Until now, if you wanted to support Spliit financially, you had two options: GitHub Sponsors, or a direct donation through a Stripe link. Both worked fine. But both had the same flaw: the money landed in my personal account, and you had to take my word for what happened to it next.

Starting today, Spliit's funding goes through Open Collective instead.

Why the change?

Two reasons, and both are pretty boring, which I think is a good sign when we're talking about money.

It's transparent. On Open Collective, everything is public: every donation that comes in, every expense that goes out, and the current balance. You don't have to trust me when I say the money covers hosting costs, you can just go and look. When I pay a bill from the collective, the receipt is right there for anyone to see.

It's simpler on my side. Spliit is hosted by Open Source Collective, a non-profit that acts as a fiscal host for hundreds of open source projects. Concretely, that means donations don't go through my pocket anymore. No more figuring out how to declare money that was never really mine. The collective holds the funds, and I submit the invoices to it.

Honestly, the second reason is what finally made me do it. But the first one is the one that matters to you.

What is the money used for?

One thing only: keeping Spliit running. Hosting, the database, and the various services the app relies on.

It is not used to pay me, and it is not used to pay contributors. I want to be explicit about this, because it's the most reasonable thing to wonder about. I have a full-time job, Spliit is a side project I genuinely enjoy, and the 91 people who contributed code did it because they wanted to. Turning that into paid work would change the nature of the project in a way I'm not looking for.

If that ever changes, you'll read it here first.

How much does Spliit cost?

Around $150 a month, most of it being database hosting. That's roughly $1,800 a year. It was $115 a month the last time I broke the numbers down, which gives you an idea of the trend as more people use the app.

Donations have covered a good part of that so far, and I've paid the rest myself, which I'm happy to do. Spliit was never meant to be profitable. But I would love for the project to survive me: if I ever step away from it, it shouldn't die because nobody can pay the hosting bill.

Open Collective makes that a lot more realistic, because the funds belong to the collective, not to me.

Do I need to do anything?

Not really. If you currently sponsor me on GitHub: thank you, sincerely, and feel free to move your contribution to the collective whenever it's convenient. There's no rush, and no hard feelings if you'd rather just stop.

And if you've never donated, that's completely fine too. Spliit is free, it stays free, and that's not a polite way of saying "free for now" 😊

Support Spliit on Open Collective