How the split works.
The rules your team agrees to, in plain words. Access opens to teams in small batches, so none of this is running for anyone yet.
01Shares come from points
Everyone earns points for their work. Your share is your points out of everyone's points. When someone new joins, they add points, so every share gets a little smaller and nobody has to argue about whose percent to cut.
Nobody gave anything up: Anya still has 360 points. There are just more points in total.
02Vesting and the cliff
Points build up over time and on milestones. You get a set number of points for each week on the project, plus bonus points for milestones you all agree on at the start, like a store release. Nothing counts during the first month: that's the trial (a cliff). Leave during it and you leave with nothing. By default points vest over 12 months; your team can change both when you lock the split.
Month 4 of 12: past the trial, so all 4 months count. Milestone 'beta' was hit and signed off by the team. 'Launch' adds a bonus when it happens.
What if someone leaves after a month?
They keep the points they earned and stop earning new ones. What that means in practice depends on when they go:
- Leaves during the trial
- Leaves with nothing. That's what the trial is for: a few weeks of help don't turn into a share of every sale for years.
- Leaves after a month
- Keeps the first month's points. They start counting once the trial is over, so leaving on day 31 isn't the same as leaving on day 29.
- Leaves after 6 months
- Keeps 6 months of points, plus the bonus for any milestone already hit, and keeps getting paid on them. No new points, so their percent shrinks as the others keep earning.
- Stops delivering but stays
- A majority, not counting them, can stop their points. What they already earned stays theirs.
- Stays the full 12 months
- Fully vested: every point is theirs, and they keep getting paid on them.
Why not 4 years with a 1-year cliff?
That's the startup standard for company stock, made for jobs that last years. A game or app team often ships in months, and a revenue share pays from the first sale, so the default here is shorter: a one-month trial and 12 months of vesting. Your team can set a longer cliff or schedule when you lock the split, and change it later only with a new version everyone signs.
03What signing does
Every change is proposed, then signed by the people the rules say must sign. Once enough have signed, it becomes the new version. Each signature is logged with who, when, from which account, and a fingerprint of the exact version.
A signature is a click after you log in by email. That's an electronic signature, valid in the US (ESIGN) and the EU (eIDAS), and everyone who signs gets a receipt.
What a signature means, in full →04Versions, not edits
Nothing in the record is edited or deleted. A change is a new version everyone can compare with the last one. The old version stays, so anyone can see what the deal was on any date.
05Rules for changes
'Everyone must sign' sounds fair until one person stops answering. So each kind of change has its own rule, picked when you lock the split and changed only by the same rule.
If someone goes silent
They get reminders by email. After 7 days without an answer, a change that only needs a majority goes ahead without them.
Changes that need everyone wait. Nobody's share moves without their signature.
If you disagree
1. Anyone can flag an entry. It's marked disputed for the whole team.
2. Money tied to it is held, not paid out, until it's settled.
3. If the team can't settle it, we export the full history as one file and you take it to a mediator you pick. The cost is split equally unless you agree otherwise.
06Gross or net
You pick one when you start, and everyone signs it. Gross is simpler and safest for the people doing the work. Net helps the owner who pays for servers and ads, but only costs listed up front count.
Gross (default)
Shares come from what the stores pay, after their fee.
Net of agreed costs
Only costs itemised and signed by everyone in advance. Each deduction is its own entry.
Example numbers. A cost that isn't on the signed list can't come off the top. Raising a cap is a change like any other.
07Connecting the stores
Optional, and you can skip it at the start. When you connect, we get a read-only key: we can read sales reports, nothing else. We can't change your listing, prices, builds or payouts. Delete the key and we stop reading.
Ad revenue is often the main income for mobile games. Until it's connected, a team records it by hand, marked 'typed in' so everyone knows it wasn't read from the source.
08Money details
- Subscriptions
- Counted when the store pays them out, renewals included.
- Refunds and chargebacks
- The stores take refunds and chargebacks out of their next payout, so they come off the next split. Nobody is asked to pay money back.
- Currencies
- Shares are calculated in the currency the store pays in. When we publish, you're paid in your local currency at Stripe's rate, shown before each payout.
- Taxes
- Each person handles tax on what they receive. When we publish, we withhold only what the law requires and collect your tax form (W-8 or W-9) once.
- Payout methods and countries
- Only when we publish: Stripe Connect, in every country Stripe pays out to. Stripe's fee comes out of each payout and is shown first.
- Payout schedule
- Within 5 business days after each store payout lands.
09Who pays everyone
This is where 'recorded' and 'enforced' differ, so here it is plainly.
You publish
recorded— The stores pay you. The money sits in your account.
— We show who's owed what for every payout. Paying them is on you.
— Each person marks a payout as received, so an unpaid share shows up as unpaid.
— Sales read from the store can't be fudged. Whether you paid is on the record, but we can't force it.
We publish
enforced— The stores pay us. We pay everyone by the split.
— Every payout is an entry the whole team sees.
— Nobody on the team holds the money, so nobody can sit on it.
— Our cut is 7%, signed before anything ships.