Founded in 2001, Anime-Planet is a site created by fans, for fans. Though millions of users a month use the site, we're staffed by a small team of volunteers including the founder, developers, and content moderators. Until now, we've relied on a very small amount of ads on the website to cover Anime-Planet's hefty ongoing costs, given the community's size and growth. But with most folks using ad block programs nowadays and ad revenue performing poorly across the web, last month we launched our official Patreon page for Anime-Planet as a way for the community to help support feature development and rising site costs. We thank our Patrons greatly for your initial support over the past month, especially since there weren't any tangible website benefits yet. We've spent the last month working with the Patreon API, and are excited to announce new features available starting today, including the much-requested ad-free browsing feature. Bronze "ad-free" tier We've added a new, low-cost tier for those who want to support the site and care most about the ad-free browsing experience. It's called Bronze, and is $5 USD/month on Patreon. Silver and Gold tiers also have the ad-free browsing experience included as a benefit. Bronze patrons also will receive a bronze avatar outline that appears in the site and forum, as well as a "Bronze Supporter" forum banner underneath your avatar in the forum. New Silver and Gold tier benefits Our existing Silver and Gold tiers now have extra benefits as well: Ad-free browsing The avatar outlines Silver and Gold tiers also have access to other exclusive benefits, such as pre-release feature sneak peeks and a feedback program to influence site development, a special Discord supporters channel, ability to choose a custom Discord color, and more. Notes Ad-free browsing works for the entire website, except for video players. These are owned by our industry partners, including the ads within, so we can't control what appears in there. We are continuing to brainstorm and work on other benefits for the community! Support feature development and the community Thank you, as always, for your support of Anime-Planet <3
I'm glad to see new features being added and the site expanding. This has been my favorite anime database site to use since I started watching anime. :)
Nothing on the internet is free. Websites are expensive to run and only get more expensive the more popular they are. Ads are the only option to avoid forcing the costs on users but ads don't pay very well anymore.
This. Also remember that half the net is using software to block a lot of ads where they can so it does make revenue even lower, i don't deny using ad-blocking software either (I'm trash i know, but i do leave the ads on AP on my exceptions list, as with the other few sites i enjoy), so using Patreon is the best way to get some revenue. Also, not to sound like a suckup but Sothis and the dev team from the years i have used the site have done everything to make it user friendly and add new features regularly, which requires time and money.
Same. Also I love that the first screenshot in the post is about pouting faces. And here I thought I was the only one that loved waifu pouts lol.
You're welcome, here's the thread in case you want to revive it. https://www.anime-planet.com/forum/threads/best-pouts-working-group.335972/
I didn't know there was such a thread, please excuse me as i enter a temporary state of bliss by browsing every page of this! Nothing wrong with pouting faces!!!
Yayyy, this is awesome! I love my new border. Keep up the great work, I'm so excited about all the changes that have been coming out!