Motion's independence: One year in review

It's been one year since Framer Motion became Motion, as both an independent library, and independent company.

To set me up for success, my initial agreement with Framer provided sponsorship for 12 months in return for technical support. This was a predictable and therefore nerve-calming income, essential when taking a leap like this (especially as a new father!)

We've since agreed to continue collaboration for another year. But, without the benefit of hindsight, the game was set: I had 12 months to flip a successful OSS library into a successful business that could survive even if that income disappeared.

In search of sustainability

The first time I tried to run an animation library independently, Popmotion peaked at around £300 a month. Framer came along with the offer of full-time employment, doing exactly the same work, only with a sustainable income and without the dressing gown. It was a no-brainer.

In this sense, Motion has had the benefit of a seven-year incubation period. So the learnings in this article need to be taken in that context.

From the start, I felt true sustainability would require multiple income streams, touching enterprise, agencies and indies.

I did a realistic stock-check of assets. Visitor counts, social following, newsletter subscriptions, unreleased features. Anything I could leverage on day one.

My newsletter list was very small because I'd never pushed signups.

(PS sign up to our newsletter!)

Sponsorships

I did, however, have a solid social following and high website traffic. I'd also kept a list of companies using Motion. So I opened corporate sponsorships at three price tiers (€249, €999, €2499) to span every size of company/investment into Motion.

The initial announcement brought in some amazing sponsors, but I quickly learned that getting sponsors is not passive. You really have to go out and find them. This usually starts with finding a "champion" of sorts within a company.

As a British person, sending people reminders and chasing them up feels desperately uncomfortable. And although the company gets something in return, you are going to have to work to stay on people's radar.

Different companies operate with different levels of bureaucracy. I've sent a DM and found a Paddle notification in my inbox the next day. Other times, I'm navigating through several people, multiple intros, Zoom calls - the lot.

Again, don't expect sponsors to come to you. It's an active process, even when a company loves your work.

Alongside corporate sponsors, I also opened two sponsorship tiers for individuals at €10 and €25.

Honestly? This completely flopped. After a week I think I had ~8 sponsors for a total of around €100 per month. This would be quite good for a side project but I was finding a path towards full-time employment.

Next to the size of Motion userbase, I was a bit surprised, but I'd also half-expected it. A couple years prior, I launched a side project called Motion One. This was an experiment to push the boundaries of the Web Animations API, the results of which all live in Motion now.

The income from this peaked at around €1k per month. The library was only available to sponsors. At some point, I opened it up to everyone, and sponsorship evaporated.

With Motion, I wasn't offering independent sponsors anything other than to have their support. It was a bit of a punt, and the takeaway is that people will only pay if they're getting something in return. It makes so much sense that looking back it sometimes surprises me how much of OSS relies on sponsorship, and it surprises me I had to realise this the hard way.

Motion+

Sponsorships went so well that within the first month Motion could have survived even if the Framer sponsorship disappeared.

But, it felt fragile. Each of these sponsors was in for a few hundred or even a couple thousand of quid. Any one of them pulling out would make a big dent in income.

It's turned out that yes, sometimes a sponsor has left, so I've learned to spend a little bit of time still on the lookout for new sponsors.

I knew that a diversity of income would be the thing that made the overall financial picture robust, so despite sponsorships being a failure I still wanted something to offer to individuals.

Promises, promises

A massive inspiration was Tailwind Plus (then Tailwind UI): a one-time fee, lifetime membership. I'd been thinking for years that there was a space for something similar with Motion, except for premium UI components.

Having spoken with Adam from Tailwind months prior, he had also suggested there might be value in a collection of official Motion examples, written by myself.

Of course, I didn't have any of these things, because I'd been independent for a week. But - I could promise these things right now.

Within a couple days Motion+ was born, and with it, a landing page and a €299 buy button. While not explosive, sales were okay, in stark contrast to the independent subscriptions.

Why though, were people buying a product that was 30x more expensive than a month of a subscription?

I suspect there's something in a "dead" subscription - paying monthly for something that doesn't yet exist is kinda weird and unsatisfying. Whereas paying once for a future bundle of valuable things that you trust you'll receive, it feels more natural, a little akin to Kickstarter.

People must have said "I know I'll buy this eventually - so I might as well buy now".

"Retention"

The fear with a one-time price is that you'll eventually run out of customers. That feeling hasn't gone away, despite stable sales, but I do have a couple thoughts.

First, I think people are sick of subscriptions. Me too. Although there are financial realities to contend with, part of the fun of being independent, is that you get to choose the kind of product you want to offer. It's refreshing to just buy a thing and then have the thing, and I'm glad that's what I offer.

Second, by having a one-time payment you're essentially loading up on months upfront. How much would I reasonably charge per month? A tenner? That's 30 months of retention. If that's longer than the average subscription would have been then that's a win.

What's more, writing this section is the last time I ever have to think about the word "retention". That's also a win.

Growth

Although there's been some slight seasonal turbulence, the cumulative sales graph for Motion+ essentially looks like this:

You can see that sales start slow, as expected given the value proposition. Within the first month, I'd launched Motion+ Cursor, but although popular, and definitely a driver of sales (in terms of referrer), when looking at this it didn't change the rate of sales.

The real sales increase came at the start of 2025 with the release of Motion Examples. According to surveys, this collection of best practises and pre-built animations remains the primary driver of sales.

What's been interesting is just how steady sales have remained, all the way through the rest of the year. It's a reliable source of income that sits comfortably alongside sponsorships.

Value perception

My initial thesis was simple: Keep the price steady, keep rolling in value. As value increased, the product would become "worth it" to more and more users.

I'm not sure how much reality has borne this out. For instance, within that graph I could mark any number of new feature releases, like example drops, new Early Access features like AnimateActivity, the Ticker component, Motion Studio, the list goes on.

You should be able to see these just from looking at the graph, from the presence of periodic bumps.

But there aren't any.

Likewise, I've been heads down on building the biggest Motion+ component yet, Carousel, on and off for a few months, in which time there's been very little new Motion+ content. Sales just keep ticking over.

This is an amazing problem to have, that I'm extremely grateful for. However it's hard for me to pull lessons from this.

Value paradox

I started a user survey way too late. Spin one up with Google Forms before you sell anything to anyone! The data is invaluable.

It's because of this and other funnel data that I know that all the features I listed above are driving sales. So that's good. But I've also had flickers of a signal that my core thinking about the value-price ratio could contain a perception bomb, that came in the form of a refund request.

A user was having second thoughts about paying a lump sum for a bunch of stuff they weren't going to use. Obviously, to keep things simple for myself, and to create a no-brainer situation for potential customers, I love that Motion+ just ages like a fine wine. It's my one product and it just keeps getting better.

But it's an interesting and valid psychological situation. The more stuff Motion+ represents, the more potentially devalued the individual things could become.

Carousel alone might justify a €150 price tag. Should I be selling components in isolation, potentially lowering overall purchase amount, just to reinforce the value of the individual products? Would that confuse the offer? Make things more complicated for myself?

It's at these inflection points I feel a little out of my depth. But then, things are going well and I feel like I've spent enough time with my business hat on to worry about the micro-optimisations when there are so many other things to do.

Work-life balance

This year I've had a very balanced work-life balance. I did have to shift from 4 to 5 days a week at the start of the year, but I think I still average 35 hours a week.

Occasionally, when I become obsessed with an idea, this will spike and I find myself working an hour in the early mornings before everyone wakes up, and sometimes a couple hours in the evening. I don't mind this - it's how I got Motion Examples out within a week or two. But as a default, I think it's unhealthy.

I first learned about "hyperfocus" at the start of the year. I immediately recognised it as something I am capable of. It is a superpower - but also probably why I find it easier to work at companies where I'm given more freedom.

With so many different spinning plates - the core library, Motion+, sponsorships, Motion Studio, content, community - it's true that I'm "on" one area more than the others at any given time. But I've learned over the year that most things don't have as much time pressure as I feel they do.

So it's ok to follow my hyperfocus where ever it takes me, trusting it'll take me to all my responsibilities over longer timeframes. I think this is fundamental to getting so much done without burning out.

Lessons

So to recap, what did I learn this year?

1. Kill quickly - if something's not working, ditch it

2. Paywall - people buy things not vibes

3. One-time payments - can perform better and do you really want to be SAAS?

4. Survey from day one

5. Ride your hyperfocus - don't go against your mental grain

Year two

So what's next? My plans are still forming, and I'm planning an "off-site" for one to explore and sketch them all out.

I'm certain unplanned opportunities will crash into my frame of attention and can reshape priorities, but I like to have a broad sketch of things I want to accomplish.

I would love to go harder on content, and invite paid contributors across the community to write for the blog, or to contribute Motion+ examples and tutorials.

Now the "game" is essentially won and Motion is sustainable, I'd also love to concentrate on the core library - I know people are keen for layout animations in vanilla and I promise I am too, it's all just a matter of time.

I would love to thank everyone who has bought Motion+, our wonderful sponsors, and the entire community for helping make this first year a success. And special thanks to my wife who has been my inspiration from the very start (literally got me into this mess with Popmotion), and my son who has provided motivation to always do the best I can do.