Monetization: Anthropic-funded security scanning for accepted open source projects
Fees:Anthropic covers scanning costs for accepted projects. Maintainers provide a build environment and handle validation and remediation of findings.
Activity signal:Launched on 8 October 2026 and accepts enrollment pull requests. The cited documentation does not state a program-wide enrollment total.
Monetization: Merchandise sales with revenue sharing
Fees:Historical community references described part of each sale, often cited as roughly half of proceeds, being donated to the represented project.
Activity signal:The original store could not be validated during this audit. Surviving references describe Apt-get Shirt as a small historical merchandise-based support model for OSS projects.
Monetization: Cloud credits for open source infrastructure
Fees:Promotional credits apply only to AWS-designated eligible services. A valid AWS account and payment method are required; ineligible services, usage above the credit balance, and applicable taxes remain payable.
Activity signal:AWS said in March 2025 that its cloud credits program had supported more than 200 open source projects since launch.
Monetization: Dependency-based donation discovery and pledge routing
Fees:BackYourStack is a discovery layer and does not charge a direct platform fee.
Activity signal:Public organization pages currently show examples with dozens of repositories and hundreds of fundable open source dependencies, including one Open Collective view covering 83 repositories and 772 projects.
Fees:Public docs describe marketplace and protocol-level fees around task creation and reward flows, but current product pricing is partly token- and partner-specific.
Activity signal:Current public materials say more than 200 organizations use Bepro's platforms, while the live marketplace shows a smaller active task set.
Fees:Bounties Network states that 100% of the bounty goes to the fulfiller, aside from Ethereum network costs.
Activity signal:The public site continues to present a live explorer and getting-started flows, but it does not expose a defensible current marketplace size metric.
Monetization: A marketplace for issues and selective incentives
Fees:The current public footprint is too thin to validate a stable pricing model.
Activity signal:The original site could not be validated during this audit. The surviving evidence is an academic paper describing Bugmark as a proof-of-concept implementation.
Fees:Buy Me a Coffee charges a 5% platform fee per transaction. Its help docs say Stripe processing fees still apply, though creators can choose whether to absorb or pass those on.
Activity signal:Buy Me a Coffee now says it serves more than 1 million creators worldwide.
Monetization: Advertising revenue for developer and creator publishers
Fees:Carbon says publishers typically earn about $0.50-$1.10 CPM. Payouts are Net-30, with withdrawal minimums depending on the selected payment method.
Activity signal:Carbon says its network reaches audiences through more than 600 hand-picked tech sites and has paid out more than $120 million to publishers since launch.
Monetization: Six months of Claude Max 20x for approved open-source maintainers and contributors
Fees:The base Claude Max 20x subscription is complimentary for six months; terms say overages may be charged. Existing paid billing resumes after the benefit unless canceled, while free accounts return to Free.
Activity signal:The terms cap the program at 10,000 approved recipients unless Anthropic increases the cap; Anthropic does not publish the number already approved.
Monetization: Cloudflare service credits for qualifying open-source projects
Fees:Credits are non-transferable, nonrefundable, and not redeemable for cash. Cloudflare requires an account and a valid payment method on file; product usage limits, taxes, and charges beyond awarded credits may apply, but the program page does not publish credit amounts or a standard allowance.
Activity signal:Cloudflare's Project Alexandria page currently invites sponsorship requests. It does not publish recipient totals or an application processing time.
Monetization: Paid package access, licenses, and subscription-based code distribution
Fees:Public product pages do not present a simple flat marketplace commission; pricing appears to depend on the supplier and package setup.
Activity signal:Current public product surfaces show active paid-package distribution flows for at least Rust and Hex-style ecosystems, with package updates published in 2025.
Fees:Publishers were paid from advertiser spend; archived materials do not present a standard publisher-side fee.
Activity signal:Archived public materials described more than 39 ad campaigns and funding for more than 1,000 open source projects across the broader Code Sponsor and CodeFund history.
Monetization: Free AI code review and maintainer support funded by CodeRabbit
Fees:CodeRabbit's OSS tier has a rolling allowance of 1–10 PR reviews per developer per hour, varying with project community and popularity and scoped per repository. Public repositories with fewer than 10 stars require a manual review trigger.
Activity signal:On 2026-10-27, CodeRabbit's live tracker showed $1.48 million in covered product costs and sponsorships toward its new $10 million commitment, and more than $1.2 million in all-time cash delivered to maintainers and projects. The tracker updates over time.
Monetization: Limited-duration ChatGPT Pro, optional API credits, or conditional Codex Security access for selected OSS maintainers
Fees:Selected maintainers may receive one or more benefits, including limited-duration ChatGPT Pro with Codex. API credits and Codex Security are optional additional benefits that may require separate review and terms. Benefits are non-transferable and have no cash value.
Activity signal:OpenAI reviews applications on a rolling basis. The current program page does not publish recipient counts or API-credit award amounts.
Fees:CommitChange currently charges 5% + $0.30 per online donation, with no monthly fees or contract.
Activity signal:CommitChange says $62 million has been raised through the platform, alongside 3,800 fundraising campaigns, 2,500 events, and 64,000 recurring donors.
Fees:Zero fees for first $10M donated through CommunityBridge. After that, 5% platform fee plus the payment processor’s fee.
Activity signal:The service remains active inside LFX Crowdfunding for project, security, event, and travel funds managed through the Linux Foundation.
Monetization: Staking tokens to support projects and earn rewards
Fees:Support and sponsorship flows rely on token and network transaction fees rather than a conventional platform fee.
Activity signal:Public ecosystem materials describe token-based support and onboarding programs across more than 1,500 projects and creator initiatives.
Monetization: Free for open source maintainers; paid team documentation and knowledge plans
Fees:Dosu's pricing page says the OSS plan is free for public repositories. Paid plans currently start at $19 per user per month annually for Pro and $60 per user per month annually for Ultra, with Enterprise pricing on request.
Activity signal:Dosu actively markets a free open source offering and public GitHub knowledge spaces, but it does not publish install counts or usage figures.
Monetization: Tokenized software ownership and revenue sharing
Fees:A current fee model could not be validated from surviving public materials.
Activity signal:The main product site could not be validated during this audit. The surviving public material is old documentation and ICO-era references with no sign of recent product activity.
Monetization: Advertising revenue for technical publishers
Fees:EthicalAds says publishers receive 70% of revenue. Public publisher guidance estimates roughly $2.25-$2.75 CPM for many publishers, while advertiser buys start at a $1,000 minimum.
Activity signal:EthicalAds says it serves more than 35 million developer impressions each month across its network.
Monetization: Monthly donations or in terminal ads
Fees:1% for company donations, 2% for user donations, 30% for ads
Activity signal:The site now says Flossbank is decommissioning, but historical public materials show active support flows for developers, maintainers, and enterprise donors.
Fees:The current public site does not publish a clear universal fee schedule.
Activity signal:The current public browse page shows a total funded value of about $510 and still exposes live funding flows, but visible marketplace activity is thin.
Fees:Fundition's archived product material claimed 0% fees for founders and backers using Steem or Tron account flows.
Activity signal:The surviving public footprint is a product manifesto rather than an active marketplace. A current live campaign directory could not be validated.
Monetization: Grant rounds, quadratic funding, and ecosystem funding programs
Fees:Gitcoin's current funding stack uses program-specific mechanisms and onchain payment flows rather than a single universal platform fee.
Activity signal:The OSS quadratic-funding portion of Gitcoin Grants 24 funded 55 projects, with 1,028 donors contributing nearly $29,739 against a $200,000 matching pool.
Monetization: Issue-prioritized donations and sponsorship
Fees:The early public description focused on routing funds directly to the project owner's PayPal wallet. A durable platform fee model could not be validated.
Activity signal:The project was explicitly described by its creator as closed after failing to gain traction.
Monetization: Complimentary individual GitHub Copilot Pro access for eligible maintainers
Fees:Eligible maintainers receive Copilot Pro at no charge. GitHub reevaluates account eligibility monthly; access is not guaranteed.
Activity signal:GitHub's plans page lists Copilot Pro with a Get started option. Maintainer eligibility is checked monthly; GitHub publishes no recipient count or fixed popularity threshold.
Monetization: Direct maintainer funding for measurable open source security work
Fees:The public program page does not state a participant fee or detailed tax and payment terms. Awards and credits depend on selection and participation requirements.
Activity signal:GitHub reported 138 participating projects across its first three sessions in February 2026. Its program page currently says applications are considered on a rolling basis.
Monetization: One-time and recurring sponsorships, with optional maintainer-set benefits
Fees:GitHub charges no fee on sponsorships from personal accounts. Organization-account sponsorships carry up to 6% in fees: 3% card processing and 3% GitHub service fee. Invoiced billing removes the 3% card-processing fee. Where Stripe Connect is used, Stripe's separate terms apply to recipient payouts.
Activity signal:Operating program. Sponsors can participate globally; maintainers must be in a supported payout region and receive GitHub approval.
Monetization: Free GitLab Ultimate subscription features for qualifying open-source projects
Fees:GitLab provides program members a no-cost Ultimate subscription with 50,000 compute minutes calculated at a program-specific cost factor. Product support is not included. Membership requires annual renewal; the subscription is downgraded if it is not renewed.
Activity signal:GitLab's program page currently invites applications through the Customers Portal. It does not publish recipient totals or a general processing time.
Fees:Gitpay's 2025 payment docs say payout costs vary by payment method, with PayPal-adjusted payouts and card-funded tasks paid through bank transfer workflows.
Activity signal:Gitpay's public documentation was updated in 2025 and the changelog shows continuing product work, but a current public task-count metric could not be validated.
Monetization: Subscription, purchase or donation plans for projects
Fees:Historical references described a free tier and paid plans up to about $50 per month, depending on revenue and features.
Activity signal:The original site could not be validated during this audit. Surviving references describe Gitstore as a 2019-era SaaS experiment for selling GitHub repository access.
Fees:Goteo advertises a 4% commission plus payment-processor costs, with additional public-program structures such as matchfunding available on some campaigns.
Activity signal:Goteo currently reports 395,445 community users, €24.7 million raised, and 2,396 funded projects.
Fees:Gumroad currently charges 10% + $0.50 for direct sales and 30% when a sale comes through its discovery marketplace. It no longer charges a monthly subscription fee.
Activity signal:Gumroad says it has paid out more than $1 billion to creators.
Fees:For eligible open source Community Edition programs, HackerOne says the platform is free and only charges a 5% payment processing fee on paid bounties.
Activity signal:Over 1,700 customer programs and over 600,000 ethical hackers have signed up
Monetization: Decentralized ecosystem of services, governance and funding
Fees:A public fee schedule could not be validated from surviving sources.
Activity signal:The original developer protocol appears inactive. Surviving public material describes a rebrand to HitHub and an emphasis on token incentives, code hosting, and open-source node programs.
Fees:Hopsie sells on monthly plans starting around $49 and says it does not take an additional percentage of donations beyond the payment processor's fees.
Activity signal:Hopsie's public site emphasizes its nonprofit customer base, donor-management tooling, and peer-to-peer fundraising features, but it does not publish a clear platform-wide customer count.
Fees:Indiemaker's current pricing says listing is free and a success fee starts at 2% when a project sells. Premium subscriptions start around $25 per month.
Activity signal:Indiemaker's current public marketplace shows active listings across domains, newsletters, communities, and micro-SaaS products, but it does not publish a defensible platform-wide member count.
Fees:IssueHunt's terms say 10% of the amount paid by the funding user is applied to the company's fee before the remaining deposit is assigned to the issue.
Activity signal:IssueHunt says more than 12,000 projects have participated on the platform.
Monetization: Blockchain fundraising and ecosystem participation
Fees:A public fee model could not be validated from surviving sources.
Activity signal:The original service is no longer active and surviving public references are sparse. Available descriptions frame it as a blockchain business ecosystem rather than a mature operating marketplace.
Monetization: Complimentary JetBrains developer-tool subscriptions for approved non-commercial open-source projects
Fees:JetBrains offers complimentary All Products Pack subscriptions. Each subscription is assigned to one authorized user and is limited to non-commercial development of an open-source project that meets the Open Source Definition. The agreement runs for one year; renewal requires JetBrains' approval.
Activity signal:JetBrains reports supporting 2,000+ open-source projects and maintainers with free licenses in 2025.
Monetization: Token-sale fundraising and listing services
Fees:A definitive public fee schedule could not be validated from surviving sources.
Activity signal:The original product is no longer active. Surviving public materials describe it as a fundraising and token-issuance platform that later merged into a broader digital-asset ecosystem.
Monetization: Crowdfunding campaigns with target goal
Fees:Kickstarter charges a 5% platform fee on successful projects, plus payment-processing fees that are roughly 3%-5% depending on pledge size and country.
Activity signal:Kickstarter currently reports $9.2 billion pledged, 287,145 successfully funded projects, and 24.7 million total backers.
Fees:Ko-fi markets 0%-5% service fees. One-time support can be fee-free on some plans, while commissions and other commerce features can carry a 5% platform fee plus normal card-processing charges.
Activity signal:Ko-fi says more than 1 million creators use the platform.
Fees:Liberapay does not charge its own platform fee. Its FAQ says average payment-processing fees in the last year were about 3.1% through Stripe and 5% through PayPal.
Activity signal:Liberapay's public stats currently report 148,420 total users, with the last weekly payday transferring about $24.9k between 15,987 users.
Monetization: Dual licensing model with selling private licenses
Fees:1% of gross sales
Activity signal:The main site is no longer available. Surviving public material describes License Zero as a Stripe-connected vending machine for dual licensing and paid relicensing.
Fees:Historical pricing references described plans starting around $299.99 per month and reaching roughly $2,399.99 per year.
Activity signal:The current lyfevest.io site now advertises an unrelated family-document product, so the original OSS-support concept could not be validated as an active service.
Monetization: Paywall for websites and membership monetization
Fees:Memberful's Standard plan is currently $49 per month plus a 4.9% transaction fee, with enterprise pricing available separately.
Activity signal:Current public materials position Memberful as a mature membership platform with hosted newsletters, communities, and website paywalls.
Monetization: Paywall for websites and membership monetization
Fees:MemberSpace currently markets plans starting at about $39 per month plus a small transaction fee when you sell a product.
Activity signal:MemberSpace says 10,000+ creators, entrepreneurs, and business owners have used the platform and that customers have earned over $300 million.
Monetization: Cash sponsorships to selected open source projects
Fees:The reviewed program pages do not publish applicant or recipient fees. They also do not detail payment administration or tax terms.
Activity signal:The official recipient list includes FOSS Fund 36 (March 2026). Microsoft says nominations are accepted daily and selections are made quarterly.
Monetization: Grant funding and support services for open technologies
Fees:NLnet is a grantmaker, not a marketplace. Applicants do not pay a platform fee to apply for or receive funding.
Activity signal:NLnet says the NGI Zero coalition has supported over one thousand free and open source projects overall, including 314 projects in the Commons Fund alone.
Monetization: Product credits for open-source maintainers and core contributors
Fees:The program offers up to $200 per month in Ona credits, with the amount based on the applicant's open-source contributions. Credits are product-specific, not cash. The public program page does not state an award duration, expiration policy, or detailed usage limits.
Activity signal:Ona's open-source program page invites applications and says most applications are processed within a few days. It does not publish recipient totals.
Fees:Collectives are outside Open Collective's organization subscription plans. Fiscal host fees vary by host; Open Source Collective currently lists a 10% host fee, while the platform docs say host fees are typically 4%-10% and can be higher. Payment processors charge separately. Contributors can add an optional platform tip. Pricing docs let an Organization switch to a 5% crowdfunding-fee model instead of tips; separately, the Terms of Service say OFiTech may apply a 5% fee charged to the Host when tips are not enabled or available. Organization subscriptions are a separate cost for legal entities using the platform.
Monetization: Decentralized infrastructure for projects
Fees:A current fee or value-capture model could not be validated from surviving public material.
Activity signal:The original website could not be validated during this audit and surviving public references point to an abandoned or dormant project rather than a live network.
Fees:OpenSSF is a foundation initiative and grant ecosystem, not a commercial platform with a user fee.
Activity signal:Alpha-Omega, an OpenSSF-associated directed fund, issued nearly $6 million in grants in 2024 to improve security in critical open source projects.
Fees:Patreon's current standard plan is 10% for new creators. Older legacy creators may still be on Founders 5%, Pro 8%, or Pro + Merch 11%, plus payment-processing, currency-conversion, payout, and tax-related fees.
Activity signal:Patreon says more than 10 million fans pay for memberships each month, over 300,000 creators use the platform, and creators have earned more than $10 billion.
Fees:The current documentation focuses on architecture and token mechanics rather than a simple public fee table.
Activity signal:Pledgecamp's documentation is still maintained and its smart-contract docs are current, but a clearly active public crowdfunding marketplace could not be validated.
Monetization: Paid npm packages, subscriptions, and premium developer tooling
Fees:Package prices range from free to recurring subscriptions and one-time purchases; the public site does not expose a single standard seller fee on listing pages.
Activity signal:The current public marketplace lists a large catalog of paid and free packages, with visible download counts ranging from single digits to hundreds of thousands.
Monetization: Developer infrastructure funded by grants and ecosystem backing
Fees:Radicle is free open source infrastructure rather than a paid platform with a user fee.
Activity signal:Radicle shipped multiple releases in 2025 and early 2026, including Radicle Desktop and version 1.6.0, with an active core team and outside contributors.
Monetization: Repository token auctions and trading-fee sharing
Fees:Repo.trade's docs say trading fees are split 50/50 between repository owners and the protocol after a repository token moves into the swap phase.
Activity signal:The public product is still waitlist-style, but the whitepaper and docs were updated in early 2026 and describe an active tokenization and fee-sharing model.
Monetization: A cut from users running your project on the SaaS platform
Fees:The original pitch was free for early adopters with a later planned 20% cut and special pricing for open source projects. The hosted product is now discontinued.
Activity signal:The hosted platform has been shut down. Public package metadata notes a 2022 shutdown while the open-source npm package remains as a historical artifact.
Monetization: OSS usage analytics and lead-generation tooling
Fees:Scarf's public starter plan is free and includes 3 monthly tracked companies. Additional seats cost $30 per month and extra tracked companies cost $3 each on the self-serve plan.
Activity signal:Scarf reported just over 240 million open source package downloads in one 2023 quarter across projects using its gateway.
Fees:Snowdrift's public materials describe the crowdmatching model and cooperative structure, but not a final public fee schedule.
Activity signal:Snowdrift says the platform is functioning with initial pledging to itself as the first test project while outside-project onboarding remains a future milestone.
Monetization: Fiscal sponsorship, donations, and nonprofit project services
Fees:Conservancy's fiscal sponsorship agreement says it keeps 10% of most member-project revenue and donations for general operations, with higher fees occasionally negotiated for event-focused projects.
Activity signal:Conservancy currently describes itself as home to nearly fifty member projects and publishes active project-services and donation programs.
Monetization: Contribution accounting and reward allocation
Fees:SourceCred is open source tooling. Communities decide how, or whether, to fund reward pools distributed through Cred and Grain.
Activity signal:SourceCred's public 'Who Uses Us' page currently lists at least 10 communities using the system, while the docs still describe the project as undergoing a major transition.
Monetization: A cut from users running your project on the SaaS platform
Fees:Historical public materials described a 20% share of usage revenue for the platform.
Activity signal:Recent public materials describe a limited catalog of hosted templates and Python tooling, but do not publish current marketplace scale.
Monetization: Infrastructure sales, partner revenue share, and node-operator payouts
Fees:Historical open-source partner materials referenced revenue-share deals, but current public partner pages emphasize negotiated partner economics rather than a single fixed share.
Activity signal:Storj community data in late 2025 referenced roughly 12,700 subnets with active nodes, while public partner materials continue to position Storj as a broad distributed-cloud partner program.
Monetization: Express need of support for maintainers
Fees:Thanks is a donation-discovery CLI, not a payment platform.
Activity signal:The npm package remains publicly available and still records ongoing weekly downloads, even though the last publish was several years ago.
Monetization: Enterprise subscriptions fund approved package maintenance work
Fees:Public maintainer materials do not state a fee charged to lifters. Payment amounts are determined by Tidelift's algorithm using subscriber usage, package weight, and other factors; no standard payment or minimum is promised.
Activity signal:The maintainer program is operating and invites maintainers to find and apply to lift a package. Tidelift does not publish a current program-wide recipient total.
Fees:Commission is 8% including tax on the amounts collected each month.
Activity signal:Current public help-center materials document creator and project-funding flows across many European countries, but do not surface a simple current creator or tipper count.
Fees:Udemy instructors currently receive 97% of net revenue on instructor-promotion sales and 37% on organic marketplace sales; subscription revenue shares use separate formulas.
Activity signal:Udemy currently reports 84 million learners, 90,000 instructors, and more than 290,000 courses.
Fees:Freelancers generally pay a 10% service fee. Clients typically pay a 3%-5% Marketplace fee on Basic or 8%-10% on Business Plus, depending on billing method and plan.
Activity signal:Upwork reported 812,000 active clients in Q1 2025 and says the platform has facilitated more than $25 billion in economic opportunity for talent.
Monetization: Vercel platform credits and partner offers for selected open-source projects
Fees:Applications are currently closed. Selected projects receive $3,600 in Vercel platform credits over three years, plus third-party OSS Starter Pack offers. Vercel credits have no cash value and are non-transferable; its Terms of Service generally makes credits non-refundable. Partner offers have their own terms.
Activity signal:The program page lists a Spring 2026 cohort and currently says applications are closed; it publishes no recipient total or reopening date.
Monetization: Free vlt Pro account and monthly storage and delivery usage for approved maintainers
Fees:Approved maintainers receive a free Pro account with 10 GB/month of storage and delivery usage, valued by vlt at $120/year. The program page does not specify pricing or treatment for usage above the 10 GB/month allowance.
Activity signal:Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis; approved accounts renew annually at no cost while recipients actively maintain open source.