Anime Herald Fiscal Report for the Year Ending 12/31/2024

Introduction

As part of our efforts to maintain full transparency within our operation, it has been decided that every year, the chief officer of Anime Herald, LLC must compile an annual within eight weeks of the end of the fiscal year. This document will serve to outline our finances, as well as our performance over the course of the year.

For purposes of reporting, our fiscal year runs from January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2024.

Due to an issue with the license of our accounting software, we were delayed by two weeks from our original planned publication date of January 31, 2024. We apologize for the delay.

Current Finances

As of February 18, 2024, Anime Herald has $3,671.55 in the company’s checking account. Of this, $825 is currently set aside for articles that have been commissioned, and $825 is earmarked for editors to work on said articles.

As of January 1, 2024, Anime Herald had $3,683.15 in its account. This will be used as the core basis for the fiscal report.

Income

In our fiscal year, Anime Herald posted $6,215.63 in revenues, or an average of $517.97 per month. The breakdown is as follows:

• Patreon: $4,782.19

• Ko-fi: $1,077.56

• TeePublic (Merchandise): $5.50

• Interest: $36.12

Our current biggest driver remains Patreon, which brought in an average monthly revenue of $398.52 per month, after fees and taxes.

Expenses

Invoices

In 2024, invoices remained our primary cost driver. This category includes payments to writers and editors for articles and to the Editor-In-Chief for a $50/month salary.

Until we reach break even, the Editor-in-Chief will remain a salaried employee, who does not collect on invoices for editorial or written work. As such, features like Anime Herald’s Anime Boston and Otakon coverage incurred zero costs.

For the fiscal year, Anime Herald posted $4,028.56 in invoices for articles and editing services, which were paid out via the Anime Herald bank account.

Infrastructure

Our second largest costs came from our infrastructure. This includes our web hosting, domain names, and services required to operate in a modern environment, such as backups and server management. The cost breakdown is as follows:

• Web Hosting: $755.04

• Runcloud Server Management: $150

• Blogvault Daily Backups: $149

In total, we paid $1,054.04 in infrastructure costs or $87.84 per month. This was not paid for using the Anime Herald bank account; rather, it was paid using chief officer Samantha Ferreira’s personal funds.

Taxes and Fees

To do business in Rhode Island, there is a fixed cost of $400 paid directly to the state. To help ensure that we remain in compliance with all regulations, the organization employs a Registered Agent ($125/year) and an accountant ($325/year).

In total, we paid $850 in taxes and fees related to doing business in the state of Rhode Island. As such, we remain in good standing with the state.

These fees were paid using chief officer Samantha Ferreira’s personal funds. Per request by our chief officer, the cost of the accountant will not be cited as part of our P/L calculation.

Tooling

Anime Herald employs the use of three paid tools. Previously, we had only held Yoast and EWWW, as email costs were negligible.

Due to issues related to our previous email provider, Anime Herald’s email domain was temporarily blacklisted by domain services. To rectify this, we shifted our email services to Google Workspaces, which worked with the major MX blacklist maintainers to restore our reputation and remove us from automated spam filters and blocking. We have remained on this service to this day, as costs have remained consistent.

Due to an odd bit of fortune, Anime Herald has been gifted a lifetime license to EWWW through an anniversary contest. As such, this cost is no longer a factor for us in the medium term.

As such, our updated costs for fiscal 2024 were as follows:

• Google Workspaces: 571.75

• Yoast SEO Premium: $95.34

In total, we paid $667.09 for tooling.

All of these were paid via Anime Herald’s bank account.

Miscellaneous Expenses

In response to our June 2023 pledge drive, Samantha made a $555 donation to the Trevor Project. However, as this does not affect our bottom line, we are not including it in our total.

Likewise, this fiscal year saw Samantha paid $4,000 in rebranding and design costs to Hand Design Co., for our new branding and website design. As Samantha is paying for this out of pocket, we are not including it in our total. Rather, we are reporting on the total for full transparency purposes.

Totals

For the fiscal year, Anime Herald, LLC saw $6,274.69 in total costs. Against earnings of $6,215.63, the company posted a deficit of $59.06 for the year. This is an adjusted monthly shortfall of $4.92 per month. 

For 2025 onward, we will be paying a subscription fee of $20 per month for Xero accounting. This will initially be paid out of Samantha’s personal funds, but costs will shift to Anime Herald once we are able to pay the fees out of our operating accounts.

To break even, we must raise $522 per month, after fees and taxes are deducted by Patreon and our payment partners. As such, we are keeping our current break-even goal at $550, which will afford us $28 per month as a buffer.

Challenges

At the moment, earning funds through merchandise remains a challenge, as it requires a buy-in of artwork, in addition to graphic design work to properly composite. Furthermore, Teepublic’s low fees remain a major deterrent. Because of this, we are currently looking for a new sales partner.

For 2025, we will be redesigning the Anime Herald shop to bring merchandise operations in-house. Much like the redesign, this will be paid for via Samantha’s personal funds, and will not impact our bottom line.

Other initiatives include the Anime Herald Print Edition this year, which is still being priced out; as this is an anniversary issue, we will be paying for this out of Samantha’s personal funds, which will not impact our bottom line. However, all revenues generated will be used for Anime Herald’s operations. Moreover, this project will be used to explore whether the concept is viable for future installments.

Otherwise, our largest challenge remains bringing in new subscribers, while providing satisfactory benefits for our existing members.

Conclusion

Though this year saw us fall short of our goals, we came within $60 of breaking even. To put it bluntly, this is our best year yet, since switching to a crowdfunded model.

Our revenues have increased greatly year-over-year, and we are on the verge of profitability. Once we reach this point, we'll be able to look toward publishing more articles for the site, and continuing to raise our rates for our writers and editorial team.

I want to offer my sincere thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement over the years. We wouldn’t be here without you, and we are all immensely grateful.

Our abbreviated quarterly report for Winter 2025 will be due to backers by April 30, 2025.