[andris9]

I had the exact same experience with Nodemailer, a popular open-source project I started 14 years ago. My solution was to empty the README file and set up a dedicated documentation website. Since the project is popular, the documentation website receives around 70,000 visits per month. I initially tried paid ads, but they only netted about $200 per month—not great. So, I started a commercial project somewhat related to Nodemailer and added ads for my new project on Nodemailer’s documentation page. This brings in around 3,000 visits per month to my paid project through the ads on the documentation page. Even if the conversion rate is low, it’s essentially free traffic for my paid project, which is now approaching $10,000 MRR. Without the free visitor flow from my OSS project’s documentation page, I definitely wouldn’t have made it this far.

[black_puppydog]

This is a really interesting approach, I hadn't thought of this!

Just out of curiosity, do you think the separate documentation page has better conversion than if you were to, say, include the ad directly into the readme inside the repo?

[andris9]

You have less control over formatting and ad placement in the README file, as rendered markdown offers only limited options. With a dedicated documentation website, it’s much easier.

It’s also a question of sovereignty. If your documentation is in the README, then GitHub owns the audience. If they, for some reason, close your project, you’re finished. With your own documentation page, the risk is much lower.

[myprotegeai]

Thanks for sharing. It's an interesting idea, to try to trampoline it into another related commercial project. I just checked my RTD analytics, I get around 1k pageviews to `/` per month. Unfortunately I don't have a related commercial product either.

[andris9]

When I started with Nodemailer, my goal was to build a cool product—not to become an unpaid helpdesk employee for life. But here we are. So, I’ve been trying to monetize the project in various ways for the past ten years. I’ve tried everything (license restrictions, freelancing and consulting, paid extensions, etc.), and each approach failed for different reasons. The only strategy that actually took off was using Nodemailer’s documentation page as a referral source for another relevant paid project.

[aserafini]

Very interesting! I wonder if, sadly, the rise of AI-assisted coding will chip away also at this potential revenue stream? As developers simply ask a local or cloud LLM how to use a piece a software instead of reading the documentation.