Signing Up and Farmhand on Free

The Free plan lets any farm use Sporeline without a card. To keep it that way for real farms, signup has a few checks, and Farmhand (the AI assistant) has a monthly allowance on Free. This page explains each one and what to do if you run into it.

Confirm your email

When you press Create my farm, we email you a 6-digit code from noreply@sporeline.com and the page changes to Check your email. Type the code into Code from your email and press Continue. That’s when your farm is created and you’re signed in. Nothing is created before the code is entered, so nobody can start a farm with an address they can’t read.

On an iPhone the code from Mail shows up above the keyboard, and tapping it fills in the field.

The code works for 15 minutes. If it doesn’t arrive, check your spam folder, then press Resend code at the bottom of the page (it unlocks a minute after the last code was sent). Until then the line under it counts down, for example “You can ask for a new code in 42 s.” A new code replaces the old one, and you can ask for up to 5 codes for one address.

What the messages mean:

• “That code isn’t right. Check the email and try again.” The code doesn’t match. After 5 wrong tries you’ll see “Too many tries. Send a new code.”
• “That code has expired. Send a new one.” More than 15 minutes have passed, or a newer code replaced it. Press Resend code.
• “Too many codes sent to that address. Wait 15 minutes.” You’ve asked for 5 codes. Wait, then start again.
• “We couldn’t tell whether your farm was created. Try signing in. If that doesn’t work, send a new code.” The connection dropped while your farm was being created. Press Sign in on that screen first; if your email and password don’t work, press Resend code and try again.
• “That email already has a Sporeline account. Sign in instead.” Your farm already exists. Press Sign in.
• “We can’t deliver to that address. Use a different one.” Mail to that address has bounced or been marked as spam before, so we won’t send to it. Press Use a different email.

If you reload the page while you wait, it comes back to Check your email and asks for your password again, because we never keep your password in the browser. Typed the wrong address? Press Use a different email to go back and fix it.

Use a real email address

Signup refuses throwaway addresses: the “10-minute” inbox services and any domain whose mail is handled by one of them. It also refuses a domain that does not accept email at all.

If you see “Please use a real email address. Throwaway addresses can’t be used to create an account.”, sign up with your work address or a personal mailbox you keep (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud and the like are all fine). We send sign-in codes, password resets and order emails to this address, so it needs to be one you can read.

When a check can’t be reached

Signup (and the demo signup) asks two outside services about you: the bot check, and a lookup that confirms your email domain accepts mail. If either one doesn’t answer within a few seconds, you’ll see “The bot check did not answer. Please try again.” or “We couldn’t check that email address just now. Please try again.” Nothing is wrong with your address and no account was created, so press the button again in a moment.

One farm per company

When a demo farm is turned into a real farm, the company email domain it was made with (one ending in your own domain, such as @yourfarm.com) is reserved for that farm. We emailed the demo login to that address, so we know the mailbox is real. After that, signing up with another address at the same domain says:

Someone at yourfarm.com already has a Sporeline farm. Ask them to invite you from Settings → Team, or email chase@sporeline.com if you need a second farm.

Signup doesn’t refuse anything else at a company domain today, so two people at one company can each create a farm. Please don’t: ask the person who set up your farm (the Owner) to invite you instead. Everyone then works in the same account, sees the same blocks and lots, and has their own login and role. The Team Setup guide shows how.

If you need a second farm for a second business, email chase@sporeline.com and we’ll set it up.

Personal mailbox providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, Proton and others) are never reserved, since thousands of unrelated people share them.

A daily limit per network

Only a few new addresses can be sent a signup code from one internet connection per day (asking again for the same address doesn’t count twice). If you see “Too many accounts have been created from this network today. Try again tomorrow.”, wait until the next day (the count resets at midnight UTC) or ask an existing Owner to invite you instead. Invites are not limited.

Farmhand on the Free plan

A Free farm gets 30 Farmhand messages a month for the whole farm, shared by everyone on it, starting the day you sign up. (The first 30 days at Solo size cover blocks and lab items, not Farmhand.) When the messages are used up, Farmhand says:

Your Free plan includes 30 Farmhand messages a month for the farm, and they’ve been used. They reset on the 1st. Upgrading to Solo gives each person 300 a month.

The count starts again on the 1st of each month. Everything else in Sporeline keeps working while Farmhand is paused; only the assistant waits.

On Solo, Team and Commercial, each person gets 300 Farmhand messages a month, as before. To upgrade, an Owner goes to Settings → Billing.

If Farmhand is paused

Very rarely, we pause Farmhand for everyone while we look into unusually heavy use. When that happens, sending a message shows:

Farmhand is paused while we look into unusual usage. Everything else in Sporeline keeps working; try again later.

The AI label designer and log transcription show the same kind of message. A message you send while Farmhand is paused does not count toward your monthly allowance. Your past conversations stay readable, and the rest of Sporeline works as usual. Try again a little later, or email chase@sporeline.com if it lasts longer than you expect.

When Farmhand pauses an account

Farmhand has safety checks that refuse requests that look like an attempt to get around its rules, for example asking it to ignore its instructions or to show data from another farm. Farmhand can only ever read your own farm’s data, so those requests never succeed, but if one person’s requests are refused by those checks three times within 24 hours, Farmhand pauses itself for that person. Everyone else on the farm keeps using it as normal.

The person whose account is paused sees this when they send a message:

Farmhand is paused for your account while an administrator reviews recent requests. Your farm’s owner has been told.

At the same moment, every Owner and Manager on the farm, and Sporeline’s administrator, gets an email saying who was paused and when. The email doesn’t include what was asked. Sporeline’s administrator then reviews what happened.

The rest of Sporeline keeps working for the paused person, and their past conversations stay readable. Only a Sporeline administrator can lift the pause; if you think it was a mistake, or you know what happened, email chase@sporeline.com. A request Farmhand simply can’t do for your role (a Worker asking for an Owner-only change, say) never counts toward a pause.