I think most (if not all) type foundries and font agencies are sketchy, but I want to point out this specific one: fonts.xyz.

They have a TTFB of 3+ seconds and a 4MB homepage… but that is not my main complaint. My complaint is about their licensing. Their slogan is: “Buy Fonts, Regret Nothing”, while “regret” is exactly what you will get if you buy from them.

Let’s assume you buy the Morita Family, the first font I ran into on their website. It will cost you 100 euro. That is quite a lot of money, but what if your single-person company grew into a very big company? Then you would have to pay them up to 30,000 euro. Yes, four zeros.

Let me explain how that works. When you go to the checkout you are presented with the 100 euro price. And when you click “<10,000” it still shows 100 euro. But… after 3 seconds this number magically updates. You have probably clicked away by then, but that hidden number is the number you are secretly committing to. Your case may be less damaging, because you will only ever grow to 8 people, but we are still talking about a new fee of 700 euro, so another 600 euro you did not account for or agree to.

Is this misleading? Illegal? Or at least sketchy? Yes. I would argue it is all of that. But what makes matters worse is that most of the sellers on this platform use Font Radar to collect their ‘debts’. This means that this 600 euro per font is not some hypothetical number. You will get legal threats from Font Radar, accusing you of ‘stealing’. Instant regret, right?

What to do? Well… as I said: this is not the only font agency being sketchy. Most of them are, unfortunately. They use different strategies, like vague EULAs, subsetted fonts (making it hard to figure out which font is free and which is paid) and more of these shenanigans. Font Radar reported that more than 50% of all people are in violation of their font license. That cannot all be ill intent, can it? You cannot blame that all on the customer. This has to be the industry as well. Font Radar even admitted that EULAs are VERY complicated, which sounds like a confession of guilt to me.

However, this is the reality we live in. So, if you do not want to regret buying a font, the solution is simple: never buy a paid font. They will probably scam you one way or another… and you will regret it, because they use very aggressive ways to collect their money. Do NOT choose for a ‘free’ font either. None of those are truly free. Use a CC0 font instead. There are plenty available. All fonts at Google Fonts are CC0 fonts. Do not forget to host them yourself or you might end up in legal trouble nevertheless. CC0 fonts will give you: no stress, no drama and no regrets.

Avoid ‘commercial’ fonts. A self-hosted Google Font is the perfect solution.

Happy coding!

()  Joost van der Schee