How FriendsWithTools pays its bills
FriendsWithTools is free to join, and borrowing is always free. Paid plans and donations cover the servers. There are no ads, no ad networks, and no tracking pixels. Nothing about you is sold or shared with advertisers.
What changed
This used to be funded partly by ads. It isn't anymore. The ads weren't worth what they cost the people using this, so they're gone.
1. Paid plans
Most of what funds FriendsWithTools comes from paid plans. The free tier covers what most groups need: borrowing, lending, messaging, and reminders. Premium and Commercial add things like calendar sync, maintenance tracking, and priority support for groups that want more. See the pricing page for what's in each tier.
Pricing is per account, not per borrow. Sharing between members inside a group is always free. Nothing here ever takes a cut of what gets lent or returned.
2. Donations
FriendsWithTools runs on a lean budget, and donations are optional on top of that. If you find it useful and want to support it beyond a paid plan, you can chip in directly. It helps keep the free tier free and goes straight to hosting costs.
Paid plans today are organized around unlocking extra features. That framing may shift over time toward something closer to chipping in to keep the servers running. Nothing about that is decided, but the free tier isn't going anywhere either way.
Donation links are coming soon. In the meantime, the best way to help is to upgrade to a paid plan or tell a neighbor about the app.
What we don't make money from
- Selling user data. We don't sell it, don't share it, and don't profile users for outside advertisers. See our privacy policy for the full statement.
- Taking a cut of borrows. When members in a group lend and borrow, no money changes hands through us. Whatever arrangements members make between themselves are entirely their own.
- Listing fees, transaction fees, deposits, or insurance add-ons. None of those exist on this platform.