Who pays for growth, who earns rewards, and when the app needs funding.
Illustrative scenario, not a forecast or investment offer. These numbers are assumptions, not live usage or invoices. The usage-pricing and ownership mechanisms described here are proposed; current billing has not changed.
MAU means distinct people with qualifying activity in the last 30 days. DAU means distinct active people in a day; use an average over the period when comparing it with MAU. Registered accounts include inactive people. Peak concurrent users measure simultaneous load. They are not interchangeable.
In this example, 1,000 MAU and 100 average DAU means 10% of the monthly audience is active on an average day. This is an assumption, not a measured retention rate. Hosting bills depend on messages, room duration, storage, and queries, not simply accounts.
We use an optimized infrastructure planning target of US$0.05 per MAU/month, equal activity among users, and a reward pool equal to operating costs. This target needs validation. It excludes staff salaries, moderation operations, acquisition, payment fees, and taxes. There are no video, SMS, or AI-heavy features in the baseline. Dormant storage still needs sponsor funding where it incurs costs.
At $0.02 per MAU, infrastructure costs are 40% of the baseline; at $0.20, they are four times larger. Costs need not scale linearly: retention, peak traffic, database limits, and staffing change the model. The current app’s idle chat connections must be optimized and load-tested before relying on the target. Cloudflare bills non-hibernating room duration; see the provider’s pricing.
All values below are monthly US dollars. “All pay” assumes every active user accepts their full usage charge, with no caps or rebates reducing collections. “20% pay” assumes payers represent 20% of costs and benefit units; other users are explicitly sponsored.
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| MAU | Infrastructure | Collected if all pay | Collected if 20% pay | Subsidy if 20% pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $50 | $100 | $20 | $40 |
| 10,000 | $500 | $1,000 | $200 | $400 |
| 100,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 | $2,000 | $4,000 |
| 1,000,000 | $50,000 | $100,000 | $20,000 | $40,000 |
At 1,000 MAU, an equally active paying user’s modeled charge is $0.10/month. With only 20% paying, the $20 collected funds $10 of costs and $10 of rewards; a sponsor covers the remaining $40 of infrastructure. If everyone is free, the sponsor covers the full $50 and no user-funded rewards accrue.
At one million MAU with 20% paying, the $10,000 collected reward pool pays $1,000 to the platform, $1,000 to founders, and $8,000 to developers and promoters by contribution weight. Infrastructure subsidy is $40,000/month or $480,000/year. If all users pay, the reward pool is $50,000: $5,000 platform, $5,000 founder, $40,000 shared. These are pool totals, not salaries or guaranteed returns.
The model keeps the 10% platform / 10% founder / 80% contribution split. Additional approved operating costs enter the same cost base; do not include contributor work already rewarded from the pool. Payment fees and taxes remain outside this simplified calculation.
C = MAU × unit cost + approved additional costs
Collections = 2 × C × paying share
Cost reimbursement = rewards = C × paying share
External funding gap = max(0, C − reimbursement − committed platform subsidy)
When MAU is zero, collections and rewards are zero; sponsors cover any remaining overhead. Runway assumes constant costs, usage and committed monthly subsidy. It does not predict future growth. The platform subsidy is a separate committed budget; platform commission is not silently counted a second time as funding.
Keep launch access sponsored within a written budget. Measure invoices, messages, active days and room duration; fix idle connections. Publish the founder’s charter and role terms before contributions are accepted. Show example statements without collecting usage payments.
Compare the $50 target against real costs. Review useful matches, two-way conversations, retention and moderation needs. An illustrative $100 monthly platform budget supports this baseline without an investor. There is no automatic switch to paid access.
The baseline is $500/month. With 20% paying and a $100 platform subsidy, another $300/month is needed. Founders choose funded free access, accepted paid usage, or a slower rollout before the budget is exhausted.
Rebuild the budget from measured unit costs, staffing and capacity. Secure committed funding for any subsidy. Review a six-month runway threshold monthly; if funding is insufficient, limit new sponsored enrollment rather than create unexpected user debt.
Who covers the gap? Founders, the platform, or an outside sponsor can fund it. State whether money is a grant, loan, equity investment, or an advance against a named recipient’s future rewards. Funding costs does not automatically buy ownership or control. Sponsors must explicitly accept any arrangement that distributes collected rewards while they cover a deficit.
Under the baseline, a $100/month platform budget supports 2,000 MAU entirely free, or 2,500 MAU with 20% paying. With additional costs, these thresholds fall. Remaining reserve divided by the unfunded monthly gap gives runway; when the gap is zero, no reserve draw is needed for modeled costs.
Aggregate small charges across apps or billing periods rather than charging each tiny amount separately. Card processing includes fixed transaction fees; see Stripe’s Australian pricing. Payment fees come from the platform’s commission under the proposed model and must be checked for viability before launch.
Read the app’s charter, the evidence behind its costs, your exact rights, and how you can leave. The next page explains how founders define the rules and how the proposed platform enforcement would work.
Ownership, buyouts & founder-defined rules →