An honest arcade takes more than one pair of hands.
The promise is simple and it never bends: no ads, no tracking, no subscriptions, no in-app currency, no account, nothing sold or shared — and the source code published so you can check every word of it.
Keeping that promise means giving up every ordinary way an app makes money. Honest Arcade is a community project instead: it runs on people who review the code, test the rough edges, say what’s missing, and chip in for the bills. The suite stays consistently honest because the team keeps showing up — and the team is anyone reading this.
- Donate
Cover the bills, not a business.
Operating costs are kept intentionally low, but they are not zero. Staying published on the app stores costs money, and so do the development tools and AI subscriptions that let a small team ship and improve apps at this pace.
- One-off or monthly, whatever suits — no tiers, no perks, no badge.
- Nothing is paywalled for donors. Every app stays free for everyone.
- Handled by Buy Me a Coffee — industry-standard, secure payment processing, and you choose the amount.
- Feedback
Voting counts as contributing.
You do not need to write code or send money to shape what gets built. Everything on the request lists came from someone who simply said what they wanted.
- Request features on any app page, in your own words.
- Name an app that should exist without ads or a subscription.
- Or just vote — the top of the list is where we look first.
- Bug reports on GitHub are immensely helpful — two lines and the phone you were on is plenty.
- Beta testing
Ensure quality before release.
Testers get new apps and new features early, on real phones, in real use — the surest way to make an app good before anyone else has to rely on it.
- Early access to apps before their first public release.
- Help polish the rough edges: controls, clarity, anything that feels off.
- Old phones and unusual screen sizes are especially valuable.
- No commitment. Play when you feel like it, say what you noticed.
- Development
Read the code. Then change it.
Every app is open source precisely so someone other than us can look. Fixes, refactors and whole new apps are all welcome, as long as they keep the promise.
- Review the source and tell us what you find — that is the promise being checked.
- Raise an issue on GitHub, or send a pull request for a fix.
- Propose a whole app for the suite if it meets every Honest Arcade promise.
- Translations and accessibility work are the most valuable and least glamorous.
Deliberately small, and listed in full.
No offices, no salaries, no ad spend. If donations ever exceed the costs below, the surplus goes into building the next app on the request list — and this page says so.
| Google Play developer account | One-off, per store |
|---|---|
| Apple developer programme | Annual, per store |
| Development tooling | Monthly |
| AI subscriptions used to build and improve apps | Monthly |
| This website and its domain | Annual |
| Advertising, offices, salaries | None |