I felt bad telling everyone that SpotX pricing is a wishy-washy mishmash of options (which is true if not a satisfying answer). I clicked to their pricing site and investigated. Here’s a summary:
Your basic, activated all year plan is $20 to activate and $12 a month. That includes 20 texts a month plus unlimited “check ins”. (I just discovered the pre-defined messages are free in addition to “check ins” which I already knew to be free. I should read fine print more.) It’ll cost you $12/month and add up to $164 a year. I think that’s pretty good for what you’re getting.
A basic, only activate in months you want plan is $25 to activate and $15 a month. During the active months it’s the same # of texts; 20. This plan allows you to shut down service and then restart it without fees. (I haven’t tested this.) This means if you only want to use a SpotX for one month of elk hunting it’ll cost you $40 a year total. That ‘aint bad either.
I’ve already experimented enough to decided that 100 texts a month (which is what I got) is too much. 20 is probably fine given that pre-defined and “check in” are “free”.
There are more options. But that’s the gist of it.
There are few sexy options… totally not required but for my experimental first year I went nuts:
Remember how this all started with John Wick? He had pre-planned ass covering for situations where his ass needed covering. I wanted something like that for me! Well, for an extra $25 a year you can buy coverage for “up to $100K in Search and Rescue (SAR) expenses – even coordinating a private SAR contractor if needed to get you to safety”. Fine print tells me that’s $50k per event and 2 possible “events” which is plenty. (Fer crissakes if you need more than 2 extractions in one year they should put you on a leash.) I don’t plan on ever needing SAR but helicopters are expensive. You can’t even look at a helicopter without losing a mortgage payment and it goes up from there. I bought the $25 coverage. Hopefully I’ll never be able to tell you how well it works.
There’s also an AAA towing like service. $30 a year for “towing and roadside assistance, offering service on even the most obscure and hard to travel roads imaginable. It doesn’t matter if the roads are paved , dirt or gravel”. (Their words, not mine. I can imagine shit that’ll scare a billy goat so YMMV.) It implies they’ll retrieve things like ATV’s and snowmobiles. That said, I’m suspicious. I suspect they created loopholes for themselves and will say something like “we only cover ATVs on leap years” if you call them. Nonetheless I’ve been having carburetor issues with my Curmudgeonly Bug Out Vehicle (not the Dodge) and so I decided to get this service until I’m sure I’ve got the kinks worked out in the old beast. (More on the BOV when/if I get it ready for primetime.)