# History window: know your reach before the incident

## The trap
Teams discover their history window during an incident, when it is too late to change. The window is how far back instant restore, Time Travel queries, and branching from past states can go, and the default is short.

## The rule (current plan limits)
- Free: 6 hours default and max (capped at 1 GB of history).
- Launch: 1 day default, 7 days max.
- Scale: 1 day default, 30 days max.

Longer windows store more WAL, which increases the History usage on your bill. It is a deliberate tradeoff, not a free upgrade.

## Checklist
- Set the window for your recovery objectives before you need it, not during.
- The deletion recovery period (undeleting a whole project) is separate from the history window; do not confuse them.
- For compliance retention beyond 30 days, pair Neon with scheduled `pg_dump` backups to object storage; the history window is not an archive.
- After raising the window, watch the History line on your bill for a cycle.