What do you get?

With all pricing packages you get:

• Access to the Open Food Network software platform to support your community food enterprise.
• Access to our customer support to help you navigate new features, challenges you’re having, and to respond to requests for additional features.
• Access to new features as they are developed.

The starting out option allows you to try setting up the Open Food Network software and use it for a small amount of sales, to see if it works for you. If you have a month where you have less than $500 turnover through the Open Food Network (no matter how long you’ve been using the platform) you don’t have to pay. If your turnover is more than $500 of produce a month through the Open Food Network, you will be moved on to the community membership pricing.

With the community membership option, you are helping us keep the lights on for Open Food Network Australia by contributing to the cost of running servers, platform maintenance, and customer support. We will also list you on our community members page, which recognises those members contributing to our work.

We see the solidarity partnership option as our equivalent of a CSA. You are investing in the new features that keep improving the Open Food Network, and strengthening the community that is working together to transform the food system. You’re with us not just because you want to use good software, but because you’re part of a movement that’s helping each other improve and making it easier for others to replicate what we do. Solidarity Partners also receive two free integrations from the Open Food Ecosystem as part of their contribution, 

Together, we’re building a food system that is fair, ethical and sustainable. We will also list you on our community members page as a solidarity partner, in recognition of your partnership in building a new community food enterprise.

Our pricing structure reflects that we want you to be able to use Open Food Network even if you’re a small enterprise, and that we believe we shouldn’t succeed unless we’re helping you succeed. We also know that many enterprises choose Open Food Network not only because it’s great software, but because they want to be working in solidarity with us as part of a movement building a new food system, so we’ve included that option within our pricing.

If you’re leaning towards a solidarity partnership and you’re just starting out on the Open Food Network we really appreciate you choosing 3% for your set-up period, as it’s a resource-intensive time for us!

You can pass this cost on to your customers by adding a fee, just make sure that you’re calculating that fee correctly as we charge a percentage of total turnover. This means to cover your percentage-calculated price you will need to charge slightly more than that flat percentage. For example, if you sell $1000 of produce, and charge your customers a 3% fee (totalling $30) we will calculate your pricing on a turnover of $1030, which would be $30.90.

Please note that if you are selling through a hub, the hub will pay the fee and not the producer; whoever receives the money from the sales will be charged.

How are these prices set?

You can read more about how we determined this pricing model in consultation with our community.

When you sign up to use the Open Food Network platform, we will ask you to nominate which membership you would like.

Charging this much for our software will not cover the costs of operating Open Food Network Australia. We continue to subsidise our software through a variety of other channels, including our consultancy work, grants, and philanthropy. But because we are part of a global Open Food Network, every dollar we raise goes a very long way! By pooling resources and working as a global network with each country contributing, we are able to develop more new features and improvements than we ever could if we tried to work alone – we hope that you feel part of this network too, and recognise the value of collaborating with us and with other community food enterprises to build a new food system.