Why do we charge for "Most Celiac Friendly"?

Why must we make money at all?

We must operate every single day in order to provide this service to everyone, and unfortunately that costs time and money. It might surprise you to learn what it actually takes to keep FMGF up and running, market to celiacs (the more celiacs using and posting reviews, the better for all of us!), and improve the platform.

We are not subsidized by the government or any other organization, so we must make enough money to sustainably provide FMGF to the community.

Why isn't FMGF supported by advertisements?

Originally, the app was completely free to everyone, although it didn't have any of the current Premium features. For a long time, we tried to make enough money to be sustainable by selling advertisements. Not only were we unable to cover our costs with just advertisements, but selling ads took focus away from improving the app.

I know a lot of us are used to most apps being free, however, there are only a few select apps that have been able to sustainably make enough money to stay in business while remaining free to use. Nearly all of the successful free apps are mass market apps, and most of them have compromised personal data in order to sell more ads. We will never be a mass market app and I refuse to compromise your personal data.

That being said, FMGF is still very useful without the Premium features. Rest assured, we will always have a free version of the app!

Most Celiac Friendly

I’ve had conversations with some folks who are upset that we are charging for certain features in our app, mainly the "Most Celiac Friendly" filter. They feel we are exploiting celiacs for monetary gain.

I'd like to give you some insight into who uses FMGF in order to respond to this critique. Over 75% of our monthly users identify as celiac. This app needs to be "celiac first," so I almost exclusively spend my time trying to make the app better for celiacs.

Since the app is mainly for celiacs, we need to rely on support from the celiac community in the form of Premium subscriptions. Without this support, FMGF would not be sustainable and would eventually have to be shut down.

The "Most Celiac Friendly" filter is a feature I created to make it a little bit quicker to accomplish some of the actions I typically found myself frequently doing when using the app. I see it as a "nice to have" that saves you some time. There are no restaurants that are only shown when using the filter as opposed to the other free filters/sorts.

Basically it finds and sorts businesses based on the following:

1. Dedicated gluten-free places
2. Places rated as "safe" by the community
3. Places tagged with dedicated kitchen space/equipment

Although I’ve put a lot of effort into it already, I know that the "Most Celiac Friendly" filter is still far from perfect. I currently have some ideas about how to continue to make it better. I plan to write about some of the ideas in the future!

What if I can't subscribe to Premium?

No worries! I know not everyone will be able to go Premium. $20 per year is not affordable for some folks. If you want to support us in other ways, please write reviews and add new businesses (go to the "More" tab of the app, then tap "Add a Local Review").

If you're looking for the "Most Celiac Friendly" places, I recommend doing a combination of a "Dedicated Facilities" search first and then a "Best Rated" search. You will still find all the same restaurants and businesses doing this as you would with the "Most Celiac Friendly" filter.

Email me!

Please email me at [email protected] with any questions, suggestions, or just to say hi!