EverQuest was historically a subscription-based game, costing approximately 15 USD monthly. All player accounts were equal, and could access the same amount of content
With a major patch on March 16, 2012, EverQuest became "Free to Play", aka. F2P. This means that anyone can create a free account that includes all expansions except the most recent two, and a restricted set of game rules. Players can pay to upgrade to a "Silver" account which has a bit fewer restrictions, and finally they can pay the standard monthly subscription fee for a "Gold" account and enjoy the full game.
You can get a complete, official overview of the subscription models in the "free to play matrix" here: EverQuest - Free To Play
Here is a a brief description of some of the most important aspects of the different subscription tiers:
- Base game plus all expansions except the latest two
- Able to choose any race and class
- 2 character slots per server
- Spells of Rank 1
- Maximum of 250 AA points per character
- May not use items tagged as "Prestige"
- Access to the weakest mercenaries
- May join, but not create guilds
- Restricted access to chat channels
- Unable to play on the progression servers
- In-game "spam" promoting subscription upgrade
Obtaining a Silver subscription level costs a one-time fee of 5 USD per account. It allows all the benefits of the Free account type, plus the following
- 4 character slots per server
- Maximum of 1000 AA points per character
- Access to more powerful mercenaries
- May create guilds
A Gold account lifts all of the aforementioned restrictions, and allows 8 characters per server. A Gold account costs 14.99 USD per month as of 2013, and furthermore grants each account 500 Station Cash per month as long as the account has a recurring paymention plan.