Originally published at: https://mautic.org/blog/open-startup-report-38-april-2026
Note: The February to June reports are being back-dated, written in July 2026, as I have been out on sabbatical. I’m experimenting with using Claude (thanks to their 6 months free gift to open source maintainers!) to help automate some of the very time consuming parts of creating these reports, but they are still reviewed by human eyes before publishing. If you spot anything unusual, please do let us know.
Sometimes with reports, it’s easy to report a single number in a particular way to tell the wrong story. April’s finances look, at a glance, great, and it would be easy to present them that way. But the honest reading is more interesting than the headline, and honesty is rather the point of an open startup report. So let me walk you through what actually happened, the good and the ordinary alike.
Key points
On paper April produced a very large surplus, but two things inflate it and I want to be upfront about them. Webmecanik renewed their Gold corporate membership, an annual commitment that happens to land in a single month, and there was no employment cost recorded at all because that expense was deferred to a later month. Set those aside and April was a steady, unremarkable month financially, which is no bad thing.
Around the finances, there was a lot to be glad about. KumoMTA came on board as a Platinum sponsor of MautiCon, our community ran a sprint in Berlin that people contributed to join, and our contributors kept up a strong pace of work even as the number of new joiners eased back.
Finances
Let me take the headline apart honestly. Income for April was $21,497.15 and expenditure was $3,786.51, which leaves a surplus of $17,710.64. That figure is real, but it is not a picture of a normal month, and I would rather you saw why than took it at face value.
Two things account for almost all of it. Webmecanik renewed their Gold corporate membership at $15,000, of which $14,869.36 reached us after a small deduction due to currency exchange. We are grateful for it, and Webmecanik have been steadfast supporters for years. Alongside that, there was no employment cost in April. That expense was deferred rather than avoided, and it will fall in a later month, so this month’s spending looks far lighter than our true running costs. Take both out and April sits close to balanced, as an ordinary month should.
There was genuinely good news in the mix. KumoMTA joined as a Platinum sponsor of MautiCon, our conference, which is a meaningful vote of confidence from a respected name in email infrastructure. Our community also ran a sprint in Berlin, and people paid to take part, with registrations and a sprint sponsorship coming in. And the fundraiser continued to tick along with five gifts totalling $1,410, quieter than March’s TYPO3-boosted month, which is exactly what you would expect.
Income for April
| Source | Amount |
|---|---|
| Corporate membership, Gold (Webmecanik) | $14,869.36 |
| MautiCon sponsorship, Platinum (KumoMTA) | $2,644.79 |
| Fundraiser | $1,410.00 |
| Monthly sponsors | $1,386.00 |
| One-time donation | $1,000.00 |
| Community sprint (Berlin) | $175.00 |
| Individual members | $12.00 |
| Total | $21,497.15 |
Monthly sponsors combines our recurring Open Collective sponsors with GitHub Sponsors. The community sprint line is registrations to join us in Berlin plus a contribution to sponsor the sprint. The one-time donation is a $1,000 gift from a generous user of Mautic, Mitesh Gala from Altametrics.
On the spending side, with employment deferred, the largest line is simply the Open Collective host fee, followed by our freelancer costs and the usual running expenses.
Expenditure for April
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Open Collective host fee (10%) | $2,151.80 |
| Freelancers | $763.00 |
| Admin support | $265.84 |
| Infrastructure and tools | $265.05 |
| Payment processor fees | $213.66 |
| Domain renewals | $89.82 |
| Other | $37.34 |
| Total | $3,786.51 |
The payment processor fees roll up Stripe at $90.99, GiveWP at $28.20, and Open Collective’s own processor fees at $94.47. There is no employment line this month, deferred as noted above.
The full cost of collecting our income came to $2,365.46, most of it the Open Collective host fee. As ever, the GiveWP portion is the avoidable one.
Seen honestly, then, April was a steady month wearing a spectacular number, lifted by a loyal partner’s annual renewal and a timing quirk in our costs.
Contributions
April was a quieter month for new arrivals, after February and March’s strong runs. We welcomed 40 new community members, down 21.57%, and 9 new contributors, down 55%, and active members were down 23.80%. Fewer newcomers is not a worry in a single month, and the depth of contribution held up well, but it is worth watching over the next few months.
Most active organisations
| Organisation | Activity | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Acquia | 114 | ↓ 16.18% |
| Leuchtfeuer Digital Marketing | 92 | ↑ 1.10% |
| UpScale | 48 | ↓ 28.36% |
| Dropsolid | 36 | ↓ 53.25% |
| Moorwald, Sven Döring | 31 | ↓ 39.22% |
| Aivie | 30 | ↓ 48.28% |
| Crafting.email | 18 | ↓ 5.26% |
| Friendly | 14 | ↓ 39.13% |
| Casfer | 9 | ↓ 59.09% |
| Seety, Covevent | 7 | new entry |
Top contributing organisations
| Organisation | Contributions | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Acquia | 97 | ↑ 44.78% |
| Leuchtfeuer Digital Marketing | 41 | ↑ 41.38% |
| Dropsolid | 31 | ↓ 6.06% |
| UpScale | 27 | ↓ 18.18% |
| Aivie | 17 | ↑ 13.33% |
| Webmecanik | 6 | ↑ 100% |
| DevFuture | 4 | new entry |
| Casfer | 3 | new entry |
| Intellect IT | 2 | no change |
| Moorwald, Sven Döring | 1 | new entry |
The contribution picture is the more telling one, and it is encouraging. Acquia and Leuchtfeuer both lifted their contributions sharply, up around 45% and 41%, and Webmecanik doubled theirs. Fewer conversations but more merged work is a healthy sort of quiet.
Most active individual contributors
| Contributor | Activity |
|---|---|
| Ayu Adiati | 152 |
| John Linhart | 107 |
| Ekke Guembel | 52 |
| Margareth Egbuchulam | 51 |
| Martin Vooremäe | 48 |
| Sven Döring | 31 |
| Anderson José Eccel | 29 |
| Barsha Devi | 23 |
| Patryk Gruszka | 23 |
| Adrian Schimpf | 21 |
Top individual contributors
| Contributor | Contributions |
|---|---|
| John Linhart | 85 |
| Predrag Vukovic | 77 |
| Ayu Adiati | 35 |
| Anderson José Eccel | 31 |
| Martin Vooremäe | 27 |
| Patryk Gruszka | 23 |
| Rahul Shinde | 14 |
| Margareth Egbuchulam | 10 |
| Artem Lopata | 9 |
| Zdeno Kuzmany | 6 |
We also welcomed 9 new contributors this month, and I am grateful to every one of them. As always, I have kept these rankings focused on our volunteer community, setting aside automated accounts and staff activity.
Usage of Mautic
Interest in trying Mautic held up well, with 392 trial signups in April, a touch above March. India led by a wide margin again, followed by the United States and Brazil, with the United Kingdom, Germany, Vietnam, Egypt and Pakistan all well represented. The breadth of countries reaching for an open source path is one of the steadiest and most heartening signals we have.
Composer installations of Mautic through Packagist rose to 134 in April from 100 in March, a healthy jump.
Community health
The clearest sign of health this month sits in the contribution figures rather than the joining figures. New arrivals eased back, but organisations put real work in, with Acquia, Leuchtfeuer and Webmecanik all lifting their contributions, and our individual contributors kept a strong pace. A quieter month for newcomers alongside a busy month for building is a reasonable trade, though it is worth keeping an eye on new-member numbers as the year goes on.
Beyond the code, April showed the community meeting in person and around shared events. A sprint in Berlin brought people together to work side by side, and MautiCon gained a Platinum sponsor.
Conclusion
April taught me, again, to look past the surface of a number. A large surplus that comes from a loyal partner’s annual renewal and a deferred cost is not the same as a strong trading month, and saying so plainly is what makes these reports worth publishing. Underneath the headline, April was steady, our costs are real and still to come, and our community kept building.
If you would like to help us build the steady base that carries us through the ordinary months as well as the exceptional ones, becoming a project member is the most direct way. And as always, I would love to hear what this report brings up for you. Please leave a comment in the accompanying forum thread.
References
Open Source Collective (2026) Mautic collective transactions ledger, April 2026. Available at: https://opencollective.com/mautic
Packagist (2026) mautic/core-lib download statistics. Available at: https://packagist.org/packages/mautic/core-lib
Savannah CRM (2026) Mautic monthly community report, April 2026. Available at: https://savannahcrm.com/public/report/de2dacab-587b-4856-8396-525020781aa1/
Stripe (2026) Mautic payment records and balance report, April 2026. Internal account data.
Mautic (2026) Trial signup submissions, April 2026. Internal form data.