differ by country and taxes. For the paid tiers there is, according to Flightradar24, a free trial period, once per account.

Almost always: The annual subscription is considerably cheaper than twelve monthly subscriptions. If you only spot intensively in the summer peak season, a monthly subscription for a few weeks can still pay off. With the calculator you can work this out yourself. Enter the prices your store is currently showing.

How much the hobby costs overall and where saving is worthwhile is in the article What does plane spotting cost?.

The feeder route: upgraded account with no subscription fee

Flightradar24 builds its receiver network largely with volunteers. Anyone who runs a station and feeds data into the network gets an upgraded account for it. For many years, according to Flightradar24, that was a Business subscription that stays active as long as the station delivers data. The name and scope of this feeder account can change. So check the current terms before you buy hardware for it.

For spotters that is often the smartest route, especially near airports. Your own receiver costs a one-time sum for hardware, gives you your own live data from your surroundings and can send the same data in parallel to other networks that also offer their feeders benefits. You will find the steps in Setting up fr24feed, the hardware choice in Building your own ADS-B receiver and Buying ready-made ADS-B receivers. What other networks offer in return is compared in What feeders get in return.

Which tier suits you?

The right choice depends less on money than on how you spot. The finder gives you some orientation.

What to watch for when signing up

• Test first, then pay. Use the trial period deliberately on a spotting day. That way you notice whether you really use the extra features.
• Keep an eye on the cancellation deadline. Subscriptions through the App Store and Google Play renew automatically if you don’t end them in time before expiry.
• Mind the platform. A subscription you take out through an app store is tied to that store. Check whether it also works on the website and on your other devices before you pay twice.
• A subscription is not data magic. You won’t see hidden military, government or private aircraft even with Gold. Unfiltered services are better for that, see ADS-B Exchange explained.
• Combine instead of maximize. Many spotters do well with Silver for alerts and a second, free map for everything Flightradar24 doesn’t show. Flight tracker apps compared gives an overview.

A practical example from the spotters’ hill

Imagine a Saturday at the Munich visitors’ hill. With the free version you see in the airport view which long-haul flights are coming in the next hour, and you recognize registration and type as soon as the aircraft is on approach. With Silver you get an alert beforehand when the registration on your wish list is on its way. You can also check whether the aircraft has been in Munich regularly in recent weeks. With Gold, weather layers and raw data come on top, which change hardly anything when you are actually taking photos.

After spotting, the history helps you cross-reference. If the registration is blurry on a photo, you can usually work out which aircraft it was from the time and runway. How to do that systematically is in Matching sightings with ADS-B logs and flight tracker history. The seven free days are usually enough for that, as long as you sort your photos promptly.

Conclusion

A Flightradar24 subscription is not a must for spotters. The free version shows you everything you need at the fence in the moment. But as soon as you want to work with alerts, follow registrations over weeks or document aircraft details, Silver is a solid and comparatively inexpensive investment. Gold is worth it for users interested in weather, airspace and raw data. Business belongs in companies. If you like to tinker and live near an airport, you are often best off with your own receiver and the feeder account.