Behind the Scenes: The True Cost of Running FerryFriend

Here is the short version. FerryFriend is a f*ck ton of work.

And here is the long version:

I (Jordan) built FerryFriend 10 years ago as a quick side project. At the time, the existing app that was used by most people had ceased to function and I wanted something super simple for my own purposes. It was truly bare-bones. That first version sat on the app store for a few years and a small handful of people found it and used it.

In college for my senior project, I decided to improve FerryFriend and make it as feature-rich as I could. I built a whole new UI, added cameras, fares, the idea of favorite routes, vessels maps and more. People gradually started to use it more and more as it got better and better.

Since that time, the work has only grown. Brendan Smith completely rewrote the entire app such that we could release it on Android alongside the iPhone version. While the app feels relatively simple on the front-end, the backend work has also exploded in size and complexity. FerryFriend is currently running on 12 servers that do a myriad of things including ticket lookups, reservation lookups, our own vessel watch implementation, alert push notifications, and more. The reality is that the data sources that we get data from are messy and often inaccurate. An incredible amount of code has been written to independently verify that data and augment it with our own guesses.

A lot of weeks I currently spend 40 hours (sometimes many more) building and maintaining the app. It's become a huge project way beyond my initial expectations. I love working on it. I hope you can feel that when you use it. I'm constantly looking for ways to improve it and have a huge list of things that I'd love to do. But I can't do it without getting paid anymore. Two years ago I started a Patreon and I've received a lot of support through it which I am so thankful for, but the reality is that it just barely covers the expenses of running the app (API fees, fees to Apple, server fees, subscriptions, etc). I want to keep FerryFriend going, but I can't do it alone anymore.

I have always wanted to keep FerryFriend free, and I've never wanted to include ads. My solution is a compromise of charging for some features, while keeping the core product free. I'm keeping the subscription cost as low as I can, and if anyone is unable to afford it, I ask that they reach out and I'll make sure they can access all of the paid features for free. I realize nobody wants to feel like they are suddenly paying for features that at one time were free, but I hope you can appreciate what's needed to keep this thing running.

Jordan Soltman
Vashon Island