Paying for the indie/small-web

02 Sep, 2025

I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of us take the independent/small web for granted.

An army of individuals, or small groups of people, beaver away behind the scenes creating fantastic applications and web content. Take a moment to think how many free apps you use on your computer and/or mobile devices. And all those blogs and websites you reach for to find stimulating content, tips/tricks, and "how to" guides.

If you are like me, I rely hugely on real people, and not corporate-driven, income focused content.

It's not really free

Just because you don't hand over any of your hard-earned cash, doesn't technically mean it is free. People have given a huge amount of their time to make your life more pleasant.

Time is valuable. There's a cost associated with it. It may not be an actual value, but someone has generously given up part of their life to deliver something to you.

I'm not here to guilt you into paying for stuff. That sits with you and your own state of mind. I also fully appreciate that not everyone has spare funds to give, and I still want them to be able to enjoy the nice things.

I love that the indie/small-web is building a fully inclusive online service, where you are not entirely excluded if you are unable to pay.

What do I pay?

In the spirit of openness, I wanted to list some of the independent services I contribute towards. I will not lie, I probably use many which I don't pay for (or perhaps not yet), but if something I use truly makes a difference to me I will do my best to contribute, even if it's a small amount.

If we all sent a developer £/$/€ 1 it would make a huge difference.

Here's what I can remember I donate towards currently:

• GoToSocial: I use a GoToSocial server for my presence on the Fediverse. I donate €12 per year
• Phanpy: The app I use on the fediverse. $5 per month
• Tinylytics: A great little website stats tool. $5 per month
• Bear: The blogging platform I use for this blog. $7 per month
• Mullvad VPN: I don't use VPN much but it's a great service. €5 per month
• TimeMachiner. This was the first time I have paid for blog content. The author was looking for people to support his writing, so I did. $25 per year
• World Bee Sanctuary: I follow the guy on the fediverse. He's setting up a Bee Sanctuary. I liked his story. €100 per year
• Wikipedia: I blogged about donating to wikipedia. It's a great information tool. £5 per month
• Kagi: A fantastic search engine that I blogged about: $130 per year.

I pay for other services, like FastMail for email, BitWarden for password management, Koofr for File sync/storage. These are all larger companies, but relatively independent.

I used to donate to PixelFed but I cancelled! The developer has a different moral compass to my own.

The flip side

Lets look at the other side of the 'free' internet.

I run a number of services on the internet. Most of them I do not seek donations.

One of them is a Mastodon Fediverse server. I've ran it for just over two years, it's quite niche. It has just under 600 registered users; 170 of those are considered active per month. I give users the option to donate but I don't make a big thing of it. In a typical month I get four or five regular donations. A few are quarterly or there about.

I did an analysis for year one to find out how well it was being supported financially. I took almost £600 in donations, it costs me just over £1,000 to run. I therefore subsidised the service by £440.

It's my choice, I want to offer this to everyone. It's great that people donate. But it's hard to balance the books!

In conclusion

If it makes your life easier, and you can afford it, make a small donation.

If you need to keep your cash for food etc, please don't feel you need to donate. The indie-web needs fed too, but look after yourself first.

#Tech #fediverse