Flightradar24 is the live flight-tracking map that turns the sky into a moving picture of yellow aeroplanes. Point your phone at a jet overhead and it will tell you where it came from, where it is heading and what type it is. We like it for two reasons: the free version is genuinely useful for meeting someone at arrivals, and its network of roughly 58,000 receivers, many run by volunteers in their back gardens, gives it extraordinary coverage.
It has also become more cluttered with adverts, and the useful extras sit behind Silver and Gold. Here is our Flightradar24 review: what is free, what each plan costs, how it handles privacy and how it compares with FlightAware and Plane Finder.
Flightradar24 Promo Code: None needed
Best deal: 7-day free trial on Silver or Gold, then Gold from £33.99 a year
| Offer detail | What you get |
|---|---|
| Promo Code | None needed. Flightradar24 does not publish promo codes |
| Welcome offer | 7-day free trial on Silver, Gold and Business, one per account |
| Who qualifies | New subscribers on the web, iPhone, iPad or Android |
| Key terms | Renews automatically; Gold is £33.99 a year on the UK App Store; unused trial time is forfeited |
| How to claim | Create a free account, choose a plan and start the trial in the app or on the website |
Flightradar24: key facts
- Official website: flightradar24.com
- Owner: Flightradar24 AB (Sprints Capital agreed a 35% stake in 2025)
- Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden
- Founded: 2006
- Ratings: App Store 4.8 (378k ratings, UK App Store); Google Play 4.5 (607k reviews, Google Play); Trustpilot 2.1 (188 reviews)
- Headline offer: 7-day free trial on Silver, Gold and Business (one per account)
- Promo Code: None needed (no promo codes published)
- Price from: £2.99 a month for Silver (UK App Store); Gold £33.99 a year
- Free plan or trial: Yes: live map, flight details, filters, 3D view, AR sky view, 7 days of history, with ads
- Payment methods: Apple App Store, Google Play, Website subscription
- Best features: AR mode identifies aircraft overhead; Roughly 58,000 receivers plus satellite coverage; Gold weather layers, ATC boundaries and 365 days of history
Flightradar24 at a glance
- Owner: Flightradar24 AB, Stockholm; Sprints Capital agreed to take a 35% stake in 2025
- Launched: 2006 as a Swedish side project; open to receiver contributors since 2009
- Platforms: web, iPhone, iPad, Android and Apple Vision Pro
- Free plan: yes; live map, flight details, 3D view, AR sky view and 7 days of history, with ads
- Paid from: £2.99 a month for Silver (UK App Store)
- Offline use: no; it needs a data connection
- Ratings: App Store (UK) 4.8/5 from 378k ratings; Google Play 4.5/5 from 607k reviews
Our verdict
Flightradar24 remains the best all-round flight tracker for most people, and the free app does the everyday job: is the plane late, where is it now, what is that thing flying over the house? Gold is good value for enthusiasts who want weather layers and a year of history, at under £3 a month on the annual plan. The main gripe is advertising in the free app, which several long-time users now find too intrusive. If that grates, Silver is the cheap fix.
Pros
- Free live map covers airliners worldwide, with satellite data over oceans
- AR mode identifies planes overhead by pointing your phone at the sky
- Seven-day free trial on every paid plan
- Gold at £33.99 a year adds weather layers, air traffic control boundaries and a year of history
- Share data from a home receiver and you get a free Contributor plan
Cons
- Ads in the free app have become a frequent complaint
- History is limited to 7 days on the free plan
- Some aircraft are deliberately hidden, so not every plane appears
- No offline mode and no Apple Watch app listed
- App Store privacy label lists location and purchases among data used to track you
What Flightradar24 does and who it is for
Flightradar24 collects the position signals that most aircraft broadcast (a system called ADS-B), plus multilateration, satellite data and some radar feeds, and plots them on a live map. Tap a plane and you get its flight number, route, altitude, speed, aircraft type, registration and usually a photo of that exact airframe.
It earns its place on your phone in moments like these:
- Your mother is flying into Manchester from Málaga. Instead of refreshing the airport’s arrivals board, you watch the flight cross the Bay of Biscay and leave home when it starts its descent.
- Your connecting flight in Amsterdam is showing “on time”, but the inbound aircraft is still sitting in Barcelona. Flightradar24 lets you see where your plane actually is.
- A strange, low four-engine aircraft rumbles over your garden on a Sunday afternoon. Point the phone at it and find out.
It suits nervous flyers’ families, frequent travellers, aviation fans and journalists. It is not a booking app or a replacement for your airline’s own alerts.
Is Flightradar24 free? Free vs paid features
Yes. Without paying you get the live map, flight details, filters by airline, aircraft, altitude and speed, the 3D cockpit view, AR mode for identifying planes overhead, and seven days of history with playback. The free version shows ads.
Silver removes ads and adds 90 days of history, alerts and filters to track specific flights, current weather at more than 3,000 airports, and extra details such as vertical speed and squawk code.
Gold adds everything in Silver plus 365 days of history, detailed weather layers for cloud and rain, and air traffic control boundaries.
Business is the commercial tier, with three years of history, Airport View and Fleet View, enhanced ADS-B data and more weather and airspace overlays.
Flightradar24 price: plans and the cheapest way to pay
The UK App Store lists these prices. Some plans show two prices.
| Plan | UK price | US$ | € |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | £0 | $0 | €0 |
| Silver, monthly | £2.99 | $3.98 | €3.55 |
| Silver, yearly | £13.99 (also listed at £12.99) | $18.64 | €16.60 |
| Gold, monthly | £5.99 (also listed at £3.99) | $7.98 | €7.11 |
| Gold, yearly | £33.99 | $45.30 | €40.34 |
| Business, yearly | £375.19 | $499.99 | €445.29 |
For Silver and Gold, dollar and euro figures are conversions of the UK prices. Business is sold on the website, where it was listed at $49.99 a month or $499.99 a year before tax in April 2026, so its pound and euro figures are conversions from dollars. Prices on the website and on Android may differ.
The cheapest way to pay: pay yearly. Silver at £13.99 a year is about £1.17 a month, compared with £2.99 monthly. Gold at £33.99 a year is about £2.83 a month, less than half the monthly price. Start with the 7-day free trial and set a reminder, because it converts to a paid plan automatically.
The free route for tinkerers: Flightradar24 gives a free Contributor plan to anyone who feeds data from their own ADS-B receiver. A Raspberry Pi and a cheap DVB-T USB stick will do, and the company publishes instructions for building one.
Flightradar24 features that matter
Coverage. About 58,000 receivers worldwide, according to a Euronews report from March 2026, plus a satellite provider operating 66 satellites to fill in oceans and deserts. A ground receiver typically picks up signals within about 300km.
Accuracy. Positions from ADS-B are close to real time. In the US, where some data comes from the FAA, those positions can be delayed by around five minutes.
AR and 3D. Point your camera at the sky to identify aircraft, or switch to a 3D view from the cockpit, both free.
History and playback. Watch past flights again: 7 days free, 90 on Silver, 365 on Gold and three years on Business.
Weather. Silver shows airport weather; Gold adds cloud and precipitation layers on the map, which helps explain a diversion or a bumpy arrival.
Platforms. iPhone, iPad, Android, web and Apple Vision Pro. There is no offline mode, so you need data or Wi-Fi; an eSIM helps if you track flights abroad.
Is Flightradar24 safe? Privacy and blocked aircraft
Flightradar24 is a private Swedish company founded by Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg. In 2025 the founders agreed to sell a 35% stake to London private equity firm Sprints Capital, in a deal reported to value the business at about $500 million.
The app is safe to use, but it does collect data. Its UK App Store privacy label lists purchases, location, contact info, identifiers and usage data as data used to track you. On Google Play, the developer says location, financial information and other data may be shared with third parties, that data is encrypted in transit and that you can ask for deletion. When DailyStoke checked, we found no published regulator action against the company.
It also hides some aircraft. Flightradar24 blocks planes registered under the FAA’s LADD privacy programme and other security and privacy schemes, and in 2014 it hid the position of Japan’s government aircraft at the request of the Japanese Ministry of Defense. If you cannot find a private jet or military flight, that is usually why.
What users say about Flightradar24
The store ratings are strong: 4.8 out of 5 from 378,000 ratings on the UK App Store, and 4.5 from about 607,000 reviews on Google Play, where it has more than 100 million downloads. Trustpilot is much harsher, with a TrustScore of 2.1 from 188 reviews.
The fans are emphatic. On the UK App Store in July 2025, y0ur k1nd wrote: “100% get this app if your interested in planes”. Another App Store reviewer, Stu0732, found paying fixed his problems: “Amazingly since paying the gold subscription everything works as it should!”
The complaints, especially on Google Play in mid-2026, are about ads. Glenn J wrote in July 2026: “While this is a great app, the ad intrusion make it unusable.” Jon U agreed the same month: “Very intrusive adverts. The app used to be good for the occasional check but no longer.”
How to get started with Flightradar24
- Download Flightradar24 from the App Store or Google Play, or open flightradar24.com.
- Allow location access if you want the map to open where you are and to use AR mode.
- Search a flight number, airport or registration, or simply tap a plane on the map.
- Create a free account to save bookmarks, then try Silver or Gold with the 7-day free trial if you need alerts or longer history.
To cancel: on iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, choose Flightradar24 and cancel. On Android, go to Google Play, Payments and subscriptions, Subscriptions. If you subscribed on the website, manage it from your Flightradar24 account. Cancel at least 24 hours before renewal; refunds for store purchases are handled by Apple or Google.
Flightradar24 vs FlightAware vs Plane Finder
| Flightradar24 | FlightAware | Plane Finder | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, with ads | Yes, with ads | Yes |
| Paid from | £2.99 a month (Silver) | 99p a month (ad removal) | £3.49 a month (Premium) |
| Best for | All-round tracking, AR and 3D | US flights and delay data | A simpler, cleaner tracker |
| Offline | No | No | No |
| App Store rating (UK) | 4.8 (378k) | 4.7 (8.4k) | 4.7 (96k) |
Pick Flightradar24 for the best mix of coverage, AR identification and history, especially in Europe.
Pick FlightAware if you mostly fly in the US, or just want ads gone for 99p a month or £8.99 a year.
Pick Plane Finder if you want a calmer alternative with a single Premium tier at £19.99 a year.
Flightradar24 alternatives
- FlightAware: a big US-based tracker with ad removal from 99p a month and pricier Aviator plans.
- Plane Finder: from Pinkfroot, with Premium at £3.49 a month or £19.99 a year.
- ADS-B Exchange: a community-fed tracker popular with enthusiasts who want raw data.
- Rome2Rio: for working out how to get to the airport in the first place. See our Rome2Rio review.
Flightradar24 FAQs
Is Flightradar24 free?
Yes. The live map, flight details, 3D view, AR mode and seven days of history are free, with ads. Silver and Gold add more.
How much is Flightradar24 Gold?
On the UK App Store, Gold costs £33.99 a year or £5.99 a month, after a 7-day free trial.
What is the difference between Flightradar24 Silver and Gold?
Silver removes ads and adds 90 days of history, alerts and airport weather. Gold adds a year of history, weather map layers and air traffic control boundaries.
Why can’t I see a plane on Flightradar24?
It may not broadcast ADS-B, be out of receiver range, or be blocked for privacy or security reasons, as many private and government aircraft are.
Can I get Flightradar24 Gold for free?
Not Gold, but feeding data from your own ADS-B receiver earns a free Contributor plan.
How do I cancel Flightradar24?
Through App Store subscriptions on iPhone, Google Play on Android, or your Flightradar24 account if you paid on the website.
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