National Today

What National Today does

National Today is a privately held, bootstrapped content and media platform founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco. It operates the largest publicly accessible curated database of national holidays, cultural moments, and special observances — covering 6,184 days and 18,552 ways to celebrate — across categories including Animals, Arts & Entertainment, Federal, Food & Beverage, Religious, and Special Interest. The company serves two principal customer segments: (1) individual consumers seeking holiday information, gift guides, and celebration ideas via the free website and monthly newsletter, and (2) businesses and brands that purchase Create-A-Holiday services, holiday sponsorships, and licensed access to the holiday calendar database.

The platform is built on a web-based content management and curation architecture that publishes individual holiday pages with historical context, activity suggestions, deals, and social media guides. Supporting products include birthday tracking, a reminders/notification service, video content, and a gift guide library organized by age and interest. The technology stack appears conventional: SEO-optimized CMS-driven pages, email newsletters, and an active presence across Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. There are no documented APIs, SDKs, or proprietary AI/ML components.

The business model combines a free consumer-facing platform (monetized through targeted advertising using user data per the privacy policy) with three paid B2B service lines: Holiday Sponsorship (advertising), Create A Holiday (professional services for branded observances), and Data Licensing (data monetization for media and technology customers). Pricing is not publicly disclosed and appears quote-based. The company has over 10 million registered users, operates across at least eight countries, and remains founder-led by CEO Ben Kaplan with no disclosed external funding or institutional investors.

Name

National Today

Legal name

National Today

Website

https://nationaltoday.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

National Today is a bootstrapped, founder-led content platform that curates the largest publicly accessible database of national holidays and cultural moments, serving over 10 million consumers with free holiday information and gift guides while monetizing via brand sponsorships, custom holiday creation services, and data licensing to businesses.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Holiday and Celebration Content Platform

NAICS

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (71)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro primary industry

National/Seasonal Holiday Festivals (New Year, Harvest, Winter Markets) (MPAGAEAD)

Keywords

• Holiday calendar content
• Celebration database
• Gift guide platform
• Holiday data licensing
• Cultural observance tracking

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Holiday Sponsorship Services: Businesses can sponsor specific holidays on the platform, gaining brand visibility and promotional opportunities associated with cultural moments.
2. Create A Holiday Service: The company offers a service for businesses to create and promote their own national holidays for marketing purposes.
3. Data Licensing: The company licenses its holiday calendar data and cultural calendar information to businesses for commercial use.
4. Targeted Advertising: Based on the privacy policy, the company uses user information to send targeted advertising and personalized content, enabling them to provide services at no or low cost to users while generating advertising revenue.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

National Today operates a free, ad-supported content platform that catalogs national holidays, cultural observances, birthdays, gift ideas, and celebration activities for individual consumers. For businesses, it offers paid B2B services including holiday sponsorship, custom holiday creation, and licensing of its holiday-calendar data and content. The platform aggregates 6,184+ holidays and 18,552+ celebration ideas and serves 10M+ registered users.

Product overview

National Today operates as a unified content platform centered on its holiday and celebration tracking database. The core product is the National Today Website, which serves as a comprehensive holiday calendar featuring individual holiday pages with historical information, celebration guides, and brand partnerships. Supporting the main platform are gift guides and reviews organized by various categories, birthday tracking services, and a reminders newsletter service. The company also offers three business-to-business services: Create A Holiday (for creating new observances), Sponsor A Holiday (for brand sponsorship of existing holidays), and Data Licensing (for accessing their holiday database). The platform also includes video content. The service aggregates 6,184 holidays, provides 18,552 ways to celebrate, and serves over 10 million users.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• National Today Website Primary holiday and celebration tracking platform providing information about fun holidays, special moments, cultural events, birthdays, and celebration ideas across all 12 months, free for individual consumers.
• Gift Guides & Reviews Curated gift guides organized by age, interest, occasion, price, and recipient, with product reviews across categories including Baby, Car, Children, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden, Kitchen, Pets, Sleep, Tech, and Travel, for consumers searching for gift ideas.
• Holiday Pages Individual web pages for each holiday containing historical information, celebration ideas, brand partnerships, social media guides, survey data, and related content across categories including Animals, Arts & Entertainment, Cause, Cultural, Federal, Food & Beverage, Health, Relationships, Religious, and Special Interest.
• Birthday Tracking A service that tracks celebrity birthdays and notable birthdays organized by month, allowing users to find birthdays by specific dates throughout the year.
• Create A Holiday Service A paid business service that allows companies and organizations to create and promote their own national holidays through National Today's platform for marketing purposes.
• Sponsor A Holiday Service A paid business service enabling brands to sponsor existing holidays on National Today, gaining visibility through holiday pages, deals sections, and promotional content.
• Data Licensing A paid service providing licensed access to National Today's holiday database and calendar data for business, media, and technology applications.

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Brownielocks: Holiday calendar and celebration content site with a similar content-first, ad-supported model. Operates as a comparable niche content destination in the holidays and special days category.
• Days of the Year: Direct competitor operating a similar holiday awareness and celebration calendar platform. Both companies monetize via display advertising, content syndication, and brand partnerships around niche national/international observances.
• Checkiday: Holiday calendar platform that aggregates and publishes observances daily — directly comparable to National Today's core product. Both rely on SEO-driven traffic, advertising, and content syndication as primary revenue.
• Holiday Insights: Long-running holiday content site covering monthly and daily observances with historical context, similar to National Today. Both target consumer interest in cultural moments and leverage content for ad-based monetization.

Broad incumbents

• Hallmark: Established incumbent in the celebration and gifting space with greeting cards, gifts, and seasonal content. Operates a much broader retail and content portfolio but occupies the same cultural-moments territory National Today enables brands to reach.
• American Greetings: Legacy greeting card and digital greetings company with a calendar of holidays and cultural moments. While the business is more retail-anchored, the celebration content and occasion-marketing focus overlaps with National Today's vertical.
• Time and Date: Much larger calendar and time-related reference site that also covers holidays and observances globally. While broader in scope (weather, time zones, calendars), the holidays section competes directly for the same SEO-driven consumer audience.

Emerging players

• Punchbowl: Digital celebration platform offering e-cards, invitations, and content around holidays and life events. Shares National Today's celebration-vertical focus but with a stronger commerce/invitations angle overlapping the company's gift-guide and sponsorship offerings.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xtwitter.com/NatlToday
• Facebookfacebook.com/nationaltoday
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/nationaltoday
• Instagraminstagram.com/nationaltoday_

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about National Today