Why these are free

The plain answer

A blank record sheet is stationery, not a product. Charging for a grid with the right column headings feels like charging for a sheet of lined paper, and the moment you do it you start making the free version worse on purpose — watermarks, page limits, a “preview” that is deliberately crippled. We would rather not run a site that works that way.

What actually pays for it

Three things, in the order we expect them to matter.

1. Advertising. This site carries Google AdSense. The script is loaded on every page; ad units are not serving yet, because the site is still being reviewed. The placements are deliberately kept away from the download buttons — an advertisement next to the thing you came for is how people end up clicking the wrong one.
2. Optional bundles. Eventually you will be able to buy the sheets as ordered, divider-ready sets. Nothing in a bundle will be withheld from the free library; you would be paying for the assembly, not for access. The planned bundles are here, and none of them is on sale yet.
3. Affiliate links, where they are genuinely relevant. If a sheet is about changing filters, a link to filters is useful rather than intrusive. Where we use one we will say so on the page. We will not write an article in order to hang a link on it.

What we will not do

• No email wall. You will never have to give an address to download a sheet. There is a newsletter, it is optional, and it is not connected to the downloads in any way.
• No account. There is nothing to sign up for.
• No watermark on the free files, and no “upgrade to remove”.
• No ads beside the download buttons. Putting an advertisement next to the thing you came for is how people end up clicking the wrong one. We do not do it.
• No invented numbers. We will not tell you how many people downloaded something, or show you reviews, until those things exist and are real.

On tracking

We run no analytics of our own — no Google Analytics, no pixel, no heatmap, and we do not track downloads. What we do run is Google AdSense, which is a third party and does set cookies and process data about visitors for advertising. Visitors in the UK and EEA are asked for consent before personalised advertising is served, and refusing changes nothing about what you can download here.

The privacy page sets all of that out in full, including how to change Google's ad settings or opt out.

The honest caveat

This site is new. It has no traffic, no revenue and no history, and we are not going to pretend otherwise while it is being built. The funding model above is the plan, not an achievement. If it turns out that advertising alone cannot support the work, the answer will be more optional paid sets — not a paywall over the free ones.