Curious about Wallet Developers' Profits

We all know how exchanges operate and rake in money through various fees for listings, trades, and all that jazz. But I'm kinda confused about how developers of non-custodial wallets are cashing in. I mean, these Bitcoin wallets are free to download and use, right? So I figured I'd toss my question out here and see what everyone thinks. Here's my simple question: How do developers of non-custodial Bitcoin wallets make money?

Some wallet developers may not make money. The one that I now of is Electrum. Other wallets integrate other services which they earn from. Example are third party services like exchanges and DeFi. Some noncustodial wallet developers generate money from inheritance multisig, while some wallets have premium features that requires annual subscription with money.

This topic have been discussed several times. Few relevant thread for your question, How do free wallet services make there money? How wallets make money? It is worse than you think. Can making a wallet make you rich? how wasabi, electrum, exodus ... make money ? FYI, 2FA feature on Electrum is run by some of Electrum developer. See Where does electrum financial source come from?. Although price of 2FA feature haven't changed in long time, despite Bitcoin price have increased a lot since then. So i doubt they make enough money these days.

Developers don't get appreciated enough, but how can a developer know if they don't have anything for the community?  As a developer that has nowhere to connect with people, the only way is to express what you can offer to people in the community that need help; when you do much and people recognise you well enough, the community will come for you. I'm not sure if you have been observant; if you visit any free crypto website, there are wallets on websites where you can make donations for developers with "buy me a coffee". They don't make it compulsory, but free donations go there, that's one way non-custodial developers get appreciated. Some of them also get employed by some companies that want their services, they make money from their services and sometimes find time to support what they have built for the community for free. This is unrelated, but have you paid attention to some developers on this forum?  Not all are non-custodial wallet developers, but they have built some tools for this forum. They run ads on their websites; that's one way they make money. - Trynaija, for example, help you track the forum activities with Telegram bot, but because it cost him to keep the server running, he runs ads for some companies here in the forum - Talkimj provides free hosting of images for the forum users but gets donations from people on the forum to keep the hosting running, these are some of the ways developers get support from the community.

Also, some of these wallets might add additional fee. While all these doesn't mean they're earning as much as others having their service paid, it was their very decision to support the community or make names for themselves and it may not be profitable for them but seeing it functioning well and helpful to the public is enough. This also influences like minded individuals for supporting the project for free.

I believe that electrum gets donations and grants from people that supports open source projects. It's a pity that only electrum isn't getting much because they don't have an additional service that pays more apart from 2FA.

Look at github there's ppl giving software for free. Some devs are getting donations to help cover some costs but many don't ask. If they're coding most of the project they can add a donation address if they want.

There is a donation button directly inside the Wasabi Wallet app. This prefills the silent payment (BIP352) address for the developers. I donated 100k sats to Zeus Wallet some time ago which got me listed in their contributors section. Zeus has some awesome merchandise you can buy as well. Phoenix Wallet charges a fee of 0.4% + 4 sats for each Lightning payment.

Don't they also run the default centralized coordinator thing and receive a commission from the mixing transactions? There is also the cooperation with blockchain analysis (anti-privacy) companies which I'm sure generates the Wasabi team a good additional revenue...

Donations for the good wallets.  People that write good bitcoin software are likely to also have large bitcoin holdings already.  You must have lost the last episodes.  The default coordinator (zkSNACKs) has been shutdown.  People now use Kruw's coordinator, which is free and has large volume.

Donations don't usually pour in for the open-source wallet projects. It's the Achilles' heel for the wallet developers, because if they don't have another source of income, then they can't pay for the bills! It's the kind of constraint that prevents many developers from working full-time on the program, which in turn delays lots of features from being implemented, which in turn leads to less users, and less users leads to less donations, and the cycle continues. So yeah. Unless you are lucky and received a grant, this is a day in the life of a wallet developer.

There is not "they". Wasabi is not developed by a company anymore and everybody can run a coordinator, in fact the coordination service is currently provided by independent volunteers (you can become one). Hahahaha I believed that nobody with an average IQ could ever believe it but it seems I was wrong. This was just another of the Samourai's masterlies targeting idiots.

I would think that developers on Bitcoin can help improve their skills in various areas and then present their ability to fix bugs and maintain software a part of their portfolio, this would help them getting a job, which they can use to buy Bitcoin, and so they can continue to be developers. It is on the self-interest of any Bitcoin holder to maintain the network and keep it safe from bugs and spam even tho some don't get this later part.

Yeah like takuma sato says above, it's a good addition on their overall portfolio. The good thing is that since there are too many wallets out there, even if you narrow down your selection to the most reputable ones, you can find a language you're comfortable with and contribute there. So, you don't necessarily need to know C++ (Bitcoin Core's language), in order to contribute. This sets the space for many contributions in an open-source environment.

Open source projects are often built in a way that would allow different programming languages to be use in contribution and others can cross check incase there are bugs or malicious intent on it. To be honest, this is a good way to strengthen ones skill or resume but the need to have a stable means of income would affect dedication to this project, except they have stable income and time for it.

Devs can get money by giving help to improve bitcoin & bitcoin wallets but OP's asking about how bitcoin wallet devs make profits from creating wallets. If they aren't sold they could be open source so they'll ask for donations.

Unless the open-source product is produced by a company that has a relatively steady cash flow and a fixed amount of employees, then getting a salary isn't guaranteed. In fact, it's the opposite! Are there open-source products produced by companies that pay their devs? Of course! And you can also contribute in these products, but if you 're not in their payroll, you will not get a salary.

This is what I was trying to say earlier, expect they are having free time to spare from their jobs and also being able to cover every bills they may be having, there would be limitation for them to be dedicated to an open source projects except they are getting paid or it's a part of their goal/dream to solve such problem they won't give their dedication.

Well let me just put it this way everything isn't literally about money sometimes when it comes to something transparent and decentralized like Bitcoin enthusiasm comes into a play. Basically non-custodial open source wallet developers do not earn a dime directly from their applications or softwares they produce and manage that is the reason why they rely on both community support and most of the time donations from other enthusiast to fund the projects.

If it's a commercial project devs will be paid because they're like employees. If it's a small team making the project they won't have fixed salary. There's going to be donations buttons & donations links so devs can receive money from ppl who appreciate their work.