The free chess platform Lichess reported 2025 expenses of $789,389. The non-profit platform, funded by donations and without advertising, detailed its major cost areas.

Key operational costs include:

• Servers’ cost: $64,824

• Sysadmin earnings: $18,060

• Other admin expenses (domains, AWS fees, IPs): ~$1,300

• Title arenas: $26,000

• Machine learning: $4,200

• The main expense (~67%) is Content & Community

• A content coordinator earns $19,800 per year, a lead developer earns $72,648, and a mobile developer earns $49,476.

Lichess hosts over 5 million games daily. The platform is a prominent donation-supported service in online chess.