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# Platform Economics |
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*As of 2026-05-16.* |
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What you pay, what it covers, and what we commit to. |
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## What You Pay |
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See [Pricing](./pricing.md) for the current tier prices, the founding-creator rate, and the provisional standard rate. |
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## What It Covers |
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Your subscription funds three things, at a high level: |
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**Cost to deliver.** The infrastructure that hosts your content (application servers, database, object storage, bandwidth) and the payment processing fee Stripe charges on each transaction. |
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**Platform overhead.** Ongoing development, day-to-day operations, legal and compliance work, and reserves held against unexpected costs so a bad month doesn't force a price increase or a shutdown. |
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**Returned to creators.** Surplus beyond what cost-to-deliver and platform overhead require is earmarked to come back to you as earn-back credit. We've committed to launching that program no later than 2027-01-01. |
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See the full breakdown on the [pricing page](/pricing#cost-allocation) — every tier fee broken into Stripe processing, storage, human support time, product engineering, reserves, and earn-back surplus. |
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No surplus goes to investors, shareholders, dividends, executive bonuses, paid acquisition, or marketing spend. We have none of those things. |
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## What We Commit To |
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The binding commitments live in [What We Guarantee](./guarantees.md). The short version: |
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- No surprise raises. Prices only change under conditions stated in writing. |
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- At least 90 days notice on any change. |
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- Existing creators are grandfathered at their current rate for at least 12 months when standard rates rise. |
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- When our cost structure permits, the direction is downward. Cost-favorable changes apply retroactively to active subscriptions. |
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## What We Won't Do |
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- **Percentage cuts.** We will not skim a percentage of what fans pay you. |
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- **Per-transaction fees on top of Stripe.** The only deduction is Stripe's processing fee, which goes to Stripe. |
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- **Surge pricing.** Tier prices do not move based on demand, time of day, or who you are. |
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- **Quiet plan-gating.** Features won't migrate between tiers without notice and grandfathering. |
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- **Paid acquisition or marketing.** We don't fund growth by spending your subscription on ads. |
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## See Also |
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- [Pricing](./pricing.md): Current rates, founding-creator rate, standard rate |
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- [What We Guarantee](./guarantees.md): Binding commitments in writing |
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- [How We Work](./how-we-work.md): Business model and operating principles |
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