Find Out: What’s the Price Tag for Signal Messaging?
In the digital era, privacy and safeguarding data have emerged as significant concerns, with big tech companies frequently facing allegations of gathering user information. Despite the end-to-end encryption offered by messaging apps like WhatsApp, apprehensions arise regarding the sharing of data, particularly when individuals lack control over it. This is where Signal steps in as an alternative to WhatsApp, being widely recognized as one of the most secure messaging apps available. Signal has gained a reputation for minimizing data collection and has even received endorsements from influential figures in the tech industry, including Elon Musk.
Unlike other apps run by big tech companies, Signal is run by a non-profit foundation, and running an app with over 40 million monthly active users certainly doesn’t come cheap. But how much does it actually cost to use Signal?
Signal Application: Usage Cost breakdown
In a blog post, Signal shared how much it spends to keep the instant messaging app running. Aside from an initial loan from Internet entrepreneur Brian Acton, Signal is run mostly by small donations, which are used to provide a secure messaging alternative to other apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.
Signal’s cost breakdown revealed that it spends about $1.3 million a year on storage and $2.9 million a year on servers. Total bandwidth costs $2.8 million per year, while other additional services are close to $700,000 per year. The cost of registration services to verify phone numbers when people first install Signal or re-register on a new device currently averages about $6 million a year, according to the company. Total infrastructure costs for Signal will total approximately $14 million per year beginning in November 2023.
As for revenue, the company claims, “We estimate that by 2025, Signal will need about $50 million a year to operate — and that’s a pittance compared to other popular messaging apps that don’t respect your privacy.”
Signal employees
Signal has three separate customer teams for iOS, Android, and desktop platforms that develop new features and keep the app running like a well-oiled machine. In addition, it also has dedicated engineering teams that handle the development and maintenance of the signal server and all its infrastructure, call libraries such as RingRTC and core libraries such as libsignal. In total, Signal only has 50 full-time employees, which is much smaller compared to other platforms like Line and KakaoTalk.
