Open Books
Sovereign Health Botanicals is independent. No pharmaceutical money, no sponsors, no advertising, no visitor data sold. The work runs on book sales, affiliate commissions and reader donations.
There is not much revenue to report — but there are fixed costs every month. Here is the honest picture.
What it costs
Running the site and its tools costs roughly €95 a month — about €1,150 a year.
That covers server hosting, a Google Workspace account, an X (Twitter) subscription, the Buffer scheduling tool, the Anthropic AI assistant used for research and drafting, and domain registrations. These costs are fixed: they are paid whether anyone visits or not.
What comes in
- Book royalties — The 500 Most Powerful Botanicals, in English and Dutch, on Kindle.
- Affiliate commissions — when you buy herbs through a linked partner (Lost Empire Herbs, Banyan Botanicals, Amazon), a small percentage comes back, at no extra cost to you.
- Donations — through the Support button, by card or bank transfer.
Together these do not yet cover the running costs. The shortfall is paid personally.
The goal is to make this button disappear
Asking for support every month is not the plan. The intention is to build this into a project that pays for itself — and when it does, the Support button comes down.
The model is simple. The articles, lessons and protocols stay free. Where they point you toward something — herbs, mushrooms, tools — the link goes to a company worth buying from, and a small affiliate commission comes back at no cost to you. New books keep being written. And there is other work underway that is meant to carry the project financially over time.
Until then, donations bridge the gap. They are welcome, but they are a stopgap, not a subscription.
Where donations go
Straight into keeping this running: the server online, the Herb Guide and the protocols free to read, the app free to use, and no advertising anywhere on the site.
What this project will never do
- take money from pharmaceutical companies or supplement brands in exchange for coverage;
- publish sponsored or paid content dressed up as editorial;
- sell or share visitor data.
Support this work
Use the Support button in the corner (card or bank), or transfer directly:
BE52 7370 5576 1909
in the name of Jasper Vermeer · EUR
Last updated: September 2026.