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Revenue and paid features
Aug. 16th, 2019 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
powerful_dusk_88623Although Keppari will be incorporated as a US non-profit, the main revenue stream will not be from donations. For long-term stability and accountability to users, payments for paid accounts and paid features will be the main income source. Based on the cost of similar services with premium account tiers, I'm tentatively thinking $3-4/month or $36/year, with a discount for paying for a full year at once. I still need to find an attorney with non-profit experience, but I believe fees for paid accounts and features would not be tax deductible the way a donation would be, since it would be a fee for service similar to purchasing a physical good. This would also probably mean paying sales tax.
For comparison, here are the costs for paid accounts with similar services:
Dreamwidth paid account: $35/year
Dreamwidth premium: $50/year
Reddit premium: $72/year
Reddit gold (prior to 2017?): $30/year
Wordpress.com personal: $60/year
Pillowfort paid account: will update if they announce
Based on conversations with DW's denise, payments will initially be handled through a combination of PayPal, Stripe, and other mainstream payment processors until the organization can build a chargeback history to negotiate with another payment processor who will be more stable. Using PayPal, Stripe, etc runs the risk of being cut off for hosting adult content, but denise advised that cycling payments through different processors and making the payment system processor agnostic will make this a bit less likely. Pillowfort used PayPal from early 2016 through early 2019 before changing processors.
I'm also looking at funding through Patreon, which seems to allow funding for this kind of model and shouldn't have problems with the content, since the Patreon donations would be for the development of the site, not for accessing adult content. Automating Patreon donation integration with the site would require building a hook to their API, which uses a different authorization system than what Keppari currently uses. (Patreon uses OAuth, Keppari uses Devise). This shouldn't be too much of a problem, but would require building.
( Issues with curated ad hosting )
( Issues with a site marketplace )
( Possible paid features )
For comparison, here are the costs for paid accounts with similar services:
Dreamwidth paid account: $35/year
Dreamwidth premium: $50/year
Reddit premium: $72/year
Reddit gold (prior to 2017?): $30/year
Wordpress.com personal: $60/year
Pillowfort paid account: will update if they announce
Based on conversations with DW's denise, payments will initially be handled through a combination of PayPal, Stripe, and other mainstream payment processors until the organization can build a chargeback history to negotiate with another payment processor who will be more stable. Using PayPal, Stripe, etc runs the risk of being cut off for hosting adult content, but denise advised that cycling payments through different processors and making the payment system processor agnostic will make this a bit less likely. Pillowfort used PayPal from early 2016 through early 2019 before changing processors.
I'm also looking at funding through Patreon, which seems to allow funding for this kind of model and shouldn't have problems with the content, since the Patreon donations would be for the development of the site, not for accessing adult content. Automating Patreon donation integration with the site would require building a hook to their API, which uses a different authorization system than what Keppari currently uses. (Patreon uses OAuth, Keppari uses Devise). This shouldn't be too much of a problem, but would require building.
( Issues with curated ad hosting )
( Issues with a site marketplace )
( Possible paid features )
