Fiscal Transparency
Whether we like it or not, the Cabaret quote “Money makes the world go around” is true
I founded Conscious Costume because the issues of money scarcity, time scarcity, and sustainability are inexorably intertwined. By providing low-cost costume rentals, costume artists can save time and money. However, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place: wanting to remain affordable to you, but still needing to pay our bills.
Today I want to give you a peek into our finances so you better understand why your membership is so valuable. Here are our current fixed expenses each month:
Rent: $1,400
Insurance: $98
Website: $23
Scheduling platform: $34
Online exchange hosting: $139
TOTAL: $1,694 per month
This could be completely covered by just 113 members at the $15/month tier. We are currently 8% of the way to that goal with 11 members totaling $147 per month. JOIN HERE
None of this is accounting for time
Emma makes $25/hour which is not quite a living wage for Chicago ($25.44 for no children, 1 adult according to the MIT living wage calculator).
There was a short window in 2021 where I took a monthly stipend of about $450, and I’ve paid myself for speaking engagements, but that’s been it. In 2024, I left a stable job to focus on developing the online marketplace, our rentals in Chicago, and our network. 2026 NEEDS to be the year that it starts to pay for itself.
Last year we made $4,012 in rentals but as you can see, that’s a relatively small drop in the bucket for our actual expenses. We’ve been dependent on grant funding for the last 5 years to help fund our space and our time and we can no longer do that.
We decided to go LLC when we branched out on our own. Why?
Few grants are a good fit for Conscious Costume; our grant funding was due to our collaboration with our parent org, AIBI. They had a 35 year legacy of scholarship programs, educational initiatives, and major events that appealed to foundations. Conscious Costume was a helpful contributor to their menu of services, but alone we are not as appealing to funders. Additionally, I have seen how funders priorities can override the needs of the community. The only people I want to be beholden to are other costume artists.
As an LLC, we have a reduced administrative burden compared to being a 501(c)3. I am also looking into grants for women owned small businesses to help fund us during the transition. However, these grants are only a short term solution and sustained community support is what is really needed to keep Conscious Costume in existence.
What’s next?
In the coming months, we will likely raise rental rates to help cover the gap in funding. Renting and reselling second hand items at thrift store prices was always an experiment; this experiment cannot continue into 2027 without a major influx of income, so if you want to see Conscious Costume rentals continue beyond the end of 2026, now is the time to invest in this resource.
A Conscious Costume membership is almost the same exact pricing as Amazon Prime and I promise I won’t use your money to build a giant ego rocket.
Online Exchange to expand our mission’s reach
We could have just made a browsable stock for our own collection but with just a LITTLE more effort and money, we opened an online exchange for everyone to post their collections online. Anyone can make a profile and rent, sell, or give away pieces so we can have a communal virtual costume stock where nothing goes to waste!
We have set our commission at 4% or $4, whichever is higher. As our costs come down (more users/transactions), we should be able to reduce these commission fees. We researched what other platforms charge and compared it to our expenses to ensure we’re passing on as little cost to the user as possible.
Here’s what similar platforms charge:
Etsy: 6.5% + payment processing
Poshmark: 20%
Depop: 3.3% + $0.40
Ebay: 10%
Here are our costs per transaction:
Sharetribe Lite: $139 with 50 included transactions, $2.78 per transaction
Sharetribe Extend: $389 with 500 included transactions, $0.78 per transaction
Stripe costs: 3.15%+ $0.30
Just 396 transactions per month will allow us to upgrade the platform and add features like: integrated shipping labels, weekly or monthly rentals, set a distance from your location, multiple items checked out in rental.
What’s different about our platform?
We are by and for costume artists. This means we understand how you are searching for supplies and have created filters to make it quick and easy to find what you need.
We are dedicated to providing open communication between our users. Other platforms don’t allow for communication or censor messages to prevent you from leaving the platform, we don’t plan to do that. We hope that you see the value in this platform and are willing to stay on the platform and pay our commissions because you see this as a valuable resource. So feel free to use work arounds to avoid the fees, but I can’t promise this platform will continue to exist if you do.
We aren’t mining you for data and selling it to the highest bidder to feed our shareholders extensive appetites. Your commission fees pay for the platform hosting and development, not a mega yacht.
Every bit of support helps
Thank you,
Kristen
