Questions, honestly answered

What it costs, how long it lasts, and why we bothered

We would rather tell you plainly than sell you anything. Here is everything we would want to know before hanging our own lock on a stranger's bridge.

How long does our lock stay up?

Forever, as far as we can keep it. One lock is a one-time payment and it never expires, never needs renewing, and never quietly disappears because a card stopped working.

We thought hard about charging by the year. It would earn more. It would also mean a couple could lose their lock over a forgotten email, and that felt like the opposite of the thing we are building.

Then who pays for 'forever'?

Every lock puts a small amount aside for the hosting and the domain, which are the only real costs of keeping this rail standing. Keeper memberships cover the rest and give us a little room to add new bridges.

And because nothing digital is truly permanent, every lock comes with a printable keepsake at full letter size. If the internet ever forgets us, the paper on your wall still remembers.

What is The Keeper membership?

Nine dollars a year. It brings an anniversary note each year on your date, a freshly weathered portrait of your lock as it ages, half off gift locks, and the first pick of spots when a new bridge opens.

It is entirely optional. A lock without a membership is exactly as permanent as a lock with one.

Why does a lock cost anything at all?

A lock is $4. Less than a coffee, and roughly what a real padlock costs at a hardware stall by the river.

The small price also keeps the rails honest. A free rail fills with noise in a week; a rail that costs the price of a coffee fills with people who meant it.

Can we take our lock down?

Yes. Write to us and we will unhook it and free the spot. We will not argue with you about it. Love changes shape sometimes, and the rail should let it.

Are the bridges real?

The places are real: Paris, Rome, Cologne, Seoul, Prague, Moscow, San Francisco, Cahors. The rails you scroll are our drawings of them, built to feel like the ones we have leaned on.

If your bridge is missing, tell us. Most of the ones here started as somebody's request.

Who made this?

Two people who met under the fog and could not stop thinking about all the rails around the world quietly holding other people's promises.

We did not build this to get rich. We built it because it is lovely to see that love is happening everywhere, all at once, in cities we will never visit — and because we wanted a place to leave ours.