StartBounty
StartBounty funds GitHub issues. Comment @startbounty on any issue (or paste the link at startbounty.io/new), set an amount, and anyone else can add to the pot. Funds hold until someone ships a fix and it gets merged, then they get paid.
It's a marketplace with three sides: companies and maintainers delegate work and reward help without hiring; users fund the fixes and features they actually want; developers earn by solving real, funded issues on their own schedule. Dollar-voted priorities mean the most-needed issues get solved even when they'd never make a roadmap.
How it works
Fund an issue. Comment @startbounty and follow the bot's link, or paste the issue URL at startbounty.io/new. Set your amount; anyone can stack more on top.
Hunt a bounty. Browse startbounty.io/bounties, solve it, open a PR with /claim {issue_id}. Once merged, collect at startbounty.io/collect.
We're Looking for Sponsors
Every dollar on StartBounty is going somewhere developers care about, which makes it a distribution channel, not just a payment rail. It puts your brand behind work developers actually care about. Instead of buying impressions, you fund real open-source issues getting solved, reaching an audience of engaged maintainers and contributors at the moment they’re actively building software.
A sponsor pool makes this possible by routing your budget across both high-visibility projects and under-funded but critical infrastructure. Rather than betting everything on a single grant, your sponsorship creates measurable impact across the ecosystem while your brand appears alongside issues being solved and throughout the platform.
It’s cheaper and more measurable than most developer-marketing spend: you can point to specific issues closed, specific projects kept alive, funded by your budget. More importantly, it positions your company as a genuine supporter of open source rather than another brand buying visibility. By funding work that developers depend on, you earn trust and goodwill naturally—showing that you care about the ecosystem, not just about getting your logo in front of it.
For maintainers and the ecosystem, it means real money reaching the unglamorous fixes that keep FOSS running, not just the popular repos that would get attention anyway.