I got an email from Matter today:
How will Matter make money?
That’s a question we get asked a lot, and reasonably so. People want clarity when they adopt a new tool, especially when they’ll be investing in it over time.
Today, we’ll finally answer that question.
And as part of the answer, we’re excited to introduce our Patron membership, a special offer for our early supporters.
TLDR:
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Starting January 15, 2023, Matter will begin charging for premium features.
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There will continue to be a free option consisting of the basic read-it-later features.
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Today, you can become a Patron, which comes with 3 years of premium access.
In a moment, we’ll share details about the Premium subscription and Patron membership. First, though, a few words on how we think about our business model.
Charging directly > Ads
Our mission is to increase the reach of ideas that matter by building the best reading software in the world.
Building quality software is hard. It takes skill, taste, and a surprising degree of grit. How closely we hit the mark is ultimately for you, our users, to judge. What we can say is that quality is our highest calling.
Shipping quality over the long term requires a business model that aligns economic success with commitment to craft.
Ads – the standard business model for the previous generation of reading/media products – smuggle in bad incentives. When revenue is a function of impressions, it becomes harder to justify sweating details (“will refining this interaction really increase engagement?”) and easier to justify engagement hacks that degrade the experience (“let’s send more push notifications”).
That’s why it’s always been our plan to charge directly. Charging for our product is simple, honest, and lets us put all our energy into building something you love and value.
Free & Premium: The details
We’ve decided to offer a free version of Matter. Why? We want Matter to be the on-ramp of choice for the millions of readers who are new to read-it-later. Since there are free read-it-later alternatives, we think it makes sense to price match (free!) on this basic feature set.
Matter Premium will cost $8/month or $60/year and will include features that go beyond the basics: HD text-to-speech, fluid highlighting and note-taking, integrations, full-text search, options to personalize Matter, priority support, and more.
The Patron Membership
To honor our earliest and best supporters, invest in our ongoing relationship with them, and ring in the holidays with a gift, we’ve created the Patron membership, limited to the first 1,000 users who claim it.
You can become a Patron member here.
Becoming a Patron is $150 and includes:
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3 years of Matter Premium (48% discount)
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Access to a community Slack with the Matter team and other patrons
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Special app icon, sticker, and Words are my matter coffee mug
Most importantly, as a Patron you cement a special relationship with Matter — the team, product, and company — and express your commitment to its long term flourishing.
In 20, 30, 50 years, we don’t want Matter to merely exist. We want it to be dramatically better than it is today, helping hundreds of millions of people develop better models of the world through reading. As a Patron, you cast a vote for that future.
Thank you for joining us,
The Matter Team