Hello, Speedrunners!

Today, we’re embarking on an experiment. By popular request, we’re introducing a feature we’re calling Supporter. Supporter offers a site-wide ad-free experience for a low monthly fee or annual fee alongside the following additional benefits:

• Ad-free access to all of Speedrun.com
• Supporters-only name customization (optional)
• Opt-in beta access to select features
• Monthly Boost: share ad-free status with three members of your favorite game community each month!
• Exclusive Supporter forum

Each of these great perks will enhance your experience on Speedrun.com, beginning with seeing the site without ads.

Supporters will be able to alter their name display for an additional level of customization while also showing off their Supporter status. This is entirely optional, of course! The customization includes animation of usernames using color gradients and an additional badge/icon slot incorporated into supporter usernames. Use both, one or the other, or none at all to customize your username to suit yourself!

Our new opt-in beta access will give Supporters a sneak peek at upcoming features in the weeks before they are released widely to the site. This gives Supporters an opportunity to play around with new features while we complete development on them.

Boosts can be gifted each month to a game community of your choice. Three other members of that game community who are not currently Supporters and who are not already boosted will receive 30 days of ad-free access to Speedrun.com. Monthly subscribers will receive one (1) Boost every 30 days; annual subscribers will receive two (2) Boosts every 30 days. For more information about Boosts, please check out our FAQ.

All Supporters will receive access to a Supporters-only forum. Chime in with feedback on all things Supporter, including the beta features and which features you’d like to see in the future while hanging out with other Supporters.

Supporter is launching priced at $3.99 US for a monthly plan and with a launch special of $29.99 US for an annual plan.

Supporter is an entirely optional subscription service. The community has asked for an ad-free option ever since ads were introduced (we get it, they’re a necessary business evil), and we’re hoping Supporter will more than satisfy that desire with a few bonuses. Additionally, the service offers no competitive advantages as we absolutely do not want to gate or limit any substantial site features with a fee.

Donors

As a donor in the past, you will receive a credit in your Settings. This is a pre-paid code that only you can use. You can choose when to apply it, giving yourself Supporter when you’re ready to use it.

The length of time for your complimentary Supporter subscription will scale depending on the size of your donation. More than 6000 runners are receiving complimentary Supporter for at least one month. Twenty-one generous donators will receive lifetime subscriptions!

Thank you everyone for your past contributions. These were integral to the early development of Speedrun.com.

Current Beta Features

At launch, we’re providing beta access to two in-development features: custom game ordering for the user profile and featured run. These features will cycle out of beta and be replaced by new in-development features as they become available.

Custom Game Ordering

Currently, user profiles show your speedruns by game or individual level, in chronological order. You can scroll down your profile to view this speedrunning history from your most recent runs to your first. Custom ordering will give you the ability to choose the order in which games you have run appear on your user profile.

Push your favorite runs to the top, the ones you’re proudest of, or the most hilarious runs you’ve ever done!

You have the power to choose which runs everyone will see first, allowing you to showcase your speedrunning the way that you want to. Organize games by genre, alphabetically, from longest to shortest, or however you choose!

As a supporter, you can activate your access to this feature-in-development from your User Settings menu.

Featured Run

Because we want to give you every opportunity to showcase your awesome speedrunning skills, we’re working on a Featured Run feature for the user profile. This feature allows you to select one of your completed runs to feature at the top of your runs page as an embedded video.

Featured runs can be set once or changed as frequently as suits you.

Supporter Feedback

We want to know what you think! Please add your comments to the forum post linked here.

We’re also asking Supporters to provide their feedback through the Supporters-only forum or the Support Hub so that we can improve on the service. We’re committed to empowering speedrunners and game communities with innovative, helpful, and fun tools and resources.

If you do subscribe to Supporter, thank you for generously supporting Speedrun.com. We are grateful for your support, and we look forward to continuing to develop new tools and resources to support your diverse speedrunning communities.

Thank you,
The Speedrun.com Team