Why Open Signal costs money
Receiving is free forever and always will be. The transmit side is £15 a year or £45 for life. This page is the answer to why — not a pitch for the licence, but a straight account of what the money pays for and what it does not.
The short answer
It costs money because someone has to write it and answer for it, and that person is doing it as work rather than as a hobby with a donate button.
There is a server bill too, and it is a genuine one — the network runs on paid infrastructure rather than a free tier, and it is charged every month regardless of how many licences sell. It is kept deliberately modest, and keeping it that way is itself part of the work. But the bigger cost is time: development, support, and the engineering that stops the running costs growing.
Free, forever, and not a trial
The receive-only version is complete software, not a demo. Six SSTV families with automatic mode detection from the VIS header, the live waterfall, the receive pane that paints each picture in line by line, and the logbook — one self-contained executable, no FLDIGI, no Hamlib, no virtual audio cables.
It does not expire, it does not nag, and it does not ask for an account. Anybody who only ever wants to sit on 14.230 and decode what arrives never has to pay anything.
What the licence adds
Transmit, and the parts that reach the internet: hybrid sends, the live map and presence, your operator profile, published galleries, reception reports, and updates.
There is a pattern there worth saying out loud, because it is the whole shape of the pricing: everything that works offline is free, and everything that needs a service running behind it is paid. The radio side of Open Signal never phones home. The half that costs somebody money to keep alive is the half with a price on it.
The alternative is you running it
Hybrid mode sends the full-quality picture over the internet and puts only a short link on the air — about five seconds of airtime whatever the file size. In Open Signal that is a tick box, and the documentation can say no accounts, no keys, no configuration because there genuinely are none.
Doing the same thing yourself is not hard, exactly, but it is a list: object storage, a set of credentials, a host that is publicly reachable, and a URL short enough to survive a few seconds of text over a noisy path. Then keeping all of it running, and paying for it, for as long as you want the feature to work.
How hybrid mode works covers the mechanics.
Uploads go through the service rather than straight to storage, which has a consequence worth spelling out: there is no storage key in your configuration that can leak, because there is no key. The bucket needs no public access either.
The same applies to the smaller conveniences. Searching for a GIF to send spends an API quota — it is just not your quota, and there are no keys to paste into a settings box to make it work.
None of this is glamorous, and most of it is invisible when it works. That is rather the point: the link that crosses the radio is twelve characters long because a longer one would not fit in a single burst, and somebody had to find that out.
Where the money actually goes
Largest first, which is not the order most software companies would use.
Development time. Writing it, fixing it, and shipping releases. The release notes are public, so that claim is checkable rather than something you have to take on trust.
Support time. One person reads the helpdesk and answers it, licence holders first, aiming for two working days. That is a real call on the week and it is part of what the licence pays for. See who runs Open Signal for how that works and who you are actually dealing with.
The engineering that keeps the bills small. This one sounds like padding and is not. The live map once went dark in the middle of the day because polling burned through a daily quota; the fix was rebuilding how the roster is stored so it costs a single read instead of a listing. That is a day's work that shows up as nothing on an invoice and as the map simply staying up.
Servers and services. The network runs on paid infrastructure, not a free tier: the database holding the picture archive and every reception report, storage for hybrid pictures, galleries and installers, the mail that carries sign-in codes and release announcements, image and GIF search quotas, the domain and its certificates. Named rather than inflated — but it is a standing monthly bill that arrives whether or not a licence sells that month.
Company overhead. Open Signal is a product of Gander Web Ltd — the registered company, the store that takes the payment, the helpdesk and the published legal documents all cost something to keep in place.
None of it is a large bill by software-company standards, and this page would rather say so than imply otherwise. The point is that it is not nothing either: the running costs are small on purpose, they are ongoing, and keeping them small is part of the work being paid for.
What this page is not claiming
Free alternatives exist and are good. MMSSTV is free in full, and that is a genuine difference rather than something to argue away. If it does what you need, there is no case to answer here — the comparison is written out if you want to weigh it properly.
Support is one person, not a department. Licence holders are answered first and the aim is a reply within two working days — but that is a target rather than a contractual guarantee, and there is no overnight or weekend cover. If you need a desk that answers in an hour at three in the morning, this is not that, and the price is not pretending it is.
This is a small thing, still being built. Open Signal is beta software on a young network, run by one operator. Things get fixed and questions get answered, but it moves at the pace one person can manage, and the price is not asking you to pretend otherwise.
If the price is the actual barrier, say so. There are free full licences open in selected countries, because a modest sum in the UK is a much bigger ask elsewhere.
Why isn't Open Signal just free?
The receive-only version is, permanently — it is complete software rather than a trial, and it does not expire or nag. The paid side is the half that needs a service running behind it and a person answering for it. That is work rather than a hobby with a donate button, so it is priced instead of asked for.
Is the money going on server bills?
Partly. There is a real infrastructure bill — paid hosting, the database behind the picture archive, storage for hybrid pictures and installers, the mail that carries sign-in codes and release notes, image search quotas, the domain and certificates. It is modest rather than enormous, and it arrives every month whether or not anyone buys a licence. The larger share is still time: writing the software, answering the helpdesk, and the engineering that keeps the infrastructure bill modest in the first place.
What do I actually get for paying?
Transmit, plus everything that needs the internet: hybrid sends, the live map and presence, your profile, published galleries, reception reports and updates. Support comes with it too — licence holders go to the front of the helpdesk queue. Everything that works offline — receiving, decoding, the waterfall, the logbook — is already in the free version.
Couldn't I just host the picture uploads myself?
You could, and that is the honest comparison. It means object storage, credentials, a publicly reachable host, and a link short enough to survive a few seconds of text over the air — then keeping all of it alive. In Open Signal it is a tick box: uploads go through the service, so no storage keys ever live on your machine.
MMSSTV is free — why pay for this?
MMSSTV is free in full, and that is a real difference rather than something to argue away. If it does what you need, there is no case to answer here. Open Signal is a wider tool — digital picture modes, byte-exact file transfer, hybrid sends, a self-filling logbook and a Linux build, in one executable with no virtual audio cables. Weigh that honestly against free.
What support do I get?
Support is part of what the licence pays for. Anyone can raise a ticket on the Gander Web helpdesk, but licence holders are answered first, and the aim is a reply within two working days. You also get your ticket history and any replies in the operator portal, and the update emails carry a report-a-problem link that files a ticket against your callsign. It is one operator rather than a staffed desk, so it is not 24/7 — but it is a real queue with your name at the front of it.
Does the annual licence renew automatically?
No. Each year raises a fresh invoice, there is no card kept on file, and nobody is charged without seeing a bill first. The earlier auto-renewing subscription was dropped for exactly that reason. The lifetime licence is paid once and does not expire at all.
What if I can't afford it?
Use the free receive-only version for as long as you like — it is complete software, not a countdown. There are also free full licences open in selected countries, decided by callsign prefix, because a licence that is a modest sum in the UK is a much bigger ask elsewhere.
Try it before you decide
The receive-only version is free forever, needs no account and no payment details. Decode pictures off the air first — the transmit licence is there if and when it earns it.