Surfline alternative: prices and features compared.

If you only surf, Surfline is the better tool. It runs more than 1,300 live cams, forecasts break by break out to 16 days on paid plans, and has human forecasters writing the reports. Submarius is for people who surf and also dive, spearfish, fish or take a boat out. One app covers wind, swell, tides, water temperature, radar, charts, mapped reefs and wrecks, a bite score and free safety tools. Here's what each one costs and what you get for it.

What Surfline costs (US, October 2026)

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	Forecasts, surf reports, buoys, tides and session logging, with ads. No live cams since September 29, 2026.
Premium with Ads	$69.99 a year (annual only)	The same features as Premium, including live cams and cam rewind, with a skippable ad the first time you open each cam.
Premium	$15.99 a month or $119.99 a year	Live cams without the cam ads, cam rewind, 16 day forecasts, and reports and analysis from human forecasters.
Premium+	$149.99 a year (annual only)	Everything in Premium plus Smart Cam features at select spots. Share it with up to 2 other people on their own accounts.

Sources: Surfline's help articles on membership types, free vs Premium, US price and tier updates, Premium+ sharing and live cams moving to Premium. The monthly Premium price is from Surfline's US App Store listing. All checked October 14, 2026. Prices are before tax, and Surfline says plans and prices vary by region. Surfline offers a 7 day free trial on annual Premium and Premium+ to eligible new accounts. Surfline's own checkout page is the final word on what you'll pay.

What Submarius costs

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	Today's 0 to 10 rating and every tile for today, the next 12 hours, the best 3 hour window, the last hour of radar, National Weather Service warnings in the US, cam pins, fish species near you, trip recording, unlimited private spots and every safety tool.
Pro	$12.99 a month or $99 a year, each with a 7 day free trial	Forecast days 2 to 8, eight map layers (NOAA charts (US), bathymetry, reef habitat, reefs and wrecks, sea surface temperature, wind, forecast radar (continental US), bite score heat map), live cam playback, offline map areas, encrypted backup and sync, and GPX export.
Pro lifetime	$149 once, no trial	Everything in Pro, paid one time.

US prices. Other countries pay a different amount, and the App Store or Google Play shows yours before you buy. Free and Pro see the same rating, bite score and visibility numbers. Pro adds more days, more layers and more tools, not a better model.

Features side by side

Feature	Submarius	Surfline
Live cams	Hand picked live cams where we have them, plus NOAA buoy camera stills. Pins free, playback Pro	✓ 1,300+ cams, paid plans only
Cam rewind and Smart Cam surf counts	N/A	✓ rewind on Premium, Smart Cams on Premium+
Surf rating for each break	General surf verdict, no shore bearing per break	✓ break by break
Forecasts written by human forecasters	N/A	✓
Forecast length	Today free, 8 days with Pro	16 days on paid plans
Swell, wind and tide	✓ wave height blended with nearby buoys	✓ plus buoy data, and Live Wind on paid plans
Session tracking	Trip recording on your phone, no watch app	✓ Sessions, with Apple Watch and Garmin
Modes for diving, spearfishing, fishing and boating	✓ 9 activity modes	Built for surf
Mapped reefs and wrecks	✓ Pro map layer	N/A
Bite score for anglers	✓ today free, 8 days with Pro	N/A
Visibility estimate for divers	✓ with a confidence figure, in dive modes	N/A
Float plan with check in, SOS and shark awareness	✓ free. Safety Watch needs a free account; shark card in Spearfishing mode	N/A

When Surfline is worth paying for

If surfing is the whole reason you check the ocean, pay for Surfline. Watching the sandbar or the point before you drive over tells you more than any forecast can, and Surfline's network of more than 1,300 cams is the biggest surf cam network there is. Paid plans forecast each break out to 16 days, and Surfline's own team of human forecasters (it has been at it since 1985) writes the regional reports and calls the days to watch.

Premium with Ads at $69.99 a year is now the cheapest way to watch Surfline's cams, as long as a short ad before each cam doesn't bother you. Premium+ is worth the extra $30 over annual Premium if your break has a Smart Cam, or if you'll split it with two friends.

When Submarius is the better fit

You do more than surf. Nine modes cover spearfishing, fishing, scuba, freediving, boating, sailing, surfing, kayak or SUP, and clamming, and the mode reorders the tiles. Add how you get out there, like a boat or a kayak, and the day's rating is only as good as the weaker of the two.
You want the rest of the ocean in one place. Tides come from NOAA predictions within about 50 km of a US station and a tide model elsewhere. Wave height is blended with nearby NOAA and CDIP buoys. You also get more than 380,000 mapped reefs, wrecks, obstructions, dive sites and platforms (as of August 2026, a Pro layer, dense in US waters and sparse elsewhere), a 0 to 10 bite score, and National Weather Service warnings in the US.
You care about safety tools being free. Safety Watch lets you file a plan with a "back by" time and pick who watches. If you don't check in, the server alerts them, even if your phone is dead. SOS goes to your contacts. Spearfishing mode adds a shark awareness card. None of it is behind Pro, and Safety Watch needs a free account.
You'd rather pay once. Pro lifetime is $149, one time. Every paid Surfline plan in the table above renews.

Surfline does some things we can't. Our surf rating is a general verdict built from swell, wind, tide and the rest. It doesn't know which way each break faces, so it can't tell you which beach is cleaner the way Surfline can. We show hand picked live cams where we have them, plus NOAA buoy camera stills near you, and playing them is Pro, same as Surfline. There's no rewind and no surf counting.

Using Surfline and Submarius together

If you surf and also dive, spear or fish, running both makes sense. Use Surfline for the cam check and the forecaster's call on your break. Use Submarius when the plan is a dive, a fishing trip or a boat day, or when you want tides, reefs and wrecks, the bite score and a float plan in one place.

Common questions

How much does Surfline cost?

In the US, Surfline Premium is $15.99 a month or $119.99 a year. Premium with Ads is $69.99 a year and Premium+ is $149.99 a year, and both of those are annual only. The free account has had no live cams since September 29, 2026. These are US prices before tax, taken from Surfline's help center and its App Store listing in October 2026. Surfline's own checkout page shows the final price for your account.

Is there a free Surfline alternative?

For today's conditions, yes. Submarius is free for today: the 0 to 10 rating with swell, wind, tide and water temperature, the next 12 hours, the last hour of radar, unlimited private spots and every safety tool. The forecast for days 2 to 8 is Pro. Neither app plays live cams for free. Surfline needs a paid plan to watch cams, and cam playback in Submarius is Pro too.

What is the difference between Surfline Premium and Premium+?

Premium+ costs $149.99 a year, $30 more than annual Premium, and is annual only. It adds Smart Cam features: a timeline of wave heights and ridden waves, clips and rewinds that skip to ridden waves, wave distribution and crowd insights from the last 60 minutes, and live surf height measured by the camera. You can share it with up to 2 other people on their own accounts, which works out to about $50 each if three of you split it. Smart Cams only run at select spots in the US, Australia and the UK, so check that your break has one before you pay for it.

Check your break in Submarius.

Swell, wind, tide, water temperature and radar for your spot, in one app.

Open the app