1 What the subscription covers
The live map is part of a subscription. Everyone keeps an account and everyone keeps a map — what changes is how much of the map you see.
Nothing changes, and there is nothing to pay. The full map is already part of what you pay for, at no extra cost and no price change, and your DM alerts carry on exactly as they are.
settling your regions is the one thing that wants a minute of your time — it is a subscriber job, and it is what keeps your area scanned.
Your account is on the free tier. You keep the map itself — gyms, raids, PokéStops and lures — and the live spawn data sits behind a subscription.
2 What the free tier keeps
“The map” below means the map itself — the streets, the stops, the gyms. It is the live data drawn on top of it that changes hands. The split is enforced identically on the map and in the API behind it, so there is no partial state where one says yes and the other says no.
DM alerts have been subscriber-only since the day they existed. The map is the part that is changing.
3 Why now
The map was free from November while we tested it, and every time we said so we tied it to that window rather than to forever:
“Everyone gets full free access while we test and tighten things up … we want the switch-over to be smooth when the time comes.”
November 20, 2025
“The map remains free access for everyone while we complete the full integration on our side.”
March 9, 2026
That integration is finished, the new site is live, and this was the switch-over we said was coming. Scanning is not free to run: it is workers, proxies, accounts and servers, billed monthly whether or not anyone is looking at the map.
4 How the scanning plan is set
A subscription comes with coverage tokens. A token is not a feature switch — it is a vote for where scanning capacity goes.
You place your tokens on a region
One region per token, and moving it is free. The one exception is an area still in its start-up period, when it scans at full coverage while it builds support. A token placed there can be taken back within 24 hours. After that it stays until the start-up period ends or 30 days pass, whichever comes first.
We total them up per region
Each region has a cost of its own, worked out from how much ground it covers and how often we scan it. The tokens placed on it are what it has to pay that with.
Scan density follows the total
A region's health is its support measured against its cost. Its scanners follow its health, so a region at 70% runs 70% of them. Regions below the line get fewer workers and a longer gap between scans — the same area, checked less often.
Tokens do not switch your alerts on or off, and none of this changes your filters or your plan. What it changes is how much there is to alert you about: a thinly scanned area produces fewer spawns, so fewer of them reach you. That is the honest version of why this matters.
We re-read the numbers regularly — it is not a one-time vote, moving a token later moves your support with it, and a region that picks up support recovers its scan rate the same way it lost it.
5 Why a region may already be filled in
When you open Token Allocation you will see one of two things.
A region already filled in
We worked it out from the areas your alerts already cover, or from the location set on your alert profile. It is a proposal, not a decision — it is marked as ours until you say otherwise, and we report it separately from regions people actually chose.
One click confirms it. If it is wrong, move it — a correction is more useful to us than a confirmation, because it tells us something we had wrong.
A blank list
We had nothing to go on: no linked Discord, no areas on your alert profile, or a location that does not fall inside any region we scan.
Pick the region you actually play in. It takes about a minute.
6 The dates
7 Questions people are asking
No. The full map is already included in your subscription at no extra cost, your price does not change, and there is nothing to sign up for. You should notice no difference at all.
From us. Rather than hand several hundred people a blank list, we worked out a likely region from the areas your alerts already cover, or from the location on your alert profile. It is recorded as our proposal rather than your choice, and it stays that way until you confirm or move it.
Your alerts keep arriving, and you are not losing anything you have paid for. Each billing period replaces your tokens with the same number again, so there is nothing to bank up and nothing to run out of. The cost is to the area you play in, which reads as having less support than it really has when we decide where scanning goes.
Mostly not. Moving a token between regions is free, so if you travel, or your local group moves on, move the token with it. The one exception is an area still in its start-up period, when it scans at full coverage while it builds support. A token placed there can be taken back within 24 hours. After that it stays until the start-up period ends or 30 days pass, whichever comes first.
Then we do not scan it yet, and we would like to know. Tell us where you play through a coverage request — it is the queue we work from when deciding where to expand, and an area with people asking for it is a far stronger case than one without.
A token is not a key. Your subscription is what gives you the map and the alerts, and it covers everywhere we scan regardless of where your tokens sit. What a token decides is which area your money funds.
What you actually hear about is set by your own filters and areas, in DM alert settings. Put a token in Denver and travel to Richmond, and you still see Richmond on the map and still get Richmond alerts if that is what your filters ask for.
It will not make it faster. Capacity stops at what a region needs, so a token past that line does not raise the scan rate at all. What it does do is hold the line: when somebody else moves a token out or lets a subscription lapse, yours is what keeps the area from slipping. If you would rather it did more than insure a region that is already fine, the coverage page names regions with none at all, and moving a token to one takes a click.
No. Your tokens are reissued each billing period, but they come back onto the same regions automatically, so a region you have settled stays settled. You only touch it again when you want to move it.
Yes, and it is worth being straight about it — though not without warning. If a region you support gets close to the line, everyone holding a token in it gets a Discord message first, with what it needs and what moves it. Scanner capacity is adjusted automatically from each region’s health, so a region carrying little or no support gets fewer workers and a longer gap between scans. It is not a punishment and it is not aimed at anyone — it is what happens when the capacity a region uses is not being paid for.
It is also reversible. A region that gains support recovers its scan rate the same way it lost it, and settling your tokens keeps your area on the right side of the calculation rather than climbing back.