Mastodon Will Sell Hosting Services And Customer Support To Diversify Revenue

Mastodon announced on Friday that it will offer hosting, customer support, and moderation services as part of a financial strategy to build a sustainable model for the company.

In January, the decentralized social media network Mastodon’s CEO announced that ownership had been transfered to a non-profit organization based in Europe. Since then, Mastodon has restructured to comply with local laws and meet the needs of its new clients.

According to its official announcement, Mastodon is introducing these new services to establish a stronger financial foundation for the organization. The services will be available to institutions through the platform’s official website.

“We’re taking this step of offering paid hosting, moderation, and support for larger organisations to establish a reliable recurring revenue stream,” states the document. “It is vital that we broaden our income—but, our aspiration remains that Mastodon should be predominantly funded through community contributions in the future.”

Mastodon has not yet provided pricing details or outlined the full range of available options. The new page describes two offerings: a Single Service, which allows clients to maintain full control and manage multiple aspects of their hosted site, and an All-in-One Managed Service, in which Mastodon handles security, moderation, and updates.

The organization emphasized that it continues to value donations and grants from supporters and communities that champion decentralization. It also plans to continue developing other products alongside these new commercial services.

“These new commercial offerings will not be a singular focus for Mastodon,” states the document. “We’ll continue to build the software, alongside operating our own server that can act as an entry point to the Mastodon community for anyone who wants to join.“

The platform emphasized its efforts to remain decentralized and operate under the principles of the fediverse. Mastodon, along with other platforms such as Threads, WordPress, and PeerTube, is part of the fediverse, an interconnected network that operates under the ActivityPub protocol, allowing them to interact in the same ecosystem.