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Comment by tux3 | Hacker News Reader

>Thunderbird is revenue positive

Hmm, I thought the for-profit Thunderbird pro hadn't launched yet?

I know Thunderbird is for profit, but what are they profitting from without the paid service, and how much of that profit is going into this unrelated Thunderbolt AI platform, exactly?

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Thunderbird currently runs entirely on donations, even though they have paid products in the pipeline.

I think a piece of software running on donations is not running off "charity". It's just a business model to not charge every user. Similar to how Twitch streamers operate, or my local theater group.

You can read how they spent money in 2024 [1].

[1] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-...

Thanks, that's helpful. This says about ~70% of the money was paid to employees, ~10% infra costs, the other ~20% various other fees and smaller expenses.

It would be interesting to have a breakdown of what part of the Thunderbird team is working on Thunderbird, Thunderbolt, or other forms of thunder.

Wait what, they took donations to pay a team to build a mail client and had them build an AI thing instead? Or have I got that wrong.

No, this was built with money from an grant from Mozilla.

I don’t know why you’re downvoting, it’s a fair question based on the above comments.

No, this was built with money from an grant from Mozilla.

No what? That doesn't contradict their comment about Thunderbird.

I think "No, this was not funded by donations".

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