Business model

We are bootstrapped and profitable since year one. We have undistributed profit from the last several years. How come? It’s all thanks to our unique business model, which helps us save on payouts and marketing.

I get dozens of calls from VCs and I enjoy them. Unlike myself, they’re nice people to be around who give sound advice. Thank you! We haven’t raised so far however.

Ivan, founder of Icons8

1. We produce 90% of our content. It’s hard, slow, and risky. It requires recruiting, team building, and mentoring. However, it pays off in the long run. 
2. We are fully distributed. A limited recruiting area and an office would probably eat all our profits and growth.
3. We are freemium, meaning people promote our free content. That gives a boost in free traffic. It comes with a price though: we don’t convert well, meaning we can’t rely on paid ads.

Saying that, we invest a lot in our content and software. Here’s the breakdown of these investments.

There are many icon websites that publish freebies created by a bunch of different artists. We produce all our icons in-house.

And we draw a lot: creating a few dozen icons might not be a big deal but thousands of icons took us years of daily work.

Unlike many other websites that are merely a collection of icons for download, Icons8 is a lot more than that:

• Web app generates icons in any color, size and format.
• Complete customization: add text, overlays and background to any icon before downloading.
• Windows and Mac apps perform about the same functions on your desktop.
• There is a huge backend behind the scenes.

We like to give away our products and services for free to those who can’t afford to pay. The community appreciates it and helps us too—not only with the links we require, but also with shares, warm comments, and icon ideas.

A lot of things require a prototype: a demo for an investor, the first version of a website or application, etc.  While you are prototyping, we don’t ask for payment.

Until you’re sure that our icons are the right fit, we’re happy to share the risk with you. Use our PNG icons up to 100 pixels for free, just don’t forget to put a link to us.

• If the design is accepted or your startup takes off, you can purchase the license or subscription.
• If not, we share the loss and both receive nothing.

A lot of things require a prototype: a demo for an investor, the first version of a website or application, etc.  While you are prototyping, we don’t ask for payment.

Until you’re sure that our icons are the right fit, we’re happy to share the risk with you. Use our PNG icons up to 100 pixels for free, just don’t forget to put a link to us.

• If the design is accepted or your startup takes off, you can purchase the license or subscription.
• If not, we share the loss and both receive nothing.

We charge corporations and governments.

However, the vast majority of our clients are neither rich nor big. They are people like us, people who:

• See value in our graphics and tools
• Believe in paying fairly for what they use.

That’s how it is, period.

This is a big topic. We admit we don’t put enough effort into marketing; we didn’t do enough A/B testing and other forms of experiments.

So far our findings are:

• Lowering the price doesn’t affect profit.
• Neither is increasing the price. We did it twice.
• We did some A/B testing for price breaks: setting a $999 VIP package to make other plans cheap. It had no effect.

We don’t like discounts, but we sometimes use coupons in our mailings.

• Price should not depend on an individual’s skill at googling coupon codes
• Sales should not make people regret buying a product the day before it goes on sale

As a rule, we should never make people sad they bought our product.

After 12 years of continuous profitability, we can assure you—it does.