obligatory preface: we’re 100%-user funded and everything you donate to us specifically goes to the website, or any outside labor we pay to do something for us.
overall expenses this month: $523.79
as expected, a full month of running on last month’s setup has come in pretty high. luckily, we expect downsizing to begin this month (and we have a pretty good idea of what we’re going to do) so this will be our last month of costs at this scale. our initial estimation is that we can halve or better what we’re paying now on a monthly basis.
$428.73 for Digital Ocean hosting, which can be further subdivided into
- $336.00 for hosting the site itself
- $67.20 for backups
- $25.53 for site snapshots
$28.87 for Hive, an internal chat platform we’ve set up (also being hosted on Digital Ocean)
- $24.07 for hosting Hive
- $4.80 for backups
~$39.16 for email functionality, which can be further subdivided into
- $35/mo for Mailgun (handles outbound emails, so approval/denial/notifications emails; also lets us not get marked as spam)
- ~$4.16/mo ($50/yr, already paid in full) for Fastmail (handles all inbound emails)
$22.87 for BackBlaze (redundant backup system that’s standalone from Digital Ocean)
overall contributions this month: $1,310.90
support still more than covers our expenses, and particularly with our upcoming downsizing we don’t believe this will be a problem. breakdown is:
- 100 monthly contributions, totaling $624.95
- 2 yearly contributions, totaling $67.10
- 36 one-time donations, totaling $618.85
between monthly and yearly contributions we are still sustainable overall—but now that the Reddit bump has ebbed most of our savings will come in the form of lowering costs and not “sheer amount of money being thrown our way.”
total end of month balance: $4,347.79
expense runway, assuming no further donations
- assuming expenses like ours this month: we have about 8 months and one week of runway
Hey just a thought, but have you considered also measuring your labor in terms of hours worked by admin staff etc? I’m assuming it’s unpaid.
I think showing the financials is great but to me it shows only one part of the picture, if that makes sense. Your work has value!
I really appreciate all the work that goes into this place, and really, thanks for all you do.
I would wager I’ve spent between 40-70hours a week working on Beehaw directly or on things relating to it with as high as 90hours a week at the peak - I would wake up, open Beehaw, eat, sleep. None of us get paid for this, it would likely bankrupt Beehaw in less than a week if we were paid even minimum wage. The only reason I can do this is because I don’t have a job - which is putting me in a bad financial situation honestly… I really should’ve gotten a job but I didn’t.
Thank you for the appreciation.
I really do appreciate the work you put into Beehaw, but to echo what others have said, I don’t think anyone wants this to be unsustainable for you, or anyone else working on Beehaw.
At the least I think it could be reported as part of donations/expenses? Rough numbers would be fine too (because the overhead of tracking hours is not fun). So I’m imagining something like:
400 hours unpaid work (2 full time people working, 1 part-time) (if paid, that’s $6,000 at minimum wage, $8,800 at a livable wage)
Which is a lot of money, and very scary, but at least it makes the behind-the-scenes work visible.
That said, I’m going to go set up a monthly donation now 🤗
I want to add my support for the unpaid labor being reported as part of the financial report. It would add more clear transparency to the total effort involved.
The human toll is hard to quantify but should not be ignored.
It’s worth mentioning that a lot of moderation work is kinda always in the back of your mind and work even when it’s not directly - answering people’s questions, chatting in our mod chat, talking to other admins, etc.
No illusions on my part. This is true for a lot of jobs that have 24/7 support activity and also jobs that have an emotional toll that lingers when not “working” (social workers, teachers in bad neighborhoods, nurses, content moderators). And as such, the pay scale is commensurate. It’s not that it solves the problem, but that it can afford the individuals time off and rehabilitation services.
Surely that isn’t sustainable for you or beehaw? On the one hand, please take care to look after your own best interests. We really appreciate your work, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of your well-being.
On the other hand, if the project is based on full time volunteer work by people who can’t afford to volunteer full time over the long term, surely that is a major risk to the long term viability of the instance?
It worked for reddit for 18 years. They just need more volunteers.
40-90 hours a week isn’t sustainable, but adding a few more people takes it out of burnout territory.
Reddit has always had paid employees, only the mods are/were unpaid.
I would rather see ads or something than having someone work that hard for no pay to keep it going. Have you thought about other potential revenue streams, or would you like to workshop or discuss options?
One idea that I believe could use some discussion is Beehaw merchandise.
I would be delighted to wear a Beehaw shirt out and about, and I’d love a Beehaw sticker for my laptop. I am happy to contribute labor to making these things happen - please let me know if I can assist in any way. My design skills are mediocre, but I am capable of taking an existing thing and turning it into a format that works for various applications, and I’m familiar with setting up basic online storefronts for print-on-demand etc.
If this level of transparency was available for various news and other social sites, I’d be more likely to buy a subscription to them.
The honesty is great and makes this feel more like an actual community or a co-op.
I’ll be curious to see how these numbers change, both the monthly cost and the amount of contributions, as more and more people join up.
Agree with everything in this comment, especially
makes this feel more like an actual community or a co-op.
🥰 TOTALLY, and it makes me feel very good about my recurring donation - the people running the server care, I care, pretty much everybody interacting here really, truly cares about the community, I genuinely love supporting that. This is a beautiful place on the internet.
I wish there was a link to donate at the end of this post.
Yeah… it’s at the top as the link for the post
Well, maybe it needs to be in 2 places for dummies like me. Lol. I kicked in a few bucks. Thanks. For what you do, friend.
I love the amount of transparency in this post!
Here, have some money
What is your intent with a comment like this? Anything constructive we can address for you?
What is your intent with a comment like this?
they were being quite literal [i got their donation email :)]
I feel like those of us who have contributed should receive in return an adorable cat gif.
Not like, to display or anything. Just something happy that bounces in our mailboxes after we contribute. Maybe the cat is wearing a hat! Or maybe the cat has gotten into a humorous predicament. Or maybe the cat is riding a dog. Or a human! The possibilities are endless, the joy boundless; and pragmatically speaking, it makes our monthly receipts for donation slide ride on through with less risk of begrudging it :D
I am not a business cat and you should not take this as business advice
Can I ask what is perhaps a very silly question - why are you advocating for cute cat gifs as thanks on BEEhaw, shouldn’t it be adorable bee gifs? We contribute, and the little bee gathers up pollen and then poots a happy little glitter confetti pollen fart or something? Idk.
I’m allergic as fuck to bees and wasps, I had a bad wasp encounter last year that has left me with PTSD regarding everybody who goes BUZZ BUZZ, I vastly prefer cats and dogs as animals to share space with - but this is Beehaw, it just seems totally wrong for any official anything to not involve bees.
PTSD
Bee TSD
