If you own Sonoff gear, the eWeLink app has probably started offering you an Advanced or Prime subscription. The questions behind most searches are practical. What is free, do I have to pay, will my switches keep working locally if I don’t, and did the vendor take away something that used to be free?
This article answers them from the vendor’s plan page, its forum announcements, release notes and the App Store listings. It is research, not a bench test. No Sonoff hardware or paid plan was used for any of it, and the details below are as of 2026-10-08.
Sources here are vendor-published (plan page, forum, release posts, App Store listings, SONOFF’s store blog) plus one 2020 third-party news post. There is no independent measurement of what any tier does or does not send to eWeLink’s cloud, and nothing below claims otherwise.
The short answer: what is free and what is paid
There are three consumer tiers globally. Basic is free. Advanced costs US$9.9 per year (or US$1.9 per month) and Prime costs US$19.9 per year, and Prime includes everything in Advanced. Those prices come from the vendor’s plan page. The App Store’s in-app purchase list shows the annual plans at US$9.99 and US$19.99, so check the figure your own store displays.
The global App Store listing names LAN mode alongside remote control, schedules, timers, inching, interlock, scenes, sharing and grouping. Advanced and Prime appear there as separate in-app purchases, and the listing’s own summary of Advanced benefits (web version, keyboard shortcuts, phones as cameras, capacity expansion) does not name LAN mode. So LAN mode is listed among the base features, not among the paid-plan features. That is not the same as a vendor sentence saying LAN mode is free, and none turned up in the pages reviewed for this article. If that distinction matters for your purchase, check the current plan page before relying on this.
| Tier | Price (global) | What the sources list |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | Core app features, including LAN mode in the store listing’s base feature list |
| Advanced | US$9.9 / year or US$1.9 / month | Cloud and convenience items such as IFTTT, webhooks, CAST, browser control, CarPlay / Android Auto |
| Prime | US$19.9 / year | Everything in Advanced, plus Wear OS, an MCP server, Floor Plan view, store coupons, higher limits |
What Advanced and Prime add
The plan page lists Advanced items including CarPlay and Android Auto integration, eWeLink WEB (browser control), CAST, IFTTT, webhooks, camera app features and keyboard shortcuts. Limits at this tier include up to 5 virtual devices and 10 thermostat plugins.
Prime was announced on the eWeLink forum on 2025-11-12. It adds Wear OS control, an MCP server for AI clients, a Floor Plan view, SONOFF store coupons, and higher limits. The listed limits are up to 10 virtual devices, 15 thermostat plugins, and 200 shares per device against 100 on Advanced. App release 5.22.0 in December 2025 opened the MCP server to Prime subscribers and raised those limits. The coupons are specific: per SONOFF’s announcement, annual Prime subscribers can claim four US$10-off-US$60 coupons and four free-shipping coupons for the SONOFF official store.
Most of these items are cloud integrations tied to an eWeLink account: IFTTT, webhooks, CAST, browser control and the MCP server. A local-first setup mostly skips them by design. No source reviewed ties either tier to more data being sent, and this article does not claim that.
What stays local
Local control in this ecosystem comes through several paths, and the plan pages only speak to some of them.
| Path | What the sources say about plans |
|---|---|
| LAN mode in the eWeLink app | Listed among base features, not paid items; no explicit “free” statement found. Still account-tied: per-device keys come from your eWeLink account (see our DIY mode guide) |
| DIY mode | Not in any plan list reviewed. Needs no eWeLink account on supported devices (DIY mode guide) |
| OpenEdge | Not in any plan list reviewed. No account needed per SONOFF; one confirmed device so far (OpenEdge explainer) |
| Official eWeLink Smart Home add-on for Home Assistant | Setup guidance asks for an eWeLink account and devices already added in the app; no paid plan listed, no statement that it is free |
| SonoffLAN (community integration) | Third-party, so absent from plan pages. Uses your eWeLink account for non-DIY devices; its recommended auto mode runs cloud and LAN together |
The official Home Assistant add-on syncs devices through MQTT, prefers LAN control for devices that support it, and falls back to the cloud otherwise. Its v1.1.0 update covers more than 70 device types, per the eWeLink forum post. The setup guidance lists an eWeLink account and password, with devices already added in the app, as prerequisites, and no payment step. That points to the add-on working on Basic, but no page reviewed states it outright, so the add-on’s own documentation is the place to confirm.
The official add-on falls back to eWeLink’s cloud for devices it cannot reach over LAN, and SonoffLAN’s recommended auto mode runs both paths. Cloud-side access can also change with no plan change at all: during 2026 eWeLink blocked cloud-path power-sensor updates to third-party integrations, covered in our power-sensor article. Check which path each device is actually on.
What changed and when
The paid-tier idea is not new. In April 2020 a third-party news post covered the original restructure into a free plan, an Advanced plan at US$9.90 per year (with IFTTT, web and tablet access), and a custom-priced Pro tier. eWeLink has charged for cloud conveniences since then. Prime, in November 2025, is the new addition.
The Prime announcement presents its features as new capabilities on top of Advanced. Nothing in it says a previously free feature moved behind the paywall. It is also silent on grandfathering and on LAN mode. So the announcement frames Prime as additive, but that does not show nothing was ever removed from the free tier. The pages reviewed do not cover that question, and no historical snapshot of the Basic feature list was available to compare against.
The most recent change is in app version 5.28, dated 2026-08-21, which added a Prime free trial. It runs 3 days on the monthly plan or 30 days on the annual plan, with one trial per user, cancellable before the charge. Advanced subscribers get their remaining time converted at 2:1 before the trial is added.
The China-market app
The China-market app, 易微联 (eWeLink China-market app), has its own App Store listing, and it is the only Chinese-language source behind this article. Searches of Chinese forums and communities found no discussion of the plans, so nothing here reflects what Chinese users think, and no claim is attributed to them.
The listing prices Advanced at 5 CNY per month or 33 CNY per year, and Prime at 28 CNY per month or 148 CNY per year. Its Advanced perks include web control, keyboard shortcuts for scenes, phone-as-camera and expanded sharing. Camera cloud storage is a separate purchase, from 15 to 148 CNY depending on duration. The listing’s description, paraphrased here rather than quoted, presents the base app as providing local control, with the premium tiers adding cloud and capacity features.
The tier names match the global app. The price list and perk list differ, which matters if you read a review written for the other market.
A different kind of paywall from Tuya’s
Our Tuya coverage deals with a gate of another type. The standard route to a Tuya local key runs through Tuya’s developer platform, which carries its own account and subscription friction (our extraction guide), though a QR-login route avoids the developer account (covered here). eWeLink’s paid tiers sit on consumer convenience features instead. As far as the plan pages show, the local path is not what the money buys.
Sonoff and Tuya are also separate companies, so their paywalls should not be read as one industry pattern.
When a subscription makes sense for a local-first setup
This is analysis, not advice. For core switching, scenes and Home Assistant control, nothing in the sources suggests a paid plan is needed, subject to the LAN-mode caveat above. Advanced and Prime read as plans for people who want remote and cloud-side conveniences, such as browser access or IFTTT, rather than for people trying to keep traffic inside the house.
Prime’s pitch leans on the store coupons, and the arithmetic is simple. The gap between Prime and Advanced is US$10 a year, which one US$10 coupon on a US$60-plus order covers. Against Basic, Prime’s US$19.9 takes two such orders to recover. Whether that pays back depends on how often you buy Sonoff hardware from the official store.
FAQ
Do I have to pay to use Sonoff switches with the eWeLink app? Not for the core app. The plan page describes Basic as free, and LAN mode is listed among the base features, with the hedge above.
Does Prime include anything I need for Home Assistant? Probably not. The MCP server is aimed at AI clients, and the add-on’s setup guidance lists no paid plan.
Did eWeLink put features I already use behind a subscription? The Prime announcement presents additive features. Grandfathering is not addressed.
Why is the pricing different in China? The China-market listing shows CNY pricing with the same two tier names and a different perk list.
Can I use Sonoff devices without an eWeLink account? On DIY-mode devices, yes, and SONOFF says OpenEdge needs no account either. See our DIY mode guide and OpenEdge explainer. eWeLink LAN mode itself still depends on the account. For what the account collects, see our eWeLink privacy breakdown.
What this research verified
Verified from vendor pages: the three tiers, the global and China-market prices, the feature lists for Advanced and Prime, the Prime announcement date, the Prime coupon terms, and the v5.28 trial terms. Verified in the store listing: LAN mode appears among base features, the plans are separate purchases, and the store’s annual prices (US$9.99 and US$19.99) differ by cents from the plan page.
Not verified: a vendor statement that LAN mode is free, an explicit statement of the add-on’s plan status (its setup guidance lists no paid plan), and whether any feature was ever removed from Basic. Nothing here comes from testing a paid or free account, and none of the sources commits to what Basic will include later.
Check the current plan page and the add-on documentation before you buy, since both can change. Whether LAN mode stays in Basic as Prime evolves is worth watching in the app’s release notes.