We've reviewed expenses from over 50 Cooperative Press books and determined the absolute minimum amounts we'll need per month to sustain this project all year long, including payments for sample knitters, postage, technical editing, photography, bookkeeping help, time spent on customer service / communications, and more. We then set a higher goal, $1000 per pattern release, so we can pay our people more money and advertise the patterns in more places. At the Patreon discounted rate of $4 per pattern, this means we'd need 250 patrons on average each week to hit our target.