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Ask HN: How are you monetizing your OSS project?

8 pointsby yuvalkarmialmost 2 years ago
Hey folks, question -- my buddy and I are working on a new OSS project that&#x27;s been taking off recently and we&#x27;re starting to gain some traction.<p>It&#x27;s taking up A LOT of our time.<p>This is cool enough where we&#x27;re actually considering quitting our day jobs to maintain it, but we still need to somehow feed ourselves...<p>I&#x27;m curious if there are other OSS maintainers here who have done it before and can give us their two cents (no pun intended) on monetization?<p>Do we ask for donations? patreon? just stick to sponsorships? Or is there another way we&#x27;re missing (short of opening a company around it, which we&#x27;d rather not do for reasons out of the scope of this post).<p>Any help appreciated!

4 comments

joergrechalmost 2 years ago
Hi, I&#x27;ve collected many monetization approaches in the &quot;Awesome OSS Monetization&quot; list on Github - maybe it helps you to find alternatives to donations &#x2F; sponsorships:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;PayDevs&#x2F;awesome-oss-monetization">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;PayDevs&#x2F;awesome-oss-monetization</a>
lnalxalmost 2 years ago
Hi,<p>I&#x27;ve created Claper [0], an open-source tool for real-time interaction with a public. You have multiple ways to monetize an OSS, starting from donation, sponsorship to consulting or SaaS.<p>Personally, I chose the last one with a cloud version. I like this model, people paying for the SaaS support the project and have, in return, a hosted version of the OSS, and so contribute to improve it.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;claper.co&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;claper.co&#x2F;</a>
pabs3almost 2 years ago
Some resources for grants and patronage:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;resources#grants">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;resources#grants</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;resources#patronage">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;fossjobs&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;resources#patronag...</a>
tacostakohashialmost 2 years ago
How about offering training, consulting, courses &#x2F; books, etc?