Why we're writing this

Coffee Nerdery has been free, unbiased, and commercially independent for nearly two years. We've maintained and improved the platform, managed listings for roasters who didn't have the time, and built Shopify sites for some of them (as a paid service) and never once let any of that influence who appears in the Discovery quiz or how they rank.

When we launched the Discovery quiz, the most common question wasn't "how does it work", it was "what's the catch." Understandable since it is often the case that “if you're not paying for the product, you are the product”. Our answer was straightforward: we don't have a monetisation plan yet, but when we do, we'll tell you exactly what it is.

That time is now. We're launching Coffee Nerdery Collective, a marketplace and our first monetised product. That's the moment platforms start to drift. We've watched it happen in craft beer, a scene that speciality coffee is often compared with, when in at least one prominent case (BrewDog), turned out to be performative at best and toxic at worst. We have no interest in being coffee's version of that story.

So before we launch, we're writing down exactly what we stand for, who this is for, how we make money, and what we commit to never doing. Watch what we do with it.

Who this is for

This manifesto is for two groups: the Roasters who trust us with their listings, and the Coffee Nerds who trust us with their recommendations. Their frustrations are different, but they share the same root cause.

For Roasters

Over the past two years, we've spoken with hundreds of roasters. The same frustrations come up consistently: "partners" who low-ball on coffee prices, demand that they reshape their processes to fit theirs, and then mark up the coffee anyway. Platforms that treat roasters as suppliers to be squeezed rather than partners to be respected.

We don't want to become part of that pattern. When a roaster looks at Collective and thinks "this sounds too good to be true," we want this to be the place they come to understand what we stand for and to hold us to it.

For Nerds

We've also spoken with a lot of coffee drinkers who loved the idea of subscription boxes and were let down by the reality: marked-up prices, coffee that's travelled an unnecessary journey before reaching them, and sold by companies whose ethics are mostly packaging. 

We were approached by one of these companies (a B Corp certified, since you ask) who asked us to build a feature recommending them to undecided visitors on Coffee Nerdery. When we explained that we don't prioritise partnerships (i.e. build features that primarily benefit a single third party), they reframed it as a casual request rather than a partnership ask, as if the distinction made it reasonable. We declined.

What struck us more was the disconnect. This is a company that publicly champions fair treatment of partners and customers, claims to donate 1% of revenue without, as far as we can find, ever publishing the actual amounts, and simultaneously runs dark-pattern FOMO tactics on their own website to manufacture urgency and is designed to manipulate the customers they claim to value. We're not naming them. But we are using them as a reference point for exactly what we're committed to not becoming.

The gap between what some of these companies say and what they do is significant.

Collective was built on candid feedback about what's broken in coffee subscriptions. Not primarily because there's a business in it (though we believe there is) ,but because we think we can do it better.

If we're right, the community gains a genuinely fair option. If we're wrong but visible enough, maybe the existing players feel pressure to improve. Either way, the coffee community wins.

How we make money

Collective charges roasters a flat 20% commission on every sale, and that includes transaction fees (which run at roughly 5%), so the net cost to the roaster is closer to 15%. Every roaster pays the same rate. There are no preferred listing fees, no paid visibility boosts, and no way to buy a better ranking. We've watched what that model does to platforms and we want no part of it.

We landed on 20% knowing we could charge more (roasters told us so). But we believe it's enough to build a healthy, sustainable business, and that matters more to us than maximising margin. It mirrors the discount most roasters already offer their own subscribers, and unlike ad spend, it's a cost tied to an actual sale.

Other revenue stream worth disclosing: we build and maintain Shopify sites for some roasters as a paid service. This has never influenced their position in the Discovery quiz, and it will not influence their ranking in Collective. Paying us for development work buys development work, nothing else.

Finally, Coffee Nerdery has been funded for the past two years through EthicalHq, our marketing consultancy. That independence is deliberate and it means we haven't needed outside investment, which we feel can add pressure to maximise profit.

The pressures we'll face and our commitments against each

Building a platform people trust means being honest about where that trust can erode. These are the pressures we expect to face and what we commit to against each.

Roaster tier creep 

As platforms grow, I imagine the temptation to offer paid visibility (premium tiers, boosted listings, featured placement) is real and incremental. We're committing to a single Collective tier for every roaster, regardless of volume or commercial relationship. 

We've said from the beginning that any new products or services we add will be optional and will never remove or degrade what roasters already have. If we ever broke this, we'd be betraying the roasters who trusted us before we had anything to offer them.

Algorithmic opacity 

We're not fans of algorithmic curation. The Discovery quiz doesn't rank results by commercial logic: if a coffee matches your query, it appears. Results are displayed in a randomised order; refresh the page and the same results appear in a different sequence. No roaster can buy their way up that list, because there is no list to buy.

Curation dilution 

There are between 600 and 800 speciality roasters in the UK. We would never list a roaster we wouldn't buy from ourselves. That's the standard, and it means we'll never need to compromise it for the sake of catalogue growth.

Sponsored content disguised as editorial 

We've visited roasters and manufacturers at our own expense, produced the content, published it, and never charged anyone for it. That's the precedent we've set and intend to keep. If something is ever paid for, we'll explicitly say so.

Data monetisation 

We will never sell user data. We may use anonymised, aggregated data to inform content, but we will never sell individual user data.

Acquisition 

Selling the company is a legitimate exit, and we're not ruling it out. What we are ruling out is selling to any buyer who hasn't already demonstrated the same values, or who wouldn't commit to continuing the ethical and sustainable path we've built. 

What we'll never do to stay funded 

Coffee Nerdery has been deliberately funded by EthicalHq, our ethical marketing consultancy, since the beginning. The funding model shapes the product, and we've seen what happens when platforms take money that demands growth at any cost.

The only external funding we would ever consider is grants with no strings attached, or, in the highly unlikely event, investment with absolutely no growth conditions. That bar is high enough that we expect to never clear it. 

We are building a healthy lifestyle business for us and our partners, not a venture-backed rocket ship, and we're comfortable with that.

Beyond funding, there are specific commercial arrangements we're ruling out entirely:

Extractive partnerships.
We will not do deals in which third parties pay for access to our audience or for recommendations.

Licensing.
We may license some of our software. We will never license our data.

Buy-now-pay-later and similar financial products.
Never.

Dark patterns.
We will never knowingly use manipulative design (e.g. manufactured urgency, hidden opt-outs, misleading framing, etc) to influence your behaviour. We've seen what that looks like from companies that claim to share our values. It's one of the reasons we're writing this.

Undisclosed conflicts of interest.If we have a commercial relationship with anyone we're also writing about, recommending, or featuring, we will say so.

How to hold us accountable

Writing this document is the easy part. Keeping it honest is harder, and we need your help.

Watch for these signals that would indicate we're breaking our commitments. If you see them, call us on it:

• A roaster appearing as "featured," "recommended," or "top pick" without a clear disclosure that it's a paid placement
• Discovery Quiz or Collective results that consistently favour roasters with a commercial relationship with us
• A new product or tier that removes or degrades something roasters or nerds already had for free
• Content that reads as editorial but was funded or incentivised by a third party without disclosure
• Any dark pattern (manufactured urgency, hidden opt-outs, misleading framing) anywhere on the platform
• A funding announcement that contradicts what's written in this document

Contact us directly if something feels off. This reaches us (Radu and Raluca) personally. We will acknowledge every message about this document within 48 hours and respond substantively within 7 days. If the concern is about a commitment made here, we'll publish our response alongside this document.

Version history
Every change to this document is logged below with a date and a plain-English explanation of what changed and why. Nothing will be quietly softened.

Annual review
Once a year we'll revisit this document publicly noting what pressures we actually faced if any, how we handled them, and whether anything needs updating. The first review will be 1st of March 2027.

Good intentions, loudly stated, aren't enough. This document exists because we know that. Come back to it. Reference it. Use it against us if you need to.

PS: Parts of this document were drafted with the help of an AI writing tool. The views, commitments, and opinions are entirely our own.