quietmoneyHelpstay
A website connecting hosts and volunteers (helpers): hosts (farms, hostels, schools, animal sanctuaries, and so on) post roles they need help with, and volunteers work a few hours a day in exchange for food and lodging, across more than 100 countries.
A remote team oOne-line growth story, compiled by us from public sources; speculation is marked separately below.
Revenue over time
Real payments synced by TrustMRR, in USD, by calendar month, renewals included.
- MRR
- $2,566
- Revenue, last 30 days
- $2,093
- All-time revenue
- $439,958
- Active subscriptions
- 620
- Payments via
- Stripe
- Source
- TrustMRR, synced from the founder's payment account
1. Productwhat it sells, to whom, and how it charges
- Product
- A website connecting hosts and volunteers (helpers): hosts (farms, hostels, schools, animal sanctuaries, and so on) post roles they need help with, and volunteers work a few hours a day in exchange for food and lodging, across more than 100 countries.
- Users
- Backpackers, gap-year travelers, and digital nomads who want to travel long-term on a low budget, plus farms, hostels, and family hosts who need short-term help
- Positioning
- A long-established platform similar to Workaway, with every host vetted and an annual membership fee charged to volunteers, pitching 2,500+ free food-and-lodging opportunities and destinations in Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America
- Pricing
- Volunteers pay an annual membership fee: single €42.99 or €53 (the website shows two figures), couples or friends €51.99 or €62; host-side fees not found Billing: subscription Free tier: no Source: Homepage
- Prices on site
- €53.00 / €42.99 per year Single (two figures shown); €62.00 / €51.99 per year Couples/Friends
- Sharing mechanics
- public profiles / leaderboards "Our Hosts" shows host photos linked to profile pages (e.g. /profile/61730); "Single & Group accounts available" is account types, not invites
“"Our Hosts" shows host photos linked to profile pages (e.g. /profile/61730); "Single & Group accounts available" is account types, not invites”Quote from the site
2. Channelswhere new users come from and what the traffic looks like
New-user source: SEO (Non-brand search). Similarweb 2026-09: the top channel is organic search at 46.2%, followed by direct at about 40.4% and email at about 8.1%; organic makes up 91.5% of search traffic, with about 82.5K visits last month. Brand keywords are only about 20% of keywords; the rest are workaway (a competitor keyword) and a long string of volunteer-travel long-tail terms, such as yoga volunteer programs in India and free volunteer travel in India for students. The website has a public profile page for every host, a Journal blog, and a free ebook, and its social presence is only Facebook and X (about 1,500 followers). Existing users renew through the annual membership, and TrustMRR shows about 620 subscriptions.
Last month's traffic sources
Top channel measured by Similarweb, others estimated by rank
Five-class attribution
| Attributable new users, last month | Share |
|---|---|
| SEO | 37% |
| Other | 63% |
Direct + brand search 50%. Direct and brand search count as viral only when the site shows sharing mechanics; the largest share wins, under 5% means Other.
Countries
| Country | Share of visits |
|---|---|
| Brazil | 25.61% |
| United States | 9.36% |
| United Kingdom | 7.76% |
| India | 6.22% |
| Vietnam | 4.19% |
Language
English
Keywords
309 keywords · brand ~50% · organic 91.54% / paid 8.46%
| Similarweb top 5 keywords |
|---|
| helpstay |
| workaway |
| free volunteering programs paid in a secure environment for 40 years old aged |
| volunteering websites for foreigners india yoga |
| free travel volunteer programs in india for students |
Non-brand queries: workaway, free volunteering programs paid in a secure environment for 40 years old aged, volunteering websites for foreigners india yoga, free travel volunteer programs in india for students
Referrer categories
| Category | Share of referrals |
|---|---|
| Travel and Tourism - Other | 20.83% |
| Computers Electronics and Technology - Other | 7.31% |
Site metrics (Similarweb, last month)
- Visits, last 3 months
- 82.5K
- Visits MoM
- -5.51%
- Country rank
- United States #175901
- Category rank
- Travel and Tourism > Travel and Tourism - Other (United States) #2086
- Bounce rate
- 34.19%
- Pages / visit
- 5.71
- Visit duration
- 00:01:33
- Top 3 channels
- Organic Search › Direct › Mail (top channel 46.19%)
3. Growth pathhow the first users arrived and what kept it growing
Classification
Basics
Timeline
Growth loop
Revenue and scale clues
Confidence and gaps
Other sites that started via “Long-tail search”
Similar sitessame category, also growing via SEO
FAQ
How much revenue does Helpstay make per month?
About $3,267 last month (real payments synced by TrustMRR), #315 of 563 TrustMRR sites; the month before was $2,318.
Where do Helpstay's new users come from?
New-user source: SEO (Non-brand search). New users mostly come from need-based searches Similarweb 2026-09: the top channel is organic search at 46.2%, followed by direct at about 40.4% and email at about 8.1%; organic makes up 91.5% of search traffic, with about 82.5K visits last month. Brand keywords are only about 20% of keywords; the rest are workaway (a competitor keyword) and a long string of volunteer-travel long-tail terms, such as yoga volunteer programs in India and free volunteer travel in India for students. The website has a public profile page for every host, a Journal blog, and a free ebook, and its social presence is only Facebook and X (about 1,500 followers). Existing users renew through the annual membership, and TrustMRR shows about 620 subscriptions.
How much does Helpstay cost?
Volunteers pay an annual membership fee: single €42.99 or €53 (the website shows two figures), couples or friends €51.99 or €62; host-side fees not found
Dossier confidence: high. Parts 1 and 2 come from reading the site and Similarweb data; part 3 from public reporting, founder posts, Wayback snapshots, WHOIS and similar, with speculation marked.
The numbers: revenue comes from TrustMRR: real payments synced automatically from the founder's Stripe or other payment account, summed by calendar month, renewals included, in USD. Site visits come from the Similarweb public page; where it shows none, they are estimated from global rank or the TrustMRR payment count, as noted on the page.
Data through last month. Page updated 2026-10-31.