[Solved] What do HelioHost's month-to-month finances involve?

[eggcite]

Hey guys!

 

The HelioHost Monthly Finances tracker is really cool and I appreciate how forthcoming you guys are being with the money situation here on HelioNet, but I'm wondering:

 

What is the breakdown of the monthly HelioHost budget?  How much of it goes to electricity, maintenance, etc.?  Is some of it being saved for future hardware upgrades?  Stuff like that.

 

Since y'all became a 501[c](3) last year, I've been considering making a regular donation to HelioHost, but I'd really like the additional transparency in what donations are being spent on first.

 

Also, my understanding is that nobody on the Helio team gets paid and that this is all purely done because you guys are passionate about this. Is this still true?  If it is, y'all are amazing.

 

[wolstech]

Krydos would be the one to answer this, so I'll move it and let him explain the details, but most of that money goes to Hurricane Electric though ($400 IIRC) with the rest going towards software licenses, domains, etc.

 

For what it's worth, we haven't had a month in the black since last year. We have money in the bank to operate for a while yet (2 years or so), but we're far from sustainable and if this trend continues, we will eventually end up going bankrupt.

 

Google Adsense used to be our primary funding source, but they no longer allow us to use their ads on our main pages (our website, suspended pages, etc.), erroneously claiming there's "no content"...and of course being Google, there's absolutely zero customer support to speak to about that.

[eggcite]

Krydos would be the one to answer this, so I'll move it and let him explain the details, but most of that money goes to Hurricane Electric though ($400 IIRC) with the rest going towards software licenses, domains, etc.

 

For what it's worth, we haven't had a month in the black since last year. We have money in the bank to operate for a while yet (2 years or so), but we're far from sustainable and if this trend continues, we will eventually end up going bankrupt.

 

Google Adsense used to be our primary funding source, but they no longer allow us to use their ads on our main pages (our website, suspended pages, etc.), erroneously claiming there's "no content"...and of course being Google, there's absolutely zero customer support to speak to about that.

 

 

Thanks!  Yeah I totally know the feeling of frustration you can get with Google AdSense.

 

I whitelisted HelioHost domains in my adblocker awhile back so now I get served ads when I use cPanel or browse HelioNet; are you guys receiving funding for those, or does one actually have to click on the ads to register with your ad provider?

 

Anyway, I'll wait for more explanation from Krydos.

[Krydos]

Yay! An excuse to make a cool chart. Haha. Here is what the last 12 months looks like:

I couldn't expand colocation out any further than it is because it's just a package deal and our bill isn't itemized. Basically it includes our cabinet where we can house up to 42U of servers, electricity, internet service, heating and air conditioning. It also includes 24 hour technicians that we can call or email to do tasks for us on site. The Savings/Loss section is how much in the red we've been, and obviously that isn't sustainable. The bad news is we've lost money for three years in a row. The good news is our donations section keeps getting bigger and bigger. I interpret that to mean that our users like us, believe in our cause, and want us to continue existing.

 

I whitelisted HelioHost domains in my adblocker awhile back so now I get served ads when I use cPanel or browse HelioNet; are you guys receiving funding for those, or does one actually have to click on the ads to register with your ad provider?

We do receive money for people simply viewing our ads, but it isn't much compared to if people click the ads. Google is really smart though and if people just click the ads to try to earn us money they always find out and we could lose our adsense account entirely. One of the terms of service of adsense is you absolutely can't ask people to click your ads, but if you see an ad that honestly interests you then go for it.

 

Is some of it being saved for future hardware upgrades? Stuff like that.

Nothing is being saved. Quite the opposite. We've burning our savings to stay in business. As far as future upgrades go we had a really successful GoFundMe campaign earlier this year that you can see on the chart. We needed $645 and we actually got $710 total. As promised we put that $645 straight into a new piece of hardware, and the excess went towards our bills.

 

Since y'all became a 501[c](3) last year, I've been considering making a regular donation to HelioHost

That would be amazing. We've been encouraging people to do this because if we can get a steady stream of income it will make things a lot less stressful for us to know we at least have some money we can count on each month. Advertising and donation revenue can be rather inconsistent. Some months are great, but most are quite the opposite.

 

Also, my understanding is that nobody on the Helio team gets paid and that this is all purely done because you guys are passionate about this. Is this still true?

It was true for a long time. As you can see on the chart $1200 of our yearly budget goes to staff. If HelioHost was a "real" for-profit company I would probably be making about $75,000 per year for what I do around here. I only take about 1% of what I'm probably owed. The only reason I even take that is because my wife insisted I stop "wasting my time" unless they were willing to pay me anything more than nothing. Gotta keep her happy, and it doesn't hurt to get a couple bucks for my time. Over the past year I've made about $2.72 per hour.

 

If it is, y'all are amazing.

Awww, I'm not amazing. Oh well.

 

Let us know if you have any other questions.

[eggcite]

Whoa, thanks for the detailed info! You should totally link to this from the Donate and homepages so that donors can see this.

I will be donating regularly!

[wolstech]

I agree. That chart and description should be linked from our donate page. A lot more people would probably donate if they could see what their money is actually paying for.