$200k/year on GitHub Sponsors

GitHub Sponsors is a bit like Patreon but for open source software projects, and with no fees.

About a year ago Caleb Porzio wrote how he went from $0 to $100k on GitHub Sponsors in only 6 months 🚀

He had ~550 sponsors around the time he wrote that piece (source), and now he’s up 1270+ so it’s safe to assume he’s earning about $200k on there this year.

Caleb’s success on the platform seems to be rare though. I looked through dozens of projects on Github Sponsors and found only 4 with 100+ sponsors.

(Btw, someone please build Graphtreon for GitHub Sponsors so it’s easy to see who the top earners are!)

Caleb partly attributes his success to a familiar old chestnut:

You can build the greatest tool on the internet, but it means nothing if no one’s paying attention to you. Building an audience is ESSENTIAL for any of this to work. Twitter followers and email subscribers are your most valuable asset.

Again, no shortcuts here. Just hard work, and providing value to people publicly and consistently for a long time.