hi folks! jae here, we know it's been a bit since the last financial update but there's been a lot going on behind the scenes that has made getting one out before now difficult. I don't want to get too deep into it, so I won't.
as a bonus, this month's update is a double feature. we'll be going into detail on some of our launch plans for tipping. there's going to be some limitations at launch while we work out some of the trickier bits and we want to make sure everyone's on the same page about what to expect.
but first: numbers! please refer to past financial updates for context on all terms.
Revenue, expenses, and users
| Category | As of 11/20 | As of 10/24 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Previous 4 weeks revenue | $33,453 | $9,348 | +257.8% |
| Expenses (since 10/24) | $39,574 | n/a | n/a |
| Net income (since 10/24) | -$6,121 | n/a | n/a |
| Active Subscribers | 2,576 | 2,682 | -3.9% |
| Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) | $14,367 | $14,748 | -2.5% |
| Subscriber churn rate | 6.9% | 2.69% | +157% |
| Revenue per subscriber | $5.58 | $5.50 | +1.4% |
| Total users | 203,805 | 192,847 (as of 11/9) | +5.7% |
| Monthly active users (MAU) | 21,142 | 18,446 (as of 11/9) | +14.6% |
| MAU -> Subscriber conversion rate | 12.18% | 14.5% (as of 11/19) | -16% |
One important caveat to note is that we are currently in one of the largest subscription renewal periods of the year, so we have total revenue completely detached from our MRR. Other major periods for this include May and late June.
This larger renewal window also accounts for higher than usual churn; many of those yearly subscriptions don't renew; this is expected for a subscription-based business, especially one which sends out a "heads up" email when the renewal window approaches. This is something we do, as we don't love the ethics of surprise charging someone $50 that they may not be expecting.
Unfortunately, due to data issues, our user and MAU numbers from 10/24 aren't available, so we have numbers from 11/9 listed. We're working on better archival for these metrics so that we don't have this issue in the future.
We've gained a decent amount of new users from recent tumblr migrations. We're happy we've seen an MAU increase as well, although we'd obviously like to see MAU grow; retention remains our biggest non-financial hurdle.
Overall, the social media part of the business is healthy, especially given our slower development pace due to development on tipping and subscriptions (more on this later). We still can't bet on sustainability solely through cohost, but we're happy with overall performance there.
Looking Forward
Our new round of funding, as previously discussed in other financial updates, was closed in September and gives us runway (assuming flat revenue) through to around the end of Q1 2024.
We're largely focused on getting tipping and subscriptions out the door as we anticipate these (especially subscriptions) being our major revenue drivers going forward.
That's all for the financial bit, now to the bonus content:
Launching Tipping and Subscriptions ("eggbux")
As a brief refresher, here is a basic rundown on what these features even are:
- Tipping is a ko-fi-like system where users can send each other money. Pretty straightforward.
- The platform fee for tipping is 0%; the user receiving the tip only pays payment processing fees.
- The user sending the tip has the option to add on a bit extra to cover payment processing fees (especially useful for tips under $5) and an extra $1 to help support the platform (a dollar for eggbug).
- Tipping will launch first
- Subscriptions is a patreon-like system where users can accept money monthly.
- Posts on cohost can be made available only for specific subscription levels
- Subscriptions will carry a 5% platform fee by default. We plan to scale this fee down as we reach financial sustainability.
- A fun side effect of this plan: if we reach financial sustainability off of cohost plus subscriptions, Subscriptions will launch with a 0% platform fee.
- Subscriptions will launch after Tipping is feature complete.
- Cohost Plus will move to use Subscriptions after launch instead of its own custom thing.
Internally, we have been referring to these as "eggbux", as it's much easier to say than "tipping and subscriptions". I'll be using "eggbux" here as well. This is NOT the actual Brand Name; we have nothing to announce currently on that front.
Launch timelines
Unfortunately, we will miss our internal deadline for tipping. Given that we're approaching the winter holidays, we've made the decision to hold off on tipping's release until the beginning of 2024. We think it's safer to wait until everything is right than to try and rush a release, even though we are dependent on the revenue from these products. It's a risk, but it's the risk we're taking.
We don't have any firm dates to announce yet; once we do, we'll announce them.
Limitations at launch
At launch, the following limitations will be in place:
- accepting tips will be available only for US-based users
- We know this is disappointing. The reality is that we are a US-based company and, even using a platform like stripe, accepting and transferring money cross-border (for all non-US users) is meaningfully more difficult from a compliance and technical standpoint.
- Users outside the US will still be able to send tips at launch.
- We plan to accept tips for non-US users shortly after launch.
- tips will only be accepted in USD
- The issues here are similar to those for cross-border transfers.
- PayPal will not be supported at launch
- We intend to support PayPal and other payment processors after launch
We don't anticipate these limitations changing before launch. If anything changes, we will post about it. We want to be as transparent as possible about these limitations and why they're necessary.
We don't want to launch with any of these limitations; in an ideal world, tipping would be available for all users at launch. Unfortunately, we have one developer working on this (me) and it's difficult to justify having nothing out while we grind away on these. If we had more staff, maybe things would be different, but the reality is we don't have more staff and we don't have the financial leeway to hire more staff. Such is the reality of not accepting venture capital money.
Approaching launch
As we get closer, we'll announce final branding and dates. We'll also announce the process for applying to accept tips. Accepting tips will be open to a limited number of users at launch and expanded as we go. Again, we'll have more to share here later.
In Conclusion,
It's a busy, exciting time here. Eggbux is by far the biggest risk we've taken as a company, but we believe it's our best path to sustainability so we're taking it.
If you have questions about any of this, you're welcome to ask in the comments (although we can't answer everything there) or shoot us an e-mail at support@cohost.org. As always, if you want to support us in the meantime, you can subscribe to cohost plus. We also have merch if you’re into physical objects.
That's all for this time!
~jae

