Read the Docs uses EthicalAds
Read the Docs built a sustainable open source documentation platform funded primarily by ethical advertising.
Documentation automation platform
Audience
10M
Unique monthly visitors
Hosting
200k
Documentation projects
Users
400k
User accounts
About Read the Docs
Read the Docs needed a solution to monetize a large user base but wasn't willing to compromise on privacy.
EthicalAds was built specifically for Read the Docs. We are the same company after all. We knew that advertising would help us provide better service, but we also knew our users didn't want third-party tracking from a large ad network.
Read the Docs had a huge audience but suffered a common problem open source projects have: a lack of revenue. A service that millions depended on was operated by volunteers wearing pagers at their day jobs. The revenue from advertising with EthicalAds allowed us to have a small team of developers work on it full-time without any outside funding.
After solving our own sustainability problems, we wanted to bring EthicalAds to a wider audience and help solve sustainability issues for all developers.
Read the Docs hosts technical documentation for open source projects and provides a continuous integration solution to build documentation from source control on every commit.
“EthicalAds turned Read the Docs from a project struggling for funding into a sustainable open source success story.”