The honest page.
Most "about" pages are marketing fluff. This one tries to answer the actual questions a skeptical person would ask.
Tooly McToolface is a workshop of free web tools. There's one person behind it. This page exists to answer the three questions that keep coming up when people first find the site.
Why is it free?
Because hosting a static site costs about $5/month. Because I built the tools for myself first. Because the internet used to have a lot more small, useful things, and fewer enterprise SaaS pitches, and I miss that internet.
More practically: the Tooly tools run entirely in your browser. There's no server processing your files. There's no database storing your history. Every byte of computation happens on your device, paid for by your electricity. My monthly cost to keep this site alive is the price of one coffee.
Here's the actual budget:
So how will it stay free?
Short answer: small, tasteful ads, eventually.
Longer answer: when traffic justifies it (probably around 100,000 visits/month), I plan to run ads from EthicalAds or Carbon Ads — two networks that serve text-based, developer-focused ads without tracking. No retargeting pixels. No profiles built on you. No "you looked at compression tools once and now every site shows you AI marketing" experience.
What I won't do, in order of firmness: display Google AdSense (privacy-hostile), show popup interstitials, paywall any existing tool, require signups to use anything, sell or share any visitor data, or add "freemium" tiers that cripple the free version.
If the honest ad route doesn't cover costs, the honest alternative is: put a "Support" link in the footer and accept one-time donations. No subscription products. No "Tooly Pro."
Who built this?
One person, in their spare time, over a few weekends.
I'm not a design agency. I'm not a VC-backed startup. I'm not trying to flip this for a quick exit. I just got tired of free tools that aren't actually free, and I had the time to build the thing I wished existed.
If you want to say hi, disagree with me, suggest a tool, or report a bug, email hello@toolymctoolface.com. Every email gets read.
The principles, formalized
These are the rules I'm committing to. If any of them ever get violated, file a GitHub issue (or email me) and I'll take it seriously.
- Nothing leaves your browser. Files, JSON, HEIC photos — processed locally using JavaScript + Canvas + WebAssembly. No uploads to any server, ever.
- No required accounts. No "sign up to unlock." No email capture before the tool works.
- No tracking. No Google Analytics. No Facebook pixel. No user profiling. Netlify's built-in server logs count IPs and paths for operational purposes; they don't build user profiles.
- No dark patterns. No manipulative design. If a button looks like a button, it does what you'd expect.
- No crippled free tier. The tools on this site are the whole tools. There's no "Pro" version hiding the good features.
What if you change your mind later?
Fair question. Anyone can say "no tracking" today and quietly add it next year when the pressure to monetize hits.
The best accountability I can offer is this: Tooly is fully static. It's just HTML and JavaScript files on a CDN. If I ever add tracking, enterprising users will see it in the network tab within minutes, and it would break the one thing this site is actually about. That would destroy the project faster than anything else.
The only sustainable path is: stay honest, stay small, and let the site be worth what it promises to be.
Thanks for reading the boring page. If you want to see what Tooly can actually do, the tools are over here. If you're curious about the writing, the blog is here. If you want to hear about new tools as they ship, there will eventually be an RSS feed — subscribe link coming soon.