Does the Free Quota of 5 Conversions Follow Your Apple ID? On New Devices, Reinstalls and Refunds
Short answer: it follows your Apple ID. CineX's free allowance is "5 successful conversions in total", and that number lives in a synchronisable item of your iCloud Keychain. So it is not five per device — it is one allowance per Apple ID. Use two on your iPhone and the iPad and Mac on the same account show the remaining three. Deleting the app and installing it again does not reset the count.
1. Why the quota is cross-device
Because your video files are not all on one device. The most common use of this product is the same person handling camera-roll clips on a phone and disc rips on a Mac. If the allowance were per device, one person would silently get the same free allowance three times — unfair to people who already paid, and meaningless as an evaluation for anyone else. This is a free allowance of successful conversions, not a trial period: nothing expires on a timer. One allowance that travels with the identity is what makes "you tried it" a single, honest statement.
Cross-device counting is not there to restrict you. It is there so that "I have tried it" has exactly one answer.
2. What actually costs one conversion
Only a run that produces a finished file counts. These do not:
- a failed conversion (broken source, not enough free space, output that did not pass its own check);
- a run you cancel;
- retries of the same job until it succeeds — the count moves on the success, not on the click.
One thing in the other direction is worth knowing: deleting the finished file does not give the credit back. The number records the fact that you successfully converted that many files; removing the result does not undo the fact. Planning around "five attempts" is more accurate than thinking of it as "ownership of five files".
3. There is one condition: Keychain sync has to be on
The count rides on iCloud Keychain's syncing. If you do not have Keychain syncing enabled, the sync does not happen and each device's count behaves on its own — that is not a fault, it is the single working condition of the mechanism. So the promise has a boundary: the quota follows your Apple ID across devices through Keychain syncing; without it, the cross-device part does not apply.
4. The quota is not an anti-cheat system
Worth stating the stance: CineX builds no adversarial defence around this number — it does not audit your clock, does not verify your hardware identity, does not block you for switching networks. The number exists so that you try before you buy, not to catch anyone. For almost every user that means the allowance is never spent by accident; for a few it means it is not an iron wall. We would rather spend that budget on making conversions reliable.
5. What comes after the five
Prices and billing are shown on the purchase page inside the app. It unlocks exactly one thing — unlimited conversions. No quality tier, no speed tier, no "premium formats", and no second paywall, because the product itself has no parameters: How far the free version of CineX goes covers what the five runs are enough for, and What to test before buying Opus covers how to spend them.
The free allowance answers one question: can this handle the kind of file I actually have. It is not a tally of things to grab for nothing — so spend the last conversion on a file that will tell you something.
6. Limits worth knowing beforehand
- Only successful conversions count; deleting output does not refund one; retries of the same job do not double-charge.
- Cross-device behaviour and surviving a reinstall were checked on real devices (2026-09-24), but they are an effect of Keychain syncing: without sync enabled, counts differ between devices.
- Purchase is priced per store region, with amounts and billing shown on the in-app purchase page; the purchase unlocks conversion count only, and nothing here promises picture or speed gains.
- Conversion happens on your device and the video file itself doesn't need to be handed over to anywhere else; the only thing that leaves is that small integer.
Frequently asked questions
Do I get a fresh five on a new iPhone, or through Family Sharing?
No new allowance. The count is tied to the Apple ID, not to a machine, so a newly signed-in device shows the same remaining balance.
Can I reset the counter by deleting and reinstalling?
No — reinstalling does not clear it. Storing the count in a Keychain item is precisely the design that survives an app removal.
Does a failed conversion waste one of my five?
No. Failures, cancellations and retries are not counted; only a run that hands back a finished file does.
After Opus, is there anything else to pay for?
No. Unlimited conversions is the one thing the purchase unlocks, and there are no quality or speed switches for a later tier to live behind.
Axiom One LLC — CineX. Figures current as of 24 September 2026.