How Much Is the RHS Grow App? Cost and Free Tier

Most pages that answer this question get one of two things wrong: they say the app is an RHS member benefit, or they quote the price of RHS membership instead of the price of the app. Both are wrong, and the confusion is understandable — the Royal Horticultural Society sells several things and the app is not bundled with any of them.

So, plainly.

The price

All subscriptions begin with a free trial you can cancel at any time. Figures from the RHS's own RHS Grow page, checked 29 July 2026.

At £39.99 a year, RHS Grow is the most expensive of the mainstream plant apps in the UK — dearer than PictureThis Pro (£34.99), Planta (£32.99) and PlantIn (£29.99). It is also the only one funded by a 200-year-old horticultural charity, which is the trade you are making.

One oddity worth knowing before you tap subscribe

The GB App Store listing shows tiers the RHS's own page does not mention — £29.99 and £34.99 alongside the £39.99, and a £3.99 alongside the £5.99, without stating what period any of them covers.

We cannot tell you what those are, because Apple does not say and the RHS does not publish them. The honest advice: £39.99 is the figure to plan around, but read what your own paywall actually offers before agreeing to it. You may be shown something cheaper.

Is RHS Grow free? Yes, and this part is genuinely good

The free version is not a crippled demo. It carries:

• The A-Z plant profiles, drawn from the RHS's own plant database and written by horticulturists rather than generated. For British garden plants, native species and traditional varieties, this is the best free plant reference available in any app.
• Discover — the RHS's articles and podcasts.
• My Garden and wishlists — keep a record of what you grow and what you want to grow.

That is funded by the RHS as part of its public horticultural work, which is why it does not expire and does not nag you into a trial.

What sits behind the paywall: Plant ID, tailored care tips, the Journal, the Garden Planner and the ChatBotanist assistant.

Note what that means in practice: you cannot test the identification engine on the free tier, which is the feature most people would be paying for. That is a genuine drawback and worth knowing before you subscribe rather than after.

Do I need RHS membership? No — and this is the big one

RHS Grow is separate from RHS society membership. Three consequences, all of which surprise people:

1. Anyone can use RHS Grow, member or not. You do not need to join the RHS.
2. Paying for RHS membership does not include the app subscription. If you are already a member, you still pay £5.99 or £39.99 for the app's paid tier.
3. Subscribing to the app does not make you an RHS member. No garden entry, no The Garden magazine, no Partner Garden access.

The RHS's own FAQ puts the question and answers it directly — "I'm an RHS member, do I need to pay for RHS Grow?" — with: "RHS Grow is separate to RHS membership and available to everyone. The RHS is a charity and we will continue to develop Grow as part of our commitment to supporting gardening throughout the UK. To do this we need to cover the costs of the app."

Why so many people believe the opposite

Because the RHS membership page lists "access to the RHS app" among the benefits — and that is not RHS Grow.

The RHS publishes more than one app. The membership benefit refers to a different one; RHS Grow is the separate, standalone product with its own subscription. If you joined the RHS partly for app access and then found RHS Grow asking you to pay, that is why, and you have not been double-charged for the same thing.

For reference, RHS membership itself is £79.99 a year for individual membership, or £55.99 with the 30% Direct Debit offer running as of 29 July 2026 — and it buys garden entry, The Garden magazine and Partner Garden access, not RHS Grow's paid tier. Some pages quote a membership price as though it were the app's price; the two are unrelated numbers. We made a version of that mistake on three of our own pages until July 2026 and corrected it.

Is it worth £39.99?

Depends entirely on what you grow and where.

Yes, if: you garden outdoors in Britain, you want advice grounded in RHS hardiness ratings rather than American USDA zones, and you value the Society's authority on native species and traditional garden varieties. Nothing else in the category has that. The ChatBotanist answers in a British context, which US-built apps cannot.

Probably not, if: you mostly keep houseplants. RHS Grow's identification is good but not best-in-class on global houseplants and tropical cultivars — PictureThis leads clearly there at £34.99, and PlantNet is free with no in-app purchases at all and excellent on wild plants and trees.

Try the free tier first, either way. It costs nothing, the A-Z is worth having installed on its own, and you can decide about the paid features later.

Where Growli sits, since we build one of these

We are not going to pretend to be neutral about our own app, so here is the plain version.

Growli Plus is £34.99 a year — five pounds under RHS Grow. Our free tier also does not expire: the garden plan, weather-timed daily care tasks, frost warnings ahead of cold nights, and step-by-step growing guides all cost nothing indefinitely. Photo plant identification, photo diagnosis and unlimited chat are the paid part, exactly as they are on RHS Grow.

Like RHS Grow, we use RHS hardiness ratings natively rather than converted USDA zones. Unlike RHS Grow, we push a daily briefing tied to your local forecast and frost alerts before cold nights — and we are not the Royal Horticultural Society, which is a real advantage they have and we do not.

Many UK gardeners are best served by RHS Grow's free tier for its A-Z reference plus one app that does the daily work. That is a genuinely good combination and it is what we would tell a friend.

Full breakdown on our pricing page, and every UK app price side by side in how much plant apps cost in the UK.

How we checked

RHS Grow's subscription price comes from the RHS's own RHS Grow page, read on 29 July 2026. The App Store tier list and the 4.7 rating from 5,900 reviews come from the GB Apple listing, read the same day. Competitor prices come from each app's own GB listing on the same date.

Prices change. If you are reading this well after July 2026, treat it as a starting point and check your own store.

Related articles

• How much do plant apps cost in the UK? 8 verified — every GB price read from its own App Store listing
• RHS Grow vs PictureThis — which suits UK gardens? — official British advice against the biggest catalogue
• Best free plant apps UK 2026 — 4 that stay free — including RHS Grow's free tier in detail
• Best plant care app UK 2026 — free and paid, 7 tested — the full UK field
• Growli vs RHS Grow — where we differ from the official app
• UK RHS hardiness ratings explained — what H1a to H7 actually mean

Prices verified against the RHS's own page and the GB App Store on 29 July 2026. Reviewed by the Growli editorial team.