Building in Public
Thoughts on monetization?
So this whole thing started because Chris Coyier posted on Bluesky about wanting a social RSS reader. I thought it would be fun to try to build one as quickly as possible. Now I'm falling back in love with RSS and think this could be a real thing. Maybe?
I'm a solo dev with a full-time job (librarian), a wife, kids, and a love of builing with code. AI helps me ship faster than I could alone. This is one of those projects.
Now I'm trying to figure out if/how to make it sustainable. Here's what I'm thinking:
Free
Forever freeThe social stuff stays free. Highlighting, following friends, reactions — that's the whole point of the app.
- Up to 50 feed subscriptions
- Unlimited highlights & comments
- Follow friends, see their highlights
- React to highlights with emoji
- Full social feed access
- Search (last 30 days)
Pro
or $36/year (3 months free)
If you want more feeds, full search, or the integrations — this is the upgrade.
- Unlimited feed subscriptions
- Search your full archive
- Feedbin sync
- Share to Bluesky & Mastodon
- Reading trends & stats
- Unlimited OPML imports
- Full data export
Why $4/month?
Feedbin is $5. Readwise Reader is $8. I figured I'd come in lower since I'm just one person with no real overhead.
$4/month would cover server costs and maybe justify the time I spend on this. If enough people subscribe, cool. If not, the free tier keeps working and I had fun building it.
I'm also thinking about a lifetime deal — something like $99 one-time for permanent Pro access. Still figuring that out.
What I'm not doing
No ads. RSS readers with ads feel wrong.
No selling data. I don't even want to look at it.
No paywalling the social stuff. That's the whole point of the app.
What do you think?
Seriously, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Does this make sense? Is $4 too much? Too little? Am I missing something obvious?
Anyway, the app is free to use. Come check it out.
Start Reading — It's Free