Support The Tech Writers Stack
We're turning on paid subscriptions as a means for the community to contribute.
Hey stackers!
This brief post is to announce we’re finally turning on paid subscriptions and explain how you can contribute and what you could earn in return.
But first things first.
We will never paywall any content or service
This is and always will be an open community. All our content, plus access to all our services, including getting listed in the directory, using our redirect middleware, or being featured in any of our newsletters, will always be free. However, our running costs include servers, domains, and our contributors' time.
Thus, signing up for a paid subscription will directly contribute to improving this community. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things we plan to do with whatever profits we can make:
Paying for hosting, domains, and other infrastructure services.
Commissioning design or development work to improve our services.
Giving prizes, awards, grants, and other retribution to our community members.
And last but not least, reimburse our newsletter contributors for their time whenever possible, even if only in nominal amounts.
Subscriber benefits
While the main reason we ask you to subscribe is to contribute to growing the community, here are a few intangible benefits we would love to extend to all our subscribers:
A prominent feature in the Directory, with a special badge.
Special shout-outs to your publication (or any other brand you want to represent) in our flagship newsletter.
Each trimester, you will receive a private email detailing how we use the funds to improve the community.
And subscribers on the founder plan —which we call Members of the Council— will have a voice and vote in every decision we make, from scheduling to whom we feature in our newsletters to how we organize awards to which services we build next.
Please let us know if there’s something else you think we could do to make this subscription more enticing for you and doesn’t devalue the services we provide for the community.
How you can contribute
If you want to help, you can sign up for a monthly, yearly, or founder membership.
During August, we’ll be running a 50% lifetime promotion for our initial members, which means that for the mere cost of a bad coffee a month, you can help this community grow and become the best place to nurture tech writing talent.
We sincerely hope this becomes a simple but effective way for those who can to give back to the community.