Hoefler & Frere-Jones's cloud.typography

Alright so web fonts from Hoefler & Frere-Jones Web Fonts are finally here with their TypeKit like cloud service: cloud.typography. However, they are here at a cost.

TypeKit ( typekit.com/ )- $99/year for 1 million pageviews/month

• Unlimited access to entire font library
• No purchasing of licenses necessary

cloud.typography ( typography.com/cloud/welcome/ )- $149/year for 1 million pageviews/month

• The first Five Webfont packages are free
• Otherwise you need a to purchase the license as well ( a web only license for the gotham bundle is $149 )
• If you want a computer license for design comps, which will include a free web-license that will set you back $299 for a licence for a single computer (again gotham bundle)

So for Could.typography if you don’t include the five free webfont packages that are included with signup to get up and running you will also need to take into account the cost of the font license itself. You must purchase the license separate from the webfont service. So you must also for example purchase a font like the Gotham family for $149 (web only license) and the $149 a year subscription to the cloud service. Compared to typekit which provides access to their full library for $99 a year for 1 million views a month with no need to purchase additional licenses for each font you would like to use. The one nice thing is that you can manage desktop licensing and web licensing from one place so if you purchase a font for used on a computer you get the web license with it. Again using Gotham for an example for an actual price point one you are looking at $299 for a single computer license and the web license comes with it free.

So upfront costs aren’t too great if you only want to license the first five free font you would like to use for web. It gets more pricey and far more expensive than TypeKit once you use those free web licenses up or wish to purchase fonts with a computer license.