Questions, answered.
Everything we get asked the most — from how payouts work to where the token math comes from.
The basics
- buymeatoken is a funding platform for the people shipping the AI era — founders, creators, vibecoders, and engineers. Fans cover your next few bug-fix sessions, threads, or PRDs and you keep 100% of the amount they choose to send.
- Anyone whose work runs on AI inference. If you ship demos, write threads, maintain tools, record podcasts, or build products on top of LLMs, your audience can fund you here.
- Tokens are the actual unit AI models use to do work. We translate every fund into how many tokens it buys at the chosen provider's rate — e.g. "Your $5 just bought ~1.6M Sonnet input tokens." Under the hood it's plain USD; the tokens are a fun, honest way to show what your fund actually buys.
- No. There's no monthly fee, no setup fee, and no tier upgrades. The platform is free to set up and use as a Builder.
What is buymeatoken?
Who is this for?
What’s an "AI Token"?
Is this a subscription?
Money & fees
- Yes. The amount a fan chooses to fund lands in your Stripe payout in full. The customer covers card processing on top — we never deduct from the fund itself.
- A small card processing fee is added on top of the fund amount. The exact number is shown on the checkout slider before the customer pays — nothing is hidden and the fund amount itself is never touched.
- Payouts are handled by Stripe on their standard schedule (typically ~2 business days for new accounts in the US, faster once your account is established). buymeatoken doesn't hold the money — funds are routed through Stripe Connect directly to your connected account.
- You're responsible for your own taxes. Stripe will issue any year-end tax forms you qualify for and your full transaction history is available in both your Stripe dashboard and your buymeatoken funding feed.
Do Builders really keep 100%?
How much do customers pay in fees?
How fast do funds reach my bank?
How are taxes handled?
For Builders
- Sign up with your email, claim a username, write a short bio, and connect your bank via Stripe Express. Your public page goes live the moment Stripe confirms your account is good to receive payouts.
- Yes. Your @username is your umbrella page, and you can spin up as many project pages as you want underneath it. Each one has its own URL and its own funding feed.
- Yes. The dashboard shows every fund — the dollar amount, the fan's name (if they shared it), the message they left, the project they backed, the outcome their funding covered (e.g. “~5 bug-fix sessions”), and the AI model the fund was priced against.
- We sync your account status from Stripe in real time. If Stripe needs more info from you, your dashboard shows a "Setup incomplete" banner with a one-click link back into Stripe to resolve it. While that's in effect, your public page hides the funding slider so no one can pay into a stuck account.
- Yes — refunds are issued directly from your Stripe dashboard. Because funds settle straight to you, you have full control over them.
How do I get set up?
Can I have multiple project pages?
Can I see who funded me?
What if Stripe stops accepting payouts on my account?
Can I issue a refund?
For Customers
- No. Open the Builder's page, drag the slider, and check out with any major card — that's it. Two clicks from page to paid.
- Any major card supported by Stripe Checkout (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, and more depending on your region).
- Yes. Every funding flow has an optional message field. The Builder sees it in their dashboard, alongside the amount and the model the fund was priced against.
Do I need an account to fund someone?
What payment methods do you accept?
Can I leave a message?
What your funding pays for
- Money is an abstract unit; AI spend is even more abstract. We translate every fund into the concrete work it unlocks for the Builder — e.g. “~5 bug-fix sessions” for an engineer, “~3 newsletter issues” for a creator, “~2 weekend hacks” for a vibecoder. That's the AI Pricing Thinking Framework: tokens become a “show the math” detail, outcomes become the headline.
- No — they're honest estimates. Each deliverable has a rough per-unit token budget (input + output) that we divide your fund against at today's AI provider rates. The numbers always round DOWN so “~5 sessions” is a floor, never a stretch. The Builder receives cash, not tokens, and chooses which AI provider to spend it on.
- Yes. A Builder can write a freeform “what your funding pays for” line on their profile, or a sharper one per-project. When they do, that overrides our persona catalog and becomes the headline on checkout, the success page, and the profile block.
What does my funding actually pay for?
Are the deliverable counts exact?
Can the Builder define what $X buys for their project?
Under the hood
- Each provider publishes what they charge per million input and output tokens. The slider just divides your dollar amount against that rate for whichever model you pick — a fair illustration of how far your fund goes, not a promise of tokens you'd receive.
- Any. You're funding the Builder's AI bill, not pre-paying tokens against a specific provider. The slider lets you flip between Claude, GPT, Gemini, and the rest so you can see roughly what your dollar buys at each one — but the Builder gets cash and uses whichever provider they want.