OSS Monetization as a Service!
PayDevs helps maintainers of open source libraries get paid for their work without having to worry about handling individual customers, fundraising, billing, accounting, or taxes.
We provide a registry for software libraries where users have to pay us for access, and we pay maintainers for every user of their library that we can measure - just like Spotify, but for software libraries.
153
Onboarded Maintainers
39
Exclusive Packages
1
Available Registry
0
Monthly Downloads
Problems of Open Source Maintainers
Some users want
more and more
They ask for more features, bug fixes asap, better docu, special integrations, SBOMs, guarantees, …
Your free time gets
shorter and shorter
You need more time to discuss and clarify issues, to update the documentation, to test edge cases, …
Only your real job
pays the bill
OSS doesn’t support you full-time, donations don’t help, and other approaches for monetization are even more work.
Our Solution for Maintainers!
We operate a registry where you can publish new versions of your software library and we count users of your packages. Users subscribe and then use our registry to access all closed and public packages.
- We collect money from the users of our registries.
- We handle billing, accounting, and taxes with them.
- We calculate your earnings based on the users of your library.
- We make monthly payouts to you.
… without any cost for you!
Reasons for Maintainers to join PayDevs
Focus on your Code
Do what you love and let us handle the accounting, billing, invoices, international taxes, operations of the registry, etc.
Focus on your Supporters
Identify users willing to support you, get intel on how many users your project really has, and how many private developers and companies are using it.
Have a Stable Income
Donations don't work - or only for very few big projects. And the Recession will make it worse. Using monthly payouts from PayDevs will be far more stable.
It's easy for Maintainers
You only have to change the target where you publish your package. Instead of publishing into the public registry you just publish it into our registry.
It's easy for Users
Users only have to pay a small contribution and use our registry for both closed and open packages - no need to switch registries.
Get Dependency Intel
Identify co-dependencies - libraries used together with yours. See if your upstream and downstream dependencies are already funded.
Pay Yourself
You can spend your income on yourself and pay rent, work full-time on your project, go to an inspiring conference, or pay for new hardware or a vacation.
Invest in your Project
Use the income for your project and buy a good domain, order a beautiful logo, register the name as a trademark, sponsor meetups, or pay for ads.
Pay for Help
Support your contributors and pay for bug-fixes, feature development, documentation, tests, plug-ins, tutorials, articles, how-to videos, etc.
This is how it works
... for Maintainers
The only thing a Maintainer has to do is to publish new versions to our registry at https://npm.paydevs.com and decide how or if he wants to give public access (see here for options).
Using npm or pnpm this means:
npm set registry https://npm.paydevs.com/
npm login
npm publish
And if you are using yarn:
yarn config set registry https://npm.paydevs.com/
yarn login
yarn publish
In CI/CD platforms like Vercel you can use the token listed in your .npmrc file after you've logged in:
registry=https://npm.paydevs.com/
//npm.paydevs.com/:_authToken=TOKEN_FOR_PAYDEVS
... for Users
The only thing a User has to do is to register here on https://www.paydevs.com and direct his package manager to our registry at https://npm.paydevs.com.
Using npm or pnpm this means:
npm set registry https://npm.paydevs.com/
npm login
npm update
And if you are using yarn:
yarn config set registry https://npm.paydevs.com/
yarn login
yarn upgrade
In CI/CD platforms like Vercel you can use the token listed in your .npmrc file after you've logged in:
registry=https://npm.paydevs.com/
//npm.paydevs.com/:_authToken=TOKEN_FOR_PAYDEVS
Choose Your Contribution
PayDevs helps open-source library developers to monetize their libraries. Let's choose the package that is suited best for you to contribute.
Maintainer Plan
- Access to all Registries
- Integrated in existing Workflows
- Upload and Management of verified Libraries
- Monthly payouts based on user count
Free
Private User Plan
- Access to all Registries
- Exclusive or early bird access to packages
- Integrated in existing workflows
- Warm feeling to support OSS maintainers
$1 / mo / user
(plus Tax; billed annually)
Corporate User Plan
- Access to all Registries
- Exclusive or early bird access to packages
- Integrated in existing workflows
- Warm feeling to support OSS maintainers
$150 / mo / user
(plus Tax; billed annually)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Why only a NPM Registry? (JavaScript / TypeScript)
JavaScript is the ecosystem with the most developers (~17M) and the best place to validate the PayDevs monetization model. Registries for other languages will follow.
Why not individual payments
for each library?
Individual billing for each library would be too disruptive and too expensive for the user. Even if each library would only cost $1 per month, it could easily get out of hand.
Do maintainers have to
provide warranties?
As a maintainer, you do not have to provide any guarantees and have no obligations to the individual customer - users pay only for access to PayDevs, not for an individual library. Just as with the libraries on public registries.
Why 150$ per month
for corporate users?
This amount is based on roughly 3% of an average EU-based developer salary (~€60k).
Why only 1$ per month
for private users?
It's a very small amount and far less than a coffee-to-go etc. Most people will have no problem with this amount to access important packages that maintainers have worked hard for.
Why do maintainers
pay nothing?
Maintainers have already invested their free time in advance for the community and are excluded from paying. In this way, maintainers have no risk and help evaluate the monetization model of PayDevs.
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