We are excited to announce a new opportunity for Webrecorder users and community members to support our vision and services by becoming a Webrecorder Supporter.
Webrecorder Supporters who contribute $20/month or $200/year will receive a user account without a network quota (rate limit), as well as 40 GB of storage for their web collections. Only interested in a one-time gift? Donations are welcome at any amount, but donors will not receive additional storage space or services. Learn more about the options.
Beyond the benefits they receive, Supporters help us keep free accounts free, and sustain Webrecorder's innovative work more broadly. Free Webrecorder.io user accounts will still have 5 GB of storage and users will continue to have access to the same full range of Webrecorder tools. We are committed to continuing to offer all currently free tools and services at no charge into the future—this program, and other future paid services help us maintain that commitment to all.
The staffing to create, support and improve Webrecorder costs approximately $600,000/year. As a mission-driven project from a nonprofit organization, Webrecorder does not rely on the business model used by of many 'free' services such as being ad-supported or selling users’ data.
Rhizome has been able to operate Webrecorder as a free service to date thanks in large part to generous grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as additional support from Knight Foundation, the NEA, and NYSCA. Each of these grants have a limited duration, so in order to keep Webrecorder going as a platform for web archiving, we need to combine different types of support, including funds from our users and community members.
Supporters is part our path to long-term financial sustainability. Another income source is collaborative, customized open source contract development work like the projects recently completed for the British Library (1, 2) and Perma.cc. A further core element of our path to sustainability will be tools and options to be offered by subscription that will further meet the needs of our community members who need to create and use web archives especially GLAM (Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums) professionals, journalists, academics, and other researchers.
We are shaping these services and options based in large part on what we are learning through close work with our pilot partners. This includes the aforementioned work with British Library and Perma.cc, as well as pilot projects with stakeholders at Carnegie Hall, Stanford University Press, the New Museum, Pelican Bomb, and the New York Art Resources Consortium (NYARC). Over time we are looking forward to sharing more information about the great work our pilot partners are doing and how these collaborations are shaping our view of Webrecorder’s future.
We appreciate everyone who made this new option to support Webrecorder available, including our great group of user testers who helped us make sure the sign up and payment workflows will function as expected. We look forward to growing support and continuing our work to provide an easy to use, open source tool set that provides web archiving for all!
For more information on options for supporting Webrecorder, please visit the Supporter page at Webrecorder.io.