border-mate.com

What Is It

bordermate is a Google Calendar™ add-on built around the Schengen Area’s 90/180-day stay rule. It reads travel events from your calendar, automatically determines whether they fall within Schengen countries based on location information, and calculates days used, days remaining, and projected cumulative usage at the end of a trip within the rolling 180-day window. Its positioning is clear: this is not a general-purpose travel management SaaS, but a personal compliance-tracking tool designed to help travelers reduce the risk of overstaying in the Schengen Area.

Core Features and Integrations

The product’s core is calendar-driven automatic calculation. Users only need to enter an address, city, country, or “Europe” in the location field of a Google Calendar event, and bordermate will identify it and count it toward Schengen days where applicable. It supports all-day events, timed events, multi-day events, and handles overlapping events to avoid double-counting. A balance bar uses green, orange, and red indicators to highlight risk, and warnings are also shown when the 90-day limit is exceeded. On desktop, it runs as an add-on in the right sidebar of Google Calendar; on mobile, users view it through the Web App.

Pricing, Security, and Limitations

Pricing is very straightforward: after a free trial, there is a one-time payment of £5.99, which offers good value. On privacy, the site states that it only accesses Google Calendar data, does not store or share information, and that data remains with Google; however, it does not disclose formal compliance certifications such as GDPR or SOC 2. Its limitations are also fairly clear: it currently only supports the default Google Calendar and cannot read multiple calendars; events cannot be edited directly inside bordermate and must be opened in Google Calendar instead; it also explicitly states that it does not replace official immigration advice and does not assume legal responsibility.

Pros, Cons, and Who It’s For

The main advantages are its low learning curve, integration into an existing calendar workflow, and inexpensive one-time payment. It is especially suitable for frequent travelers to and from the Schengen Area, digital nomads, remote workers, and heavy Google Calendar users. The downside is that the product scope is very narrow: it does not offer team collaboration, permission management, APIs, self-hosting, or enterprise travel compliance capabilities.

Access from China

Because the product depends heavily on Google Calendar, users in mainland China will usually need a proxy to access and authorize it reliably. If Google services are not available, alternatives include Excel/Notion templates, manual Schengen Calculator tools, or other travel-tracking tools that do not rely on Google.