How Do Free Software Projects Stay Sustainable?
We ship everything for free. Here's our honest take on how open-source and ad-free software can stay alive without compromising on quality or trust.
The question we get asked the most
Every time we launch a new tool, the first question in comments is some version of: "What's the catch?"
There's no catch. Here's why we can say that, and what our model actually looks like.
# Why We Build Free Software
First: we use these tools ourselves. Every tool we've shipped started as something we needed and couldn't find — or didn't want to pay ₹1500/month for. HideInSky was built because we needed steganography and didn't want to explain why to a SaaS pricing page. MessClean was built because the free alternatives were either full of ads or required installing a Chrome extension to a disk cleaner (genuinely baffling).
When you solve your own problem, maintaining the solution is natural. There's no "we need to keep the lights on" pressure when the lights run on your own time.
# What Sustainability Looks Like for Us
We're not trying to build a VC-backed company. Our costs are low:
| Expense | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Domain (aiskytools.com) | ~₹900/year |
| Cloudeflare (hosting) | ~₹1000/year |
| Cloudflare R2 (assets) | ~₹60/month |
| Development time | Our evenings |
We're not building toward a monetisation event. We're building toward a library of tools we're proud of and a community of users who actually benefit from them.
# What We Might Do in the Future
Transparency matters. If we ever add monetisation, here's how we'd think about it:
- 1. We will never add ads to the software itself. Ads in a disk cleaner or AI assistant are a trust violation.
- 2.We'd consider a "Buy us a coffee" model — purely voluntary. No features locked behind it.
- 3.Portfolio work and client projects are what currently fund our time. If you've visited the Websites Built section, that's the business model.
- Potentially a Pro tier for Khandu AI with cloud features — local-first stays free, enhanced cloud AI features become paid.
# Our Commitment
Every tool we've released stays free forever — no bait-and-switch. That's a promise baked into the name AISkyTools: the sky is the limit, and the tools are free to reach it.
If you want to support what we do: share a tool with a friend, leave a review on the Play Store or Chrome Web Store, or send us feedback via the contact page. That's genuinely worth more to us right now than a transaction.
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