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Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#21

Post by aitooltrek-com »

Nice work on your open-source project! I have seen serval effective ways to monetize via open-source project:

Community funding is a great starting point. Set up a GitHub Sponsors account or use platforms like Open Collective or Ko-fi. Many developers are happy to support projects they find useful. You can check the open source repo with Sponsors enabled.

I have seen a monetization case from a popular Chrome extension - I cant remember the extact name. While free for users, it displays sponsor logos in its GitHub repo and within the extension itself.

Finally, take inspiration from Tailwind CSS, which is a famous open source project. They offer Tailwind UI, a paid, advanced component library built on their free core framework.

From my personal experience, monetizing a SaaS project isn't easy, but it's certainly possible. However, establishing a steady income stream is a different case altogether.

Good luck! Look forward to hearing more your experiences from this!

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#24

Post by geon »

andreareina wrote: post #17
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. What licenses have you seen that prohibit charging for work on the associated product?

Don't know if it's what GP means but without a clear contract there's room for the paid work to be considered "work for hire" which means the company owns the change and OP wouldn't be able to incorporate it into the open source version of the project.

Obviously the contract needs to specify the license.

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#25

Post by andreareina »

geon wrote: post #24
andreareina wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know if it's what GP means but without a clear contract there's room for the paid work to be considered "work for hire" which means the company owns the change and OP wouldn't be able to incorporate it into the open source version of the project.

Obviously the contract needs to specify the license.

Obviously. And yet these things are left un-/under-specified all the time.

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#26

Post by lysecret »

gigamick wrote: post #15
benwerd wrote: post #7

I've built two open source startups, totaling a decade of my life. Take it from me: the only way to do this sustainably is open core. That means you make the core software open, but you sell the features that businesses will pay for or that allow other people to make money. Think of it as two distinct products for two distinct userbases. In effect, the open source software becomes lead gen; the closed software is you…

Can you point me to your startups? I'm not entirely sure I understand how to implement this.

Also an example of open core is https://www.quantconnect.com/

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#27

Post by globular-toast »

Have you tried sending the large company a quote for how much you'd want to make the changes for them? They want you to do something, you're not free. It seems like the monetisation opportunity is staring at you in the face. It might not give you the constant, passive income stream you might be hoping for, though.

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#28

Post by huijzer »

Ensure that you’re either increasing someone’s revenue or decreasing their costs. In both cases, it should be possible to somehow convince people to pay you. How exactly is a bit of an art and requires some creativity but should be possible. For example if a company earns or saves 100k dollars per year from your software, it should not take much convincing to negotiate them giving you 1k-5k.

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#29

Post by handfuloflight »

benwerd wrote: post #7

I've built two open source startups, totaling a decade of my life. Take it from me: the only way to do this sustainably is open core. That means you make the core software open, but you sell the features that businesses will pay for or that allow other people to make money. Think of it as two distinct products for two distinct userbases. In effect, the open source software becomes lead gen; the closed software is you…

Can you switch the licenses? I'm assuming since no consideration is exchanged, there's no contract, so you can change to a less permissive license.

Re: Ask HN: How can I monetise an open source app of mine that has become popular?

#30

Post by webprofusion »

I've built a few open source things in the past, a couple of which got popular. One was an open data project and it's just stayed the same (free API etc). Community look after it mostly.

Another was what became Certify The Web, which is now the most popular UI for automated certificate management on Windows and is most definitely now a commercial product (but 90% of users use the free version). I originally had a donate button and did get a couple of donations, maybe 4 or 5.

It was getting thousands of downloads per week and the company I was working for went into administration, so on the same day I added a Paypal button to the website for people to buy a license key and got my first sale later that evening. It's now had around 10K customers over 7 years and they renew their license key each year. Some people/companies do indeed want support and updates (I offer email support only, or there is a community forum). Nowadays most purchase via Stripe,

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