// how the money works
How the money works
No hype, just the mechanism. Here is exactly how metadata turns into money, what earns you points, and what we have committed to in writing. Every number on this page is real — and where we don’t have one yet, we say so out loud.
The pipeline
One flow, four steps, no black box. Each step is either open-source or contractually bound — links below.
- 01You send metadata. A whitelist of coding-session metadata, keyed to a random
panelist_idgenerated on your machine. Never your code — the exact fields are in SCHEMA.md. - 02We aggregate it into category reports. Individual events roll up into market reports — “share of agent choice”, package & API adoption by category. No report cell ever describes fewer than 50 panelists, so nothing points back at you.
- 03Devtool companies pay for the reports. That is the revenue. Always aggregated, never per-developer, never resellable raw; buyers sign a DPA. This is the only thing anyone pays for.
- 04A published share funds the panelist pool. 30–40% of every euro of data revenue goes into the pool that pays panelists, split by the points below. The share is fixed and public — not decided per payout.
What earns points
Your slice of the pool is your points over everyone’s points — no discretion, no black box. Points are awarded per event; the canonical table is POINTS.md in the open-source collector, and this is a mirror.
payout = (your points ÷ total points) × pool
| Event | Points |
|---|---|
dependency_added | 10 |
api_domain_used | 8 |
session | 2 |
error | 1 |
Early panelist multiplier. Register within the first 90 days after launch and every point you ever earn is doubled — forever. Never reassigned.
Points are contribution shares, not currency — think beer money, not rent money.
The commitments
These are the rules of the ledger. We don’t get to change them quietly.
- Formula published
- The revenue-share split and the scoring both live in the open, in POINTS.md. No private spreadsheet decides your cut.
- First payout cycle
- Triggers once cumulative data revenue reaches €1,000. Until then, points accrue and nothing is owed.
- Scoring changes only via public PR
- Any change to how points are awarded lands as a pull request against POINTS.md — reviewable, dated, attributable. No silent edits.
- Never retroactive
- A scoring change never reduces points you have already earned. Changes apply going forward only.
- Payouts via Stripe
- Once you clear the threshold, you cash out via Stripe. Your email and payout details live only in that separate system, never with your metadata.
Right now
Current data revenue: €0. No buyers yet — we launched this week. Points accrue from day one; early panelists are weighted ×2 forever. This page will show real revenue numbers as they happen.