Economics

How the project funds itself. What it costs to run, where the money comes from, and how the structural commitments to openness and neutrality are preserved alongside financial sustainability.

This document covers the strategy and projections. Actual financials are published quarterly in the transparency report. For governance of financial decisions, see GOVERNANCE.md.

The funding model

Four revenue streams, each chosen because it does not create editorial obligations.

1. Commercial API tier subscriptions — high-volume consumers pay for SLAs and support
2. Foundation grants — civic-tech funders backing public infrastructure
3. Enterprise licensing — bespoke support arrangements for specific consumers
4. Donations — individuals and small organizations supporting the mission

The four streams are sized so that no single one represents more than 40% of revenue at maturity. This diversification protects against the loss of any single source and prevents any funder from gaining disproportionate influence.

What the project deliberately does not take:

• Advertising revenue
• Affiliate revenue (no claims-company referral fees, no booking affiliate links)
• Sponsored content
• Editorial-influence partnerships (no airline gets favorable treatment for paying)
• Investment capital that would require any kind of return
• Acquisition offers (structurally impossible under the bylaws)

Stream 1: Commercial API tier

The largest single revenue stream at maturity.

Tier structure

Prices in USD; EUR/GBP equivalents at published rates updated quarterly.

Why this works

Commercial consumers (claims companies, OTAs, AI labs, insurance underwriters, corporate travel platforms) need:

• Higher rate limits than the free tier provides
• SLAs they can put in their own contracts
• Priority support when something breaks
• Webhook delivery guarantees
• Access to enterprise features (multi-key management, dedicated webhooks, custom bulk exports)

They are willing to pay for these because the alternative — building and maintaining the dataset and engine themselves — costs an order of magnitude more.

The pricing is designed to be obviously fair. There is no upsell pressure, no opaque enterprise pricing for the lower tiers, and no "contact sales" gate before someone can see what things cost. The free tiers are genuinely sufficient for most consumers, and the commercial tiers are priced as infrastructure, not as a revenue maximization play.

Projected revenue (mature state, year 7+)

• Bronze: ~200 customers × $499/mo × 12 = ~$1.2M/year
• Silver: ~50 customers × $2,499/mo × 12 = ~$1.5M/year
• Gold: ~10 customers × $9,999/mo × 12 = ~$1.2M/year
• Platinum: 2–5 negotiated, ~$50K–$200K each = ~$300K–$800K/year

Total commercial revenue at maturity: ~$4–5M/year

These projections are aggressive but defensible. The current size of the EU claims industry alone is $2B+ annually; if 1% of that flow goes through pricing infrastructure based on the flighthelp engine, the revenue projection is conservative.

Stream 2: Foundation grants

The second-largest source at maturity, and the most important during years 1–4 when commercial revenue is still building.

Why grants make sense for this project

Civic-tech and open-data foundations fund exactly this kind of infrastructure. The pattern matches:

• Public-good outcome (passenger rights enforcement, AI grounding)
• Open licensing
• Diverse downstream beneficiaries (consumers, journalists, regulators, researchers, builders)
• Defensible structural commitment (non-profit governance)
• Specific measurable progress (coverage, freshness, downstream adoption)

This is the project profile that foundations look for. Conversely, foundations are wary of:

• Single-founder projects (mitigated by governance structure)
• Drift toward commercial outcomes (mitigated by bylaws)
• Founder-extractive structures (mitigated by non-distribution clause)

Target funders

Year 1–2 (small to mid-five-figure grants):

• NLnet Foundation — small grants for open-source EU projects, fast process, well-aligned
• Open Technology Fund — supports open tools for digital civil society
• Sloan Foundation Digital Information Technology — public-interest infrastructure
• Code for Europe / civic-tech regional accelerators — capacity building

Year 2–4 (six-figure grants):

• Knight Foundation — journalism and information infrastructure
• Mozilla Foundation — open-internet projects, especially around AI grounding
• Linux Foundation Europe / Open Source Initiative — infrastructure project hosting
• Wikimedia Endowment / partnerships — collaboration on shared open-data infrastructure
• EU Horizon programmes — Horizon Europe's Cluster 5 (Climate, Energy, Mobility) and digital infrastructure tracks

Year 3+ (seven-figure grants):

• Hewlett Foundation (digital infrastructure portfolio)
• Ford Foundation (public-interest technology)
• Omidyar Network (civic technology)
• EU institutional funding through DG MOVE (transport) or DG JUST (consumer protection)
• National research councils (especially DE, FR, NL, ES) for academic-adjacent work

Grant strategy

The project applies for grants continuously, not in panicked bursts. The executive director maintains a pipeline: 4–6 applications submitted per quarter, with a target acceptance rate of 25–40%.

Grants are sized realistically. Asking for €500K when the budget is €300K is a red flag. Asking for €40K when the project is well-known is leaving money on the table. The pipeline calibrates over time.

Grants are sometimes restricted (must be spent on a specific project, like "translation into 10 new languages" or "EU Horizon-funded scraper infrastructure for a specific carrier set"). These are accepted when the restriction aligns with the roadmap; declined when it would distort priorities.

Projected grant revenue

• Year 1: ~€100–200K from 3–5 small-to-mid grants
• Year 2: ~€400K from a mix of small and one six-figure grant
• Year 3: ~€700K with growing six-figure grants
• Year 4–5: ~€1.2M with first seven-figure multi-year grant
• Year 6+: ~€1.5–2M sustained, with rotation of major funders

At maturity, grants represent ~30–35% of revenue.

Stream 3: Enterprise licensing

For consumers whose needs don't fit the standard commercial tier — typically because they want bespoke SLAs, dedicated infrastructure, custom data exports, or formal support arrangements.

This is small in count but high in revenue per customer.

Typical arrangements

• Annual subscription — $50K–$500K depending on scope, paid upfront
• Custom data export — bulk dumps in specific formats, schedules, or jurisdictional scopes
• Dedicated webhook infrastructure — guaranteed delivery, custom retry logic
• On-call escalation contract — guaranteed response within 1 hour for specific consumers
• Co-developed regime extensions — when a major consumer needs the engine to cover a jurisdiction the project hasn't yet built

These contracts are subject to the conflict-of-interest policy. The data and engine remain unchanged for all consumers; the enterprise contract buys support and infrastructure, not editorial preference.

Projected revenue

• Year 3: 1–2 contracts, ~$100K total
• Year 4: 3–4 contracts, ~$300K
• Year 6+: 8–12 contracts, ~$800K–$1.2M

At maturity, enterprise licensing represents ~10–15% of revenue.

Stream 4: Donations

Smallest in dollar value but most important culturally. Donations are the signal that the public values the project. They are also the most diversified funding source — thousands of small donors are less prone to capture than a handful of large funders.

Donor categories

• Individual recurring donors — $5–$50/month, contributed via Stripe or Open Collective
• One-time donors — typically after a positive experience (compensation won, claim filed successfully)
• Sustaining sponsors — small businesses and consultancies, $100–$1000/month, recognized in the transparency report
• Major individual donors — high-net-worth individuals giving $10K+/year, treated as a small grant
• Memorial and tribute donations — given in memory of someone, with the option to email the family

Donor recognition

Donors are recognized at four levels:

• All donors: named in the annual report (with opt-out)
• Sustaining ($100+/year): acknowledged in the quarterly transparency report
• Major ($1000+/year): thanked individually by the executive director
• Founding ($10K+ cumulative): invited to an annual donor briefing

No donor receives anything that influences editorial decisions. The transparency report explicitly lists all donations above $1000 in a year to make any potential conflicts visible.

Projected donation revenue

• Year 1: ~€20K (small donor base, mostly word-of-mouth)
• Year 3: ~€100K
• Year 5: ~€250K (growing donor base, sustaining sponsors)
• Year 7+: ~€500K–$700K

At maturity, donations represent ~10% of revenue but ~70% of donor count. The high count is the cultural signal.

Cost structure

Year 1 costs (~€250–400K)

• 2 paid roles (founder/ED + 1 engineer): ~€180K including taxes and benefits
• Infrastructure (Cloudflare, Fly, Vercel, R2, Postgres, Meilisearch): ~€20K
• Legal (incorporation, bylaws, IP transfers): ~€25K
• Translation and content production: ~€15K
• Tools and software (project management, design, dev tools): ~€10K
• Contractor work (audit, accountant, specific legal opinions): ~€20K
• Miscellaneous (domain registrations, postcards, swag for top contributors): ~€10K

Year 3 costs (~€700K–€1M)

• 4 paid roles: ~€500K
• Infrastructure: ~€60K (scaling)
• Legal: ~€40K (more jurisdictions)
• Translation expansion: ~€30K
• Contractor work and grants administration: ~€40K
• Office (likely remote-first, but coworking stipends): ~€20K
• Travel (conferences, partner meetings): ~€20K
• Miscellaneous: ~€20K

Year 7+ costs (~€2–3M)

• 6–8 paid roles: ~€900K–€1.2M
• Infrastructure: ~€150K
• Legal (international expansion): ~€100K
• Translation (20+ languages): ~€80K
• Contractor and specialist work: ~€100K
• Grant fundraising staff time and travel: ~€80K
• Office and travel: ~€60K
• Community programs (postcards, contributor events, fellowships): ~€50K
• Reserve fund contribution: ~€200K–€300K
• Miscellaneous: ~€50K

Reserve fund

By year 5, the project maintains a reserve fund equal to 12 months of operating expenses, held in low-risk, interest-bearing accounts. The reserve protects against:

• Funder withdrawal
• Major commercial customer loss
• Unexpected legal costs
• Economic downturns affecting donations and grants

The reserve is replenished from any annual operating surplus. The bylaws permit drawing on the reserve only with 2/3 board approval and a public explanation.

Transparency

The full financials are published quarterly in the transparency report at flighthelp.net/transparency. Each report includes:

• Income by category and major source (with the top 10 commercial customers and grants named, unless contractually private)
• Expenses by category
• Headcount and major role changes
• Reserve balance
• Year-to-date comparison vs. budget
• Forward-looking note on the next quarter

The annual report includes a third-party audit (US GAAP for the 501(c)(3); EU equivalent for the foundation) and a publicly-posted Form 990 (US) and equivalent foundation report (EU).

Risk: financial sustainability

The project is not sustainable in year 1, year 2, or possibly year 3. It depends on grant funding and seed donor commitments to bridge to commercial-revenue maturity around year 4.

If commercial revenue does not materialize as projected, the fallback is:

• Reduce paid headcount (the volunteer base sustains operations)
• Reduce optional programs (translation expansion, new regime additions)
• Increase grant fundraising effort
• Solicit major-donor support more actively

The project does not fall back to:

• Advertising
• Affiliate revenue
• Selling editorial influence
• Closing the open infrastructure

If those become the only options, the project dissolves rather than betraying the principles. The bylaws make this concrete by requiring board approval of any revenue category change.

The unit economics that matter

The single number that matters most is cost-per-edit-published. At year 1, this is high (low edit volume, fixed infrastructure cost). At year 7, this should be very low (mature volunteer base, paid headcount mostly serving infrastructure rather than editing).

Target trajectory:

• Year 1: ~€10 per published edit
• Year 3: ~€2
• Year 5: ~€0.50
• Year 7+: ~€0.20

If this cost stays high, the project's economics don't work even with diversified revenue. The cost falls when the volunteer system carries more of the load — which is why the contributor experience matters as much to the economics as it does to the mission.