ChirplyThe number we have to hit, in public.
Most software companies never tell you what they cost to run, which makes every price they set look arbitrary. Ours isn't. We publish one figure — the OCi — and everything about how Chirply is priced and funded falls out of it.
$30,000 a month — in 5-years' money, funded now.
7% inflation and 40% cost growth, compounded together over 5 years. Both rates are published assumptions, not facts — move them yourself further down.
What “OCi” actually is
An operating cost is a snapshot — what the business burns this month. It's also the wrong number to build a price around, because it goes stale the day you publish it. OCi is that cost with the next 5 years already priced in.
- 1
Start with the real number
What it genuinely costs to keep Chirply running right now — $3,977 a month. Not a projection, not a best case.
- 2
Compound it forward
Apply inflation and cost growth together for 5 years. Costs don't rise politely one at a time; growth lands on a base that inflation has already raised.
- 3
Aim at the far end
Whatever that lands on is the OCi — $30,000 a month. It's a year-5 number, and we treat it as a day-one target.
Why aim there now?Because a business that only ever covers today's costs spends every year quietly falling behind its own bills — and the way it catches up is always the same: it raises prices on the people who already trusted it. Funding the OCi on day one is what lets a founding rate be locked forever and actually mean it.
Run the numbers yourself
None of this is a black box. Disagree with our assumptions and move them — the model recalculates in front of you.
A $30,000 OCi means $3,977 today.
Costs compound at 49.8% a year under these rates — inflation on top of growth, not beside it. Run that for 5 years and $3,977 a month becomes $30,000 a month. The $26,023 in between is drift we would otherwise have to chase — by repricing, by cutting, or by asking the people already here for more.
- Today$3,977
- Year 1$5,958
- Year 2$8,925
- Year 3$13,369
- Year 4$20,027
- Year 5$30,000
The last bar is the OCi. We are trying to stand on it now, not in 5 years.
100 members at $297 is $29,700 a month.
That is 99% of the OCi. Covering the rest at this price takes 102 members — 2 more than you have set.
Plenty of pairs land on the same line — fewer members paying more, more members paying less. We would rather it be a community of a hundred than a handful of whales, which is the whole reason the number is shaped this way.
Where every third goes
The OCi splits three ways, evenly — $10,000 a month each. The even split is the point: no third gets to quietly eat the others.
Infrastructure & marketing
The AI bills that run the agents, the hosting underneath them, and what it costs to win and keep the members who fund the OCi in the first place.
Human resources overhead
The AI does not drive itself. People point it, review it, and answer for it — and people have to be paid properly to keep doing that.
Profit
Every business needs some. A margin is what lets this one absorb a bad month, fund the next thing without asking, and still be here in five years.
A hundred people, not a handful of whales.
There are two ways to cover a $30,000-a-month OCi. Raise it from investors who will want the price to go up later, or raise it from a founding community whose price never does. We picked the second one, and it is the reason a founder rate locks forever instead of for a first year.