Hey there,
some people here might still remember the old “Donate” button I set up on the site in 2014. I am thankful to everyone who donated to this project back then. Every single donation is appreciated and important. The problem is there are not enough donations and it’s hard to keep the project alive, let alone work on it to keep it up to date.
My dream would be to work on this project full-time. However, to do that I need to live and eat, money is required. I was thinking “How can I accept money from the community without restricting basic features for normal users?”.
Solution
The solution that I ended up with is supporter accounts, basically a subscription that enables certain extra features. Basic site features are still available to everyone but the luxury goods will be for supporters only.
Ad-free
The site will always stay ad-free. Ads slow down websites and I like to keep my sites fast and clean. I believe there are better ways to finance the development costs than putting ads everywhere on the site.
The hidden costs
Just to give you an idea, I am currently paying 20 USD per month for 3 servers and I would eventually like to upgrade the servers to use better hardware. I have been paying these costs for the past 36 months. The number of donations up to this point does not cover the server costs, let alone the immense amount of time I invest into this project.
We need you!
If you care about the Anime Notifier project, the community and can spare a few coins please support the site by getting yourself a PRO account. All you need to do is charge up your balance via PayPal, buy the PRO account item from the shop and double-click it in your inventory. Your settings will show the remaining time for your PRO subscription.
It is very possible (and likely) that more features will be added to PRO accounts over the course of the next months without you paying anything extra.
Features
Getting a PRO account means you’re supporting the site development for just 2,65 USD per month. However, you also get a few benefits.
Currently, your posts in the forums will be highlighted in light red (just like this post), which is a feature that I’m willing to restrict to PRO users only. Additionally, all suggestions made by PRO users will have a higher priority than other suggestions (because these users keep the project alive with donations). Once you are PRO, you can contact me on Discord to join the VIP channel. The VIP channel is used to chat with the the staff and other supporters who care about this site. You will get early access to new features, which means you’ll be able to try new stuff a little earlier than the mainstream crowd.
These past years have been a blast!
At this point I would like to thank the community for the awesome feedback I’ve received in the past 3 years and I would love to continue developing this project, to hone my skills and make Anime Notifier one of the best anime sites around. Please, help me realize this dream.