The Current Costs of CK (or, Why I hope you'll get together to pledge $120) (Patreon)

When I first launched Crushing Krisis it was on a free web hosting serviced called Freespeech dot org. Each post was made via Blogger and FTP to my server, and I used Sitemeter to track my stats.

All of those things were free.

To celebrate my first year anniversary, I purchased Uprush dot org (still my email server, but no longer a webpage) and a hosting plan, marking the first time I had ever paid to blog.

Things have continued to escalate since then. Currently, it costs a minimum of $1,000 a year to keep the CK up, running, and ad-free for you to enjoy. Below I run through the cost breakdown.

Note: All costs account for Patreon’s fee and pledge-processing fees and have been rounded to the nearest dollar.

Before any fancy bells and whistles, it costs money each month simply to host a webpage. That is the first thing I would like to offset with this campaign.

• $22/month - WordPress Hosting (VPS)
• $9/month - Additional Hosting 
• $31/month - The First Goal!

The details:

WordPress Hosting: Earlier this year I switched to a virtual private server (VPS) for CK due to the amount of pages that were failing to render on my shared server hosting plan. From this point forward I will always need some form of private server - apparently, you all use up a lot of RAM by visiting CK :)

Additional Hosting: I maintain my shared server hosting account for non-CK media, additional MYSQL instances, maintaining old client work, and to serve other domains, such as PeterMarinari.com - none of which is possible to do with my dedicated VPS.

Hosting isn’t the full story keeping CK operational year-round. The true operating cost includes several other services and one essential research tool.

• $31/month - Previous Goal
• $22/month - Domain Registrations
• $13/month -  WordPress Plugins
• $11/month -  Helper Apps
• $7/month - Marvel Unlimited
• $84/month - Pay-for-Current-CK Goal!

The details:

Domain Registration: This includes many domain type variants on Crushing Krisis and my name, as well for my email server and some other pointer domains. They each cost between $10-15 a year. While I could possibly shave off a handful of the registrations, if I or CK ever became (more) massively popular I'd regret not owning them if someone else began squatting on one.

WordPress Plugins: These control my SEO/sharing settings, form/mailing-list integration, plus some other minor functions. You probably didn’t notice the difference when I started using them earlier this year, but it became much easier to get a page posted quickly once I was done the writing of it.

(If you want to see the SEO in action, try pasting the URL of a comic guide into Facebook and Twitter and notice the summary text and photo that pops up.)

Helper Apps: The majority of this cost is my 1TB Dropbox subscription, which makes all of my work available (and backed up) from anywhere, but also includes some smaller apps like password managers. Without DropBox I would have lost my notes on CK, graphics work, and audio files many times over in the past few years due to computer wipeouts.

Marvel Unlimited: Want to know how I seem to be omniscient about what’s in every single comic in my guide? I own over 20,000 Marvel Comics Books in single issues and collected editions, but for what I don’t own or don’t have time to get down from the shelf I spot-check with Marvel Unlimited constantly. It's also the way I easily source cover images, rather than wasting time Googling for them. The guides could not exist without it.

Voila! That’s how we get to the $1,000 per year mark to create a Self-Sustaining Crushing Krisis.

However, my true initial goal for Patreon pledges is $120.  I think of as my “high-functioning, at-scale blog” goal. This includes a handful of additional things that could really improve my productivity - if I could afford them

• $84/month - Previous Goal
• $22/month - Adobe Photoshop Subscription
• $14/month - Other Must-Have Services
• $120/month - High-Functioning CK Goal!

The details:

Adobe Photoshop Subscription: When I switched over to Mac for my home computer I lost access to my (ancient) version of PhotoShop. I’ve been getting by without it with free web apps, but I used a free trial of PhotoShop for the first week of this campaign and the amount of time I saved and quality I gained reminded me just how essential this is. 

Other Must-Have Services: This includes a few minor costs for additional apps and plug-ins, like hosted Google Apps for CK (now the embarrassingly-named “G-Suite”) to simplify my email workflow. Also: business cards.

##

There you have it! If some number of amazing Patrons pledge $120 per month, the cost of Crushing Krisis and all of its essential tools will be entirely covered!

One one hand, $120 a month just to blog feels exorbitantly high. It's a grocery store trip. It's a car payment. Surely I could be blogging for less, right? I have blogged for less in the past.

Yes, I'm not just blogging. As you saw in the stats yesterday, I'm blogging to an audience that is several orders of magnitude larger than the one I had just five years ago. 

The difference between me and some other major WordPress-based blog is that they might be spreading these resources across multiple contributors, when I am a sole proprietor that needs them all. I need these programs, products, and services to maintain the quality, efficiency, and adaptability of CK. 

I paid for them on my own for years and was happy to do so, but now it's time for me to ask you for your help.

(Also, this list of essentials doesn't even include other sunk costss for my version of blogging (e.g., a HD video camera, an external SSD, an audio interface), nor does it include a few other things that would help me continue to scale CK (e.g., Hootsuite Pro, access to stock photography).

That doesn’t mean my goals end at $120. I'll post tomorrow about what I can accomplish when pledges break through the $120 mark.