PUBLISHERS
Publisher revenue rules
How an expert library earns a share of platform revenue, which retrievals do not count, and when the money can be used. Prices and rates on this page are read from the plan versions in force.
In one sentence
Each month the platform sets aside 20% of its net revenue and spreads it evenly over every billed retrieval that month. When someone else retrieves from your expert library, that retrieval’s share is credited to you; earnings settle monthly and can be redeemed as calls 45 days later.
Which retrievals earn
A retrieval credits the library’s owner only when all of these hold:
- The library is public, published and carries the expert tag (apply on the library page; an administrator approves).
- The owner workspace is on a paid plan at the moment of the retrieval. Earning stops when the subscription lapses and resumes on renewal.
- The library’s source rights are verified: GitHub, website and llms.txt sources need an approved claim.
- The retrieval comes from a signed-in workspace and reads content through
query-docs. Anonymous trials andresolve-library-id, which only finds libraries, do not count. - The caller is neither the owner nor a workspace related to the owner (see the abuse rules below).
- The caller has not yet reached 200 earning retrievals of this library today.
How the amount is computed
After each month (a UTC calendar month) ends, the platform closes the period and settles it with this formula:
Your monthly earnings = platform net revenue × 20% × your library’s counted retrievals ÷ all billed retrievals on the platform
- Net revenue is the subscription and call-pack money actually collected that month, refunds already deducted.
- The denominator is every billed retrieval on the platform, including those of platform and private libraries. Their share of revenue stays out of the pool, so only the part spent on expert libraries is shared. Calls spent building libraries are not in the denominator.
- The share rate comes from the caller’s plan version and is frozen at the retrieval; Pro is currently 20%. A later change does not touch retrievals already made.
- Allocation is linear in retrievals and never weighted by trust or evaluation scores; scores only decide whether a library can get the expert tag.
- Amounts are rounded down to the cent.
So a retrieval has no fixed price: the fewer retrievals the platform serves, the more each one is worth.
Worked examples
Computed with the current Pro plan: $10.00 / month, 5,000 retrievals included, 20% share rate. Platform sizes are hypothetical.
Example 1: someone retrieves from your library once
Assume every Pro subscriber uses exactly their monthly allowance.
About $0.0004 per retrieval, so roughly 2,500 retrievals make $1. Real subscribers rarely use their whole allowance, which shrinks the denominator and makes each retrieval worth more, as example 2 shows.
Example 2: one month
Assume the platform has 100 Pro subscribers this month, $1000.00 of net revenue. On average they use half their allowance, 250,000 billed retrievals in all, and 25,000 of them are other workspaces retrieving from your expert library, all qualifying.
$20.00 this month, $0.0008 per retrieval: more than example 1, because the denominator is half the full-usage one.
Example 3: one reader can only earn you so much
One reader retrieves from your library 500 times in a day.
That reader can earn you at most 200 retrievals’ worth a day; the count restarts at 00:00 UTC.
Example 4: retrieving your own library from another workspace
You retrieve from your own library 1,000 times out of another workspace that is paid for by the same payment account (or where you are owner or admin on both sides).
You earn $0, and you paid for those 1,000 retrievals yourself.
Example 5: redeeming example 2 as calls
Example 2’s period closes on November 3, 2026 and settles at $20.00.
Press “Redeem as calls” on the revenue page and 10,000 calls land on this workspace. They never expire and are spent after the plan allowance.
When the money can be used
- 1
Accrual
Each qualifying retrieval records an earning event, with no amount yet; the revenue page shows this period’s counted retrievals.
- 2
Close
After the period ends the platform closes it and computes the amounts with the formula above. A closed period never changes.
- 3
Hold for 45 days
The window for refunds and chargebacks. During it the amount shows as held.
- 4
Redeem as calls
After the hold, a workspace owner or admin can turn all settled earnings into Additional Calls at once. There is no minimum: any positive amount buys at least one call.
- 5
Or withdraw to PayPal
Once what is past its hold reaches $20.00, request a payout from the revenue page with your PayPal email; the platform sends it by hand and records the PayPal transaction id. Below $20.00 it keeps accruing. Only your PayPal email is recorded — never card or bank numbers.
Abuse rules
Once sharing pays, inflating traffic pays too. These retrievals are billed as usual but earn nothing:
- Retrieving your own library.
- Retrieving from a related workspace: both sides have used the same payment account, or one person is owner or admin of both. Checked at retrieval and again, against the links as they stand, when the month closes.
- A reader’s retrievals of one library beyond 200 in a day.
- Anonymous trials, and
resolve-library-id, which finds libraries without reading them. - Libraries whose sources have not passed a claim.
Earnings already recorded are voided or withheld when:
- The expert tag is revoked: earnings of every period not yet closed are voided.
- The library is suspended: that period’s earnings void at close; closed periods are not reopened.
- While the library is suspended or withdrawn, settled earnings cannot be redeemed; they become redeemable again once it is republished.
- Refunds come straight off the month’s net revenue, shrinking the pool; the hold exists for exactly this.
What earnings never affect
- Ranking: earnings data never enters recall, ranking or candidate generation, so what readers see has nothing to do with who earns what.
- What readers pay: the share is cut from revenue the platform already has; callers are never charged extra.