2009

In August (or July) 2009, Alexandru Cuibari started the development of the first font identifier that could also identify free fonts.

2010

After almost a year of work and about 1500 coffee cups, the service was released, being able to recognize about 100 000 fonts. While it was accurate, the identification of a font took about 5 seconds

2011

It was the first time we saw 100 active users on-site and about 100 000 visitors per month. We won the 2011 NetCamp Romania edition competing with 20 other startups.

2012

Party time: 220 000 visitors per month and a database of 200.000 fonts we can identify. Yup, even the cursive ones.

2013

On the surface nothing changed yet under the hood the system detects over 250 000 fonts. We managed to reduce the time needed for a font id to 3 seconds

Guy Kawasaki mentioned us on google plus. Thank you very much. Elon Musk, what do you use when you need to identify a font?

2014

We can now identify fonts from all major foundries, helping 420 000 designers/month do their job faster. We had four visitors from the Arctic Pole. We have no idea if they were designers or polar bears?

2015

We launched a chrome extension that could help designers submit the images directly to the detection machine. It was not a very successful one, to be honest.

2016

We launched a new design, the first version of WFI that was responsive, as we saw more and more users coming from the mobile. We added CreativeMarket as another source for commercial fonts so we jumped to 326 000 indexed fonts. Around 6 million users visited us that year. That's more than the population of Denmark.

Also, we got banned for a week by Google Adsense because a font named Bu***ke was indexed. A sad week that showed us that monetizing from Ads only is very dangerous.

2017

The beginning of a new era. We got a new colleague that started to shake up things and we decided to try to monetize the website directly from the people who use it instead of thinking how to put more and more ads. We started to let people log in with FB and Google, which got us almost 200 members/day!

2018

We started focusing on users more and more. Among others, we changed the design (again) - and added: automatic character recognition, similar fonts based on font name which gets free similar alternatives to commercial fonts. We also added credit card payment besides PayPal only and opened-up for the outside world allowing the use of an API to identify fonts.

2019

Change of design again. We learned from the mistakes and the user's feedback and launched a new version. Of course, some users hated it (as it happens even to Apple). Yet the result was a 30% increase in site usage.Good thing we ignored the hate.

Also, we were nominated as Site of the day by Product Hunt which meant a great deal for us. Ty Product Hunt!

WhatFontIs is the only system that can now identify fonts from Adobe Fonts and Google Fonts as another source for commercial fonts and free fonts. Currently, in 2019, WhatFontIs has 580 000 indexed fonts it can identify. Around 13 million users visited us that year (over 50 million page views). That's more than the population of Belgium.

2020

We launched a Google Chrome extension better than others on the market. Install Font Identifier by WhatFontIs.

2021

We jumped to 800 000 indexed fonts. Around 21 million users visited us (over 90 million page views). That's more than the population of Romania.

We increase the PRO account to $59.90/3yrs or $39.99/1yr

2022

We jumped to 850 000 indexed fonts. Around 25 million users visited us (over 108 million page views). That's more than the population of Australia.

It was a hectic year, despite the fact that the interface underwent minimal changes, the recognition engine has significantly improved in terms of accuracy. After countless tests, fueled by coffee, beer, and coding, the accuracy rose by more than 40%.

Our 2022 algorithm, named "Bella," has the capability to recognize fonts from images that are slightly blurred or of low quality, thanks to the use of advanced machine learning algorithms and extended training.

As you can see, we follow the footsteps of the big players and give names to our updates.

2023

We've reached 950,000 indexed fonts. Approximately 33 million users have visited us, generating over 150 million page views. That exceeds the population of Peru.

We developed a new algorithm to identify garbage and letters, and it's performing quite well.

We also put in a lot of effort to enhance the API, and we're nearly done with the new version.

We've begun developing a new feature for font enthusiasts and aim to complete it in 2024. It's a secret project.

We've raised the price for the PRO account to $74.90 for 3 years or $49.99 for 1 year.