As we wrap up our end-of-year budget here at SourceHut, we find ourselves with a good opportunity to reconsider our pricing. We have always promised to evaluate any potential pricing changes in consultation with our community, which is why we’re bringing our proposal forward to you now for discussion. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
tl;dr: We want to increase the base rates to €4/€8/€12, with current users grandfathered into their current rates. Furthermore, users in the EU who pay in US dollars will soon have to pay VAT when we rehome them with our EU business. Free service is still available to users who can’t pay. Read on for more details!
New here? SourceHut is a software development platform which offers repository hosting, bug tracking, continuous integration, mailing lists, and more to projects hosted with us. SourceHut is 100% free and open source software. Welcome!
SourceHut’s pricing has been the same since we first started accepting payments in 2018: $2, $5, and $10 per month, with a “2 months free” discount for users who pay annually. There is no difference between the price tiers; we use an honor-system model of “pay what you think is fair” based on your financial means and how much you use SourceHut.
In the years since, inflation has effectively reduced the prices by 30%. All of you have been subject to the same inflation and stagnant wages in the meantime, and we have preferred to take the hit to our margins rather than pass the costs onto you in an increasingly stressed economy. But, at some point, we will have to consider raising our prices.
Before we get into the proposed changes, I’d first like to reiterate that SourceHut is committed to never pricing anyone out of our services. If you cannot afford to pay for your account for any reason, then you are eligible for free service by applying for financial aid.
Our proposal is to set the standard prices for new customers from January 2026 onwards in Euro at €4, €8, and €12, and in US dollars at $5, $10, and $15.1 In addition to these standard rates, the billing UI will be updated to offer a reduced rate of €2/$2 (the same as the present-day minimum payment) in addition to financial aid as an option for users who cannot pay the standard rates.
Users with an existing paid subscription will be grandfathered into their current price indefinitely. If you cancel your paid subscription and sign up again later, you’ll pay the new price. Users who pay at a grandfathered price point will also get a notice in their billing profile asking them to volunteer to pay the new price:
Moving US accounts to Europe
One more change to prices coming up soon: as many of you know, we are in the process of moving our business from the US to Europe. Our US business was below the thresholds required to charge VAT, so users in Europe have not been charged VAT up until now. However, our European business is of course required to charge VAT. As we shutter the US business entity and move these customers to our European business, we will have to start charging VAT.
If your account is affected, you can expect to receive an email with the details at least 3 months prior to your account being migrated. You will have an opportunity to choose a lower price tier (or a higher one, for that matter), or cancel your subscription, before VAT is applied to your renewal payments. Your payment will still be denoted in US dollars, though you will have the option to switch to paying in Euro.
Customers who are already paying in Euro are already being charged VAT, so if you’re one of them then there will be no changes for your account.
There are still a number of technical hurdles to overcome planning this rollout, so the exact timeline is uncertain, but we’re hoping to complete this by Q2 – and finally close our US business shortly thereafter! 🇪🇺🎉
Why do we need to raise prices?
As briefly explained at the top, we have not adjusted our prices for inflation since our inception, and that means that our margins have been steadily shrinking as the costs of doing business have gone up. SourceHut is still profitable and sustainable today, but for our long-term financial health it is necessary to increase our revenue.
The price increases proposed exceed the price changes you would expect if we simply adjusted for inflation. The rationale is:
- These prices are future-proof, so we don’t have to change prices frequently.
- This allows us to offer established users the option to remain at their current price point, making up for it with new subscriptions and users who volunteer to pay the higher rates.
- The extra revenue gives us more resources to invest in SourceHut. With more revenue we are better able to invest in infrastructure upgrades, new services and features, and in our staff. Our staff makes below market salaries (standardized at €2800/month), and while we probably won’t be paying ourselves market rates any time soon, it would be nice to increase our compensation modestly, or hire additional staff, with the extra revenue.
As always, all of our profits are always invested 100% back into free and open source software.
Also: we’re planning on putting together a new financial transparency report soon, so you’ll have more insights into our finances and how the new prices are working out when the time comes.
Share your thoughts?
This proposal, all of its finer details and broad strokes, are up for discussion with the SourceHut community. That includes you! Please let us know your thoughts. We’re discussing it on IRC, on the #sr.ht channel on Libera Chat, and on the sr.ht-discuss mailing list in this thread. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
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As we move our primary business into the EU, our base pricing is reckoned in Euro. Prices for other currencies like US dollars are selected by taking the current exchange rate from Euro and rounding the figures towards an attractive price gradient. Note that you can also pay in the currency of your choice and let your bank do the conversion from your native currency if your bank offers a good exchange rate. ↩︎