# Funding
> As a direct result of [a successful Mozilla grant application](mozilla-grant.md), I will be leaving my current role at [DabApps](http://www.dabapps.com), and attempting to secure a sustainable business model for REST framework development. I need your help in order to make this work.
>
> — Tom Christie
If you use REST framework commercially we strongly encourage you to invest in its continued development by signing up for a paid plan.
**We believe that collaboratively funded software can offer outstanding returns on investment, by encouraging our users to collectively share the cost of development.**
Signing up for a paid plan will:
* Directly contribute to faster releases, more features, and higher quality software.
* Allow more time to be invested in documentation, issue triage, and community support.
* Safeguard the future development of REST framework.
REST framework continues to be open-source and permissively licensed, but we firmly believe it is in the commercial best-interest for users of the project to invest in its ongoing development.
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## Making the business case
Our [successful Kickstarter campaign](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tomchristie/django-rest-framework-3) demonstrates the impressive cost-reward ratio of shared funding of open-source software.
With *typical corporate fundings of just £100-£1000 per organization* we successfully delivered:
* The comprehensive serializer redesign, and **version 3.0 release**.
* Ongoing triage and community support, **closing over 1600 tickets**.
* Substantial improvements to the Browsable API.
* The admin interface.
* A new pagination API including offset/limit and cursor pagination implementations, plus on-page controls.
* A versioning API, including URL-based and header-based versioning schemes.
* Support for customizable exception handling.
* Support for Django's PostgreSQL HStoreField, ArrayField and JSONField.
* Templated HTML form support, including HTML forms with nested list and objects.
* Internationalization support for API responses, currently with 27 languages.
* The metadata APIs for handling `OPTIONS` requests and schema endpoints.
* Numerous minor improvements and better quality throughout the codebase.
This incredible level of return on investment is *only possible through collaboratively funded models*, which is why we believe that supporting our paid plans is in everyone's best interest.
Sign up for a paid plan today, and help ensure that REST framework becomes a sustainable, full-time funded project.
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## Freelancer plan
This subscription is recommended for freelancers and other individuals with an interest in seeing REST framework continue to improve.
If you are using REST framework as an full-time employee, consider recommending that your company takes out a [corporate plan](#corporate-plans).
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Freelancer
Support ongoing development
Credited on the site
*Billing is monthly and you can cancel at any time.*
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## Corporate plans
These subscriptions are recommended for companies and organizations using REST framework either publicly or privately.
In exchange for funding you'll also receive advertising space on our site, allowing you to **promote your company or product to many tens of thousands of developers worldwide**.
Our professional and premium plans also include **priority support**. At any time your engineers can escalate an issue or discussion group thread, and we'll ensure it gets a guaranteed response within the next working day.
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Basic
Support ongoing development
Funding page ad placement
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Professional
Support ongoing development
Sidebar ad placement
Priority support for your engineers
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Premium
Support ongoing development
Homepage ad placement
Sidebar ad placement
Priority support for your engineers
*Billing is monthly and you can cancel at any time.*
Once you've signed up I'll contact you via email and arrange your ad placements on the site.
For further enquires please contact tom@tomchristie.com.
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## Accountability
In order to ensure that I can be fully focused on trying to secure a sustainable
& well-funded open source business I will be leaving my current role at [DabApps](http://www.dabapps.com)
at the end of May 2016.
I have formed a UK limited company, [Encode](http://www.encode.io), which will
act as the business entity behind REST framework. I will be issuing monthly reports
from Encode on progress both towards the [Mozilla grant](mozilla-grant.md), and for development time
funded via the REST framework paid plans.