Patrons
BoardGameTally is free and stays free. It is not, however, costless to run, so here is the bill, itemised, and what happens if you decide to help with it.
What it costs to run
Free software still lands somebody a bill. Every page you have read so far was served, stored, resized and emailed by something, and each of those things has a meter on it.
Five of the seven lines below are free today, and none of them are free forever. Each one is free up to a threshold, and every one of those thresholds is crossed by the same thing: more groups, playing more games, keeping more history. Being used is what converts this list into a bill.
The database is the one to watch, because it does not need anybody to do anything. Nothing is ever deleted here (that is a promise made in Rule 2.5), so storage only goes one way, and the free tier ends whether the app grows or not. Everything else is tied to use: images served, emails sent, live updates pushed.
Where a donation goes
At the two lines that are being paid right now, in this order. First the rules assistant, because it is metered per question: every rulebook it reads and every answer it gives costs something the moment someone asks, and that is the only line with a running meter on it. Then the domain, which renews once a year whether anyone uses the app or not.
That meter only moves when someone has said yes. Every rules question, and every AI draft of a scoring preset, is approved before it runs, so a busy week cannot quietly run up a bill nobody agreed to.
After that, whichever free tier is closest to converting. That is usually the database, since storage only ever grows (nothing is deleted here, which is a promise made back in Rule 2.5), but on a heavy month it is images served or emails sent instead. The table in 7.1 is kept in the order they are expected to fall.
Nothing is taken as salary, and nothing is spent on advertising the app. Beyond those two rules, there is no plan grand enough to need stating.
A month with a lot of rules questions costs more than a month with a lot of games, which is the opposite of what most people guess. Playing is nearly free; asking is what is billed.
What patrons get
Two things, and both of them are bragging rights rather than advantages. Your name goes in the back of this book, at 7.5, in whatever form you ask for. And a patron medal is struck for your badge case in the app: its own shape, in a metal no other badge is made of, so it is obvious across a table which one it is.
The medal finds you on its own when you donate from inside your group’s app, from the Donate button at the top or from Settings, Patron, because the app knows who you are there. A donation from this page is anonymous to us, so if you want the medal, email admin@boardgametally.com with your group and name and it will be added by hand.
What patrons do not get is anything that makes everybody else’s version worse: no extra features, no higher limits, no early access, no vote on what gets built next. The moment paying buys capability, the free version quietly becomes the trial version, and that is the arrangement this whole book exists to avoid.
Chip in
Only if you want to, and only if it is genuinely spare. Groups who use this every Friday are not more obliged than anyone else; a group that has been going a year has cost us roughly the same as one that signed up this morning.
Give once, give what you like, stop whenever.
There is no monthly tier to forget about and no card kept on file. A donation pays down the list above and nothing else. The amounts are suggestions, not levels: whatever you give, the credit and the medal are the same.
One-off, in US dollars, shown in your own currency at checkout. Nothing is kept on file. A message, if you leave one, reaches us with the donation. You can add a name for the roll of honour at checkout, or leave it blank to stay anonymous.
Leave a message with your donation if you like. There is an optional box under the amounts, and whatever you write reaches us with it. Questions about any line in the table are fair game too, including the boring ones. They go to the same inbox as everything else.
The roll of honour
Everyone who has chipped in, in the form they asked to be credited in. Nobody is added without saying yes first, and plenty of people would rather not appear. The donation counts exactly the same either way.
This page has been up for less time than it takes to read it. The first name here gets to be the first name here, which is the only perk that cannot be given to anyone else afterwards.