Signal’s operating costs: around $40 million this year

• $14 million a year in infrastructure costs
• $6 million annually, goes to telecom firms to pay for the SMS text messages Signal uses to send registration codes to verify new Signal accounts’ phone numbers
• $19 million a year or so out of Signal’s budget pays for its staff. Signal now employs about 50 people

Staff budget seem crazy high with about 50 people. That's an average of $31.666 per month per employee.

AWS ain’t cheap

I cant help but think that federation would not only help the security aspect of signal but also the cost of running it???

How does Signal make money? How is it so well funded?

Now to get all our lazy family and friends to stop supporting ad terrorists and support something worthwhile for once. Life is exhausting

So if it costs $50mil/year with an active Userbase of 40 mil it would come down to 1,25/ user/year. I would love a very transparent detailed donation page that breaks down those cost and shows how many people donate etc. The badge thing is a first step, but honestly 5/month doesn't make it very attractive. I did that once but don't feel the need to do it again. It should be more visible to become a conversation starter. But that would need a better and more informative donation page.

And I get that not everybody would/will pay but I'd be willing to pay 10-20€/year which should cover the costs for 10-15 people... So we would need ~12% of the userbase to do the same... Is my arithmetic right or is there an error in my thought?

Does anybody know if larger yearly (10-20€) donations are preferred to smaller (1-2€) per month. I remember that in the past due to administrative cost fewer but larger donations were preferred by charities. But maybe that isn't the case anymore due to lower costs of digital payments?!