The beginning 

27 Crags started as a completely free service for users with the goal to cover costs with ads. Unfortunately, the ads weren't covering almost any of the costs which meant that our founders were constantly investing significant amounts of their personal savings to keep 27 Crags alive for everyone.

In other words: what was free for users, was very expensive for the team running it. This means it was unsustainable for the long term. 

Something had to change to save 27 Crags and that’s when Premium was introduced.

Why the Premium subscription model?

The main goal of Premium is not only to secure resources to maintain the app and website, but also to create even better topos and support the local climbing development at the same time. 

50% of the income from Premium subscriptions goes directly to the topo makers who are local topo authors, bolters, climbing area developers and enthusiasts like you. This money supports them in developing and maintaining climbing areas and the topos about them for all of us to enjoy.

At the same time, the quality of topos and 27 Crags as a platform has improved significantly with Premium. This means much higher quality topos and service for you, the users.

If you wish to read a more comprehensive analysis of this, feel free to check out our blog post about the topic here.