Because an AI assistant can only repeat what it has read, and I'd rather it read my prices from a plain, dated file than piece them together from an old blog post or a cached page. So QuickStage publishes two plain-text files, QuickStage's llms.txt file and a pricing.md, that list every plan, the per-photo math and a "Last verified" date at the top. As of October 2026 that means $1 a photo with no subscription, monthly plans from $19.99, and as low as $0.11 a photo on the annual Agency plan.

Here's the reasoning, and a test you can run on any software before you pay for it.

What is llms.txt, and what does QuickStage put in it?

llms.txt is a proposed convention, described at llmstxt.org, for putting a short Markdown file at the root of a website so language models and the tools built on them can read the basics without wading through menus, scripts and pop-ups. Ours says what the product does, how it works and what it costs, with one line per plan:

  • Basic: $19.99 a month, 75 photos and 7 QuickFixes a month ($0.27 a photo), or $199 a year ($0.22 a photo).
  • Pro: $39.99 a month, 225 photos and 20 QuickFixes ($0.18 a photo), or $399 a year ($0.15).
  • Studio: $99.99 a month, 650 photos and 50 QuickFixes ($0.15 a photo), or $999 a year ($0.13).
  • Agency: $199.99 a month, 1,500 photos and 100 QuickFixes ($0.13 a photo), or $1,999 a year ($0.11).

The separate pricing.md file adds the parts people ask about next: the free trial is 3 photos plus one QuickFix with no account and no card, pay-as-you-go is $1 a photo in batches of 1 to 50, those credits don't expire, and plan credits refresh every month, annual plans included.

Why does a price page need a date on it?

This is the part I care about most. A price without a date is a rumor with a dollar sign.

Software prices move. Anything that summarizes them, whether a review site, a comparison post or an AI assistant, is a snapshot from whenever it last looked. A snapshot isn't wrong for being old. It's wrong when it doesn't tell you how old it is.

So both of QuickStage's plain-text files carry a "Last verified" line. I want to be precise about what it means, because a freshness stamp is easy to fake: the files are generated from the same price list the live site uses, not typed out by hand, and they're rebuilt at most once a day. The date says these numbers were re-read from the source of truth on that day. It does not mean someone changed something that day.

Why plain text instead of just the normal pricing page?

The normal pricing page is for people: cards, toggles, buttons, a layout that works on a phone. Useful to you, noisy for a program trying to pull out "what does the cheapest plan cost?"

Take a monthly/annual toggle: one price is often hidden until you click, so a tool reading the page may only see whichever was showing. In a text file, both sit on the same line with the per-photo math next to them, and there's nothing to click.

I don't think plain text replaces the pricing page. The QuickStage pricing page is still the one you should trust when you're about to pay, and the plain files point back to it. The text version just removes one way for a summary to go wrong.

The Two-Tab Test: how to check what an AI assistant tells you about a price

Here's the handle I'd like you to keep. I call it the Two-Tab Test, and you can run it on any tool, mine included, in about two minutes.

  1. Tab one: ask. Ask an AI assistant, "What does [tool] cost per month, and what's the cheapest way to buy it?" Write down the numbers it gives you and any date or source it mentions.
  2. Tab two: open the vendor's own pricing page. Not a review, not a comparison post. The vendor's page, today.
  3. Compare three things: the entry price, the per-unit price at the volume you'd actually use, and whether there's a pay-as-you-go option at all.
  4. If they match, good. You now know the assistant's answer is current for this tool.
  5. If they don't, the vendor's page wins. Note the difference and the date, and treat anything else that assistant told you about the tool, like features, limits or trial terms, with the same caution.
  6. Bonus check: try the vendor's domain followed by /llms.txt. If there's a file and it has a date, read the date. If there's a file with no date, that tells you something too.

The point isn't catching an assistant out. It's knowing which number you're budgeting around and how old it is.

What should you do with a price that's out of date?

Budget from the vendor's page, then check the two things summaries most often blur:

  • Monthly versus annual. A per-photo figure like $0.11 might only apply when you prepay a year. At QuickStage it does: $0.11 is the annual Agency rate, and the same plan paid monthly works out to $0.13.
  • Subscription versus pay-as-you-go. If you stage a handful of photos a month, the lowest per-photo plan rate may not be your lowest bill. $1 a photo with no subscription can cost less in a slow month.

My opinion: a vendor that makes these distinctions hard to find is counting on you not to run the math. I'd rather you ran it.

Bottom line

I publish plain-text pricing because AI assistants are now one of the ways people learn what software costs, and the cheapest way to keep their answers honest is to give them a dated, current, unambiguous file to read. For agents choosing software, the rule is simple: whatever an assistant tells you about a price, run the Two-Tab Test and budget from the vendor's own page.

QuickStage's current numbers: $1 a photo pay-as-you-go, plans from $19.99 a month, as low as $0.11 a photo on the annual Agency plan, results in about 30 seconds, QuickFix re-dos included on plans, and it's built to keep walls, windows, floors and paint colors as photographed, with top-quality, photorealistic results.

Run the Two-Tab Test on QuickStage, then stage three photos free with no account or card.