From the FAQ:
We are focusing on product-market fit, and as such the business model is still a work in progress. However, the app will have a freemium model with extra features or capabilities for paid users (taking into consideration a potential formula like 5% paying $5/month is $3/user/year - ~90% gross profit margin).
The other income stream would be via business services, for entities needing direct and customized support to integrate with the SimpleX protocol or related resources. There will also be a revenue-sharing model from customers to network operators, to provide an incentive for them to continue running nodes, which will increase decentralization and reliability of the network.
Non-exploitative commercial models with fully open source code are not easy to achieve, and we’re committed to finding the best possible fit for our context. Everything will be fully communicated as this plan progresses.
I think they’ll try to heavily lean into business/solutions for organizations in the future. I can’t imagine paid features being useful to regular users.
I have to wonder how successful this model will be though. At the very least, I think they need to simplify their UI/UX and make things more striaghtforward for an average user. As of right now, I wouldn’t call it the most user friendly, even if things do work. The process of using + (in my opinion) convoluted settings menu + lacking UI compared to competitors has definitely made it hard for me to recommend to people I know anyways.