Are Trailmap's maps and route planning an important tool for you on your rides, runs and trips out in nature? Is Trailmap's mission, "to inspire people to get out into nature", close to your heart too? If you want to support Trailmap's development, this post gives you the specifics and the background.

There are two critically important factors for Trailmap's development: 1) OpenStreetMap mapping and 2) Trailmap's Plus subscribers.

OpenStreetMap mapping (OSM) is the foundation on which Trailmap's most important maps and its automatic routing work well and as widely as possible across Finland. OSM mapping supports every app that uses OSM, not just Trailmap, which is why supporting the mapping is a way to have a really broad impact on people who get outdoors.

Thanks to the last 10 years of OSM trail mapping, the situation in Finland is already quite good; in mapping AND classifying trails for mountain biking in particular we are already almost the champions of Europe (over 24000 km of trails mapped in Finland, with only Italy ahead at over 30000 km). But there are still plenty of opportunities to improve the map, both for trails and for smaller roads, forest roads especially.

Anyone can contribute to the OSM map: it takes an hour or two of reading the guidance & practising, and after that you can improve the map in very small doses, a few minutes of mapping after a ride. Read this to get started: Guide to mapping.

The other critical factor is Trailmap's Plus subscribers, i.e. those active users of the app who pay for using it. These users make it possible for Trailmap to keep going and to develop, both for themselves and for the users who do not pay for using Trailmap. This area is only at the start of its journey; you can read more background in an earlier blog post.

Taking out a Plus subscription is direct and the most important support for Trailmap. Beyond that, "indirect" support is valuable too: helping new users find the OSM trail map & Trailmap, supporting current users in using the app, and giving feedback on its development.

Below is a bit deeper background on the topic, i.e. on Trailmap's freemium model.

Paid or free?

The question "free or paid" is not always easy to get your head around when it comes to digital services & apps, so let's unpack it a bit first:

If you go to a nice café in the city centre, buy a coffee and spend some time there, you do not wonder why you have to pay for it. Few people wonder why the coffee costs several euros either, even though tap water and coffee beans cannot possibly cost that much. It is self-evident that the café owner cannot run the business if the customers' payments do not cover the rent, staff costs, material costs and so on.

Many services on the internet and apps in the app store are "free", and so most users have got used to a different norm than the one at the café: in the digital world, paying has become "the exception". On the service provider's side, though, the same laws apply on the internet as at the café: the rent (cloud services & tools) and the staff costs (working hours) have to be covered somehow, or the operation does not continue, let alone develop.

Small-scale operations can of course be offered free of charge, e.g. the sort of hobby projects where the workload and costs are small enough for the developer to carry alone — at least until the initial enthusiasm fades, and with it many such a project dies. Open source projects are another model, suited to certain types of venture.

"Free" long-term operation on the internet is usually based on the following models:

• The business model is based on advertising, i.e. on selling the user's attention to advertisers and on collecting detailed information about the user so that targeted advertising is possible (only targeted advertising really pays)
• The business model may also be based on some other model where someone other than the user pays, e.g. in marketplaces like Amazon the seller of the goods pays a commission to the marketplace, or the data users produce can be packaged and sold on — Strava, for instance, works partly like this
• The freemium model, which the new Trailmap uses too, offers the service both free and paid — more on this below

For Trailmap the line taken is that the user's experience and interface are not messed up with ads, nor is any data collected from users to be sold on. That leaves user payments for the service as the option for funding the operation.

The freemium model suits Trailmap particularly well, because it enables two things at once: offering the service (free) to a large group of users, and funding the service. That way Trailmap's mission can be carried out while also securing continuity through the funding.

The freemium model - how it works

The freemium model is one of the most common models in paid services, though there are very many variations of it. The basic idea is simple:

• Free use ("free") is possible up to a certain limit: features, volume of use, a trial period or similar
• Using the full service ("premium") is paid

The two sides of the freemium model

Free use works as a marketing tool: it brings users to the app, it is easy for users to take the app into use and try what benefit they get from it. For some the benefit is significant enough that they start paying for the service. It is essential to understand two things:

• Free use only works if enough users take out a paid subscription. In the freemium model, free use is treated as a "marketing cost", i.e. instead of paid advertising the same money is spent on offering free use.
• On the paid side it is essential that a sufficient share of users pay (typically 5% - 25% depending on the size of the market) and that the amount of benefit ("value") users get is linked to paying for the service. So the guiding idea is not that "some features cost money", but that the user's benefit and the developer's benefit should go hand in hand. What the payment is then based on (features, volume of use or whatever) is app-specific, and a workable approach often has to be found by trying (because, unfortunately, the value users get cannot be measured directly and tied to the payment).

Trailmap's freemium model

The paid part of Trailmap's freemium model, i.e. the "Plus subscription", is currently based on features: your own routes, tracks and maps become available without limits by taking out a subscription. In future some of the mobile app's and the map tiles' features will require a subscription too.

Plus subscribers have started to accumulate now with the summer season, and so experience of the model has started to accumulate too. Thanks to all the subscribers — your support is important, both directly for covering the costs and also for strengthening my confidence that the app's development is on the right track and that the long days at the lathe have not been wasted!

The share of subscribers among all users is still very low, an estimated bit over one percentage point (1-2%), but it may be under 1% too (the total number of users is not all that easy to measure given GDPR and other laws). Reaching a stable situation, i.e. a balance between costs and income, thus still requires significant development, both in the number of all users and in the percentage share of subscribers.

The number of users is growing gradually, and current users can help with that; a few possible means are in the next section below. The size of the market in Finland is limited for an app of this kind, though, so it is also essential to get the share of subscribers among all users to grow. Fortunately the starting point for the share of subscribers is quite low, so even a smaller increase in numbers produces a bigger percentage growth.

What I am currently pondering is how to find the means to get the number of Plus subscribers growing — preferably in such a way that, as more active users (who benefit significantly from the app) take out a subscription, the changes for the free version's users who use the app rarely would be small.

In the Plus package's annual subscription the monthly fee is 3€ — the same as, say, a bun eaten on a ride or a quarter of a normal Kotipizza — so that is the minimum amount of value the app has to be able to produce for an active user. I would think that goal is achievable when we are talking about the app's most active users.

Other ways to support Trailmap

Here are some other ways you can support Trailmap:

• By marketing Trailmap to other users, e.g. on social media platforms. There are lots of people out in nature who have not heard of the OSM trail map, or of Trailmap. Telling them there is something better on offer than MML's NLS topographic map does a service to them, to the OSM trail mappers and to Trailmap.
• Supporting other users in the various Facebook groups, "Trailmap Suomi" included, with Trailmap-related tips and answers to questions. This helps users get more benefit out of the app.
• Sending feedback and ideas directly to me at support@trailmap.fi or to the "Trailmap Suomi" group. Likewise, if something goes wrong it is worth sending an email straight away. All of this helps the app's development.