Pricing
Free to use. 1% when a sale completes.
Browsing, searching, planning and listing cost nothing, and there is no subscription. When a paid order is released, a network fee is taken from the seller's payout. The buyer pays the listed price and nothing on top. Payments run in test mode, so no fee is charged yet.
- No subscription
- No listing fee
- Default fee 1%, fixed per order
- Refunds carry no fee
In plain words
- Reading, searching, planning, having an account and listing cost nothing. There is no subscription.
- The one charge is a network fee, 1% by default, taken from the seller's side when a paid order is released. Buyers pay the listed price and nothing on top.
- Payments run in test mode. No order can be placed on reuseforge.com yet, no real money moves and no fee is charged.
What works today. Accounts, and listings of free or paid items. The files of a paid item stay locked until checkout exists. The escrow flow below runs with play money in the browser simulator and on a self-hosted node. The escrow contract is specified, not audited and not deployed. Do not send real funds anywhere.
The rate sheet
Every charge on the platform is on this list.
| Charge | Cost | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone | ||
| Browse, search and plan | $0.00 | No account needed. The planner on the home page runs in your browser. |
| Account and API tokens | $0.00 | There are no plans or tiers. Rate limits apply. On /api/v1, read calls are limited to 60 requests a minute without a token and 600 with one. Sign-in and similar endpoints have stricter abuse limits. |
| Subscription | none | There is nothing to subscribe to. |
| Sellers | ||
| List a free item | $0.00 | Free items never enter escrow, so there is no fee. |
| List a paid item | $0.00 | No listing fee. A fixed price runs from $1.00 to $1,000.00. With pay what you want you set a minimum, also up to $1,000.00. Selling needs a verified email address. |
| Network fee on a released order | 1% of item price | Taken from your payout when the order is released. Default rate. Not charged today: orders are coming soon and payments run in test mode. Rounded so your net is whole cents. |
| Buyers | ||
| Buy a paid item | listed price | You deposit exactly the sum of the listed prices. No markup, no buyer fee. Checkout is coming soon, so nothing can be bought on reuseforge.com yet. |
| Refund | $0.00 fee | A refunded order returns the whole total to you. |
| Crowdfunded builds | ||
| Pledge to a build | $0.00 fee | You pay the pledge. If the goal is missed, you are refunded. Test mode only: no real money moves. |
| Later sales of the finished item | 1% of sale price | The fee comes off first. The rest is split across revenue unit holders. Funded builds are coming soon. |
| Not ours | ||
| Blockchain network fees (gas) | set by the network | Paid to the network by whoever sends the transaction. Not collected by ReuseForge. |
The fee rate is written into each order when it is created and cannot change for that order. We may change the default for new orders; this page will change first. The escrow design caps the fee at 5% (500 basis points), also for new orders. The contract is not deployed, so until it is, the cap is a commitment on this page, not something code enforces. A self-hosted node sets its own rate, up to its own bound of 10%.
A worked example
A buyer takes two paid items from one plan. The fee is 1% of each item, taken from that seller's side.
| Deposit | Amount |
|---|---|
| Checkout kit, listed price | $15.00 |
| Starter UI, listed price | $12.00 |
| Buyer deposits into escrow | $27.00 |
| On release | |
| Seller of Checkout kit receives | $14.85 |
| Seller of Starter UI receives | $11.88 |
| Network fee | $0.27 |
| Total paid out | $27.00 |
What happens to the money
The fee exists only when a seller is paid. If the money goes back to the buyer, nobody pays a fee. These are the rules of the simulator and the escrow design, in test mode: no real money moves under them yet.
| What happens | Sellers receive | Buyer gets back | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer accepts the delivery | Price minus fee | Nothing | 1% |
| Acceptance window ends in silence (7 days by default) | Price minus fee | Nothing | 1% |
| A seller misses the delivery deadline (7 days by default) | Nothing | The whole total | none |
| Dispute, arbiter releases | Price minus fee | Nothing | 1% |
| Dispute, arbiter refunds | Nothing | The whole total | none |
| Buyer cancels before paying | Nothing | Nothing was paid | none |
One late seller refunds the whole basket, because delivery is all or nothing across an order. Buy from sellers in separate orders if you want them to be independent. See acceptance window and deadlines.
Crowdfunded builds
When a build is funded by many backers, the fee comes off a sale first and the remainder is split by revenue units. Developers hold at most 50% of the units.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Buyer pays | $40.00 |
| Network fee (1%) | $0.40 |
| Left to split | $39.60 |
| Backers, 70% of units | $27.72 |
| Developers, 30% of units | $11.88 |
- No fee on pledges. Backers pay the pledge. If the goal is missed before the deadline, every backer is refunded. Funded builds are coming soon on reuseforge.com and run in test mode on a node.
- Planned: a fee on milestone payouts. The contract design charges a fee at the platform rate, with the same 5% cap, when a milestone is paid to developers. That is not live and will be shown on the project before you pledge.
- Rounding. Shares are computed in cents and any remainder goes to the largest holder, so the parts always add up.
- No promised return. Units entitle you to a share of future sales, which may be zero. Revenue units that people can trade may be regulated as securities. This is not investment advice. See the Terms.
Payment rails and test mode
Prices are in US dollars, and there are no card payments. A rail decides how a deposit is made and checked. The escrow rules are the same on all of them.
| Rail | Status | Who holds the money |
|---|---|---|
Simulated (mock) | Works | Nobody. Balances are numbers. This is test mode, in the simulator and on a self-hosted node. |
| USDC on Base | Partial | Planned: the escrow contract, once it is audited and deployed. Neither has happened. The design starts on test networks, and mainnet sits behind an explicit switch that is off. |
| USDT on Ethereum | Partial | Same as USDC. |
| Bitcoin | Link only | Bitcoin cannot hold a conditional payment, so this rail would be custodial: the platform holds the funds at a deposit address and payouts are signed outside the web service. |
Before real funds, we need a built and independently audited escrow contract, deployed and wired to the service, checkout and order pages on the hosted app, a dispute process with a deadline, and legal review of payments and of crowdfunded units. We will announce each step here and on the Security page. Until then, treat every dollar amount as play money.
Taxes: sellers are responsible for tax on what they earn. We will say how sales tax and VAT are handled before real payments start.
Questions about cost
Why is there a fee at all?
Running escrow, hosting and dispute handling costs money. A fee only when a sale completes means free users and free items pay nothing, and the platform earns only when sellers do.
Can the fee change?
For new orders, yes, within the 5% cap of the escrow design. For an existing order, no: the rate is recorded in the order when it is created. We will change this page before a new default takes effect.
Does the buyer ever pay more than the listed price?
Not to us. The buyer deposits exactly the sum of the listed prices. On a blockchain rail the buyer also pays the network's own gas for the deposit transaction.
Can I run my own node and set my own fee?
Yes. The software is MIT licensed. A self-hosted node sets its own rate with REPOBLOCK_FEE_BPS, from zero to 1000 basis points (10%), and its own fee address. This page covers the hosted service only.
Is anything free for sellers?
Listing is free, and free items have no fee at all. Only a released paid order pays the network fee.
Is there a limit on what I can charge?
Yes, for now. A fixed price is at least $1.00, and no price or pay-what-you-want minimum can be above $1,000.00. Paid listings need a verified email address.
See it work with play money
Plan a goal, pay into a simulated escrow and release it in your browser. Nothing real is charged and nothing is sent to a server.