Why there are no ads in the KeyMatrix resident app
The other model is defensible and we will make the case for it. Here is why we chose differently, and what that choice costs us.
There is no third-party advertising in the KeyMatrix resident app, and there will not be. This is a product decision worth explaining rather than asserting, because the alternative is defensible and several good products have made it.
The argument for the other side
An app that connects residents to services they genuinely use — home maintenance, movers, rentals — is providing something. Residents in some communities like it. And a second revenue line can subsidise the subscription, which for a cost-sensitive society is a real benefit.
We are not claiming that is illegitimate. It is a coherent model and for some communities it is the right one.
Why we chose differently
A society app is a channel the managing committee is responsible for. Notices go through it, payment requests go through it, and residents reasonably treat what arrives there as coming from the society. Putting commercial content into that channel means the committee is placing advertising in front of members without having decided to.
Some committees are comfortable with that. Many, when the question is put plainly, are not — and they are rarely asked, because the decision arrives bundled with the software.
“If the society is paying, the society is the customer. Two revenue lines means two customers, and they do not always want the same thing.”
What it costs us
It costs us a pricing argument. We cannot be the cheapest option for a society whose only requirement is a gate app, and we say so on our comparison pages rather than pretending otherwise.
It also means the subscription has to carry the whole product, which is a discipline rather than a hardship — it keeps the roadmap answerable to the people paying for it.
If your committee has never explicitly decided whether it wants advertising in front of its members, that is worth a resolution either way. It is your channel.