Who runs this, and how it pays for itself

It is a fair question and it is usually asked by somebody who has been caught out before. A site that will not say who runs it, or that is vague about where the money comes from, has told you something about itself already.

So here is the whole of it, in plain terms.

Who

freehug.me is owned and operated by Saptarang Ventures (OPC) Private Limited, a company registered in India, with its registered office in Nashik, Maharashtra. Its corporate identification number is U43900MH2023OPC413456, which is enough to look the company up on the public register and confirm that it is real.

That name and address are on the contact page and in the terms, and they are the same name and address in both. A company that spells itself differently in different corners of its own site is worth a second look.

What is free, and stays free

Hugs. Asking for one, giving one, receiving one, replying to one. Albums of photographs. A profile, if you want one. None of that has ever been behind a payment and none of it will be.

That is not a trial version. Somebody at two in the morning must not meet a price, and a site where the kind thing costs money is a different site with the same name.

What money buys

Only the meeting side, and even there it buys privacy rather than reach.

Seeing who is around, and whether what you wrote was read, is free and mutual for everybody. You see it because you show it. What a membership adds is the ability to hide yours while still seeing other people's.

That is the right way round, and it is the only way round we could live with. If the seeing were the thing on sale, a paying member could watch a free one who could not watch back, and that is surveillance with a price tag on it.

Nothing on any level changes who is shown to whom on merit. Nobody is re-ranked by what they paid.

Nothing renews on its own

Memberships here are periods, not subscriptions. You buy a stretch of time, it ends when it ends, and nothing is charged again unless you decide to buy another one. A longer period is simply a bigger discount for paying up front, with no lock-in, because there is nothing to be locked into.

Prices in rupees are set deliberately below the dollar prices rather than converted from them. It would have been easy not to notice that, and the result would have been people in the home market paying the most.

No advertising, and nothing sold

There are no advertising trackers on any page of this site. Your email address is used to send you a sign-in link and, if you leave them on, notifications. It is never shown to another member and it is never sold or shared for marketing.

There is no version of this business that ends with your loneliness being a targeting category.

What money does not buy, including ours

We do not verify anybody. A paid membership is not a background check and it never stands in for one, so it should change nothing about how carefully you meet somebody. That part is its own post.

And the honest limit that belongs on every page here: this is not a helpline, and nobody involved in running it is a professional anything. If today is a serious one, there are people who can help properly, and they are free.