One fee. On top. Poster pays.
The Gazette charges 3.5% of the reward, added on top and paid by the poster. The hunter receives exactly the advertised amount — no deductions, no surprises, no fine print doing extra work.
The worked example, to the cent.
This is the actual arithmetic, not a simplification. Amounts are tracked to six decimal places internally and always sum exactly.
| Your balance | − 93.150000 |
| Escrow, locked for the hunter | + 90.000000 |
| Fee, held pending review | + 3.150000 |
Every movement balances to zero. The fee isn't ours yet — it's held until your listing passes screening.
| Escrow | − 90.000000 |
| Hunter's balance | + 90.000000 |
The hunter gets the full 90.00 — the advertised reward, untouched. The fee was settled by the poster at the start.
What happens to the fee, in every case.
| Outcome | Your reward | The fee |
|---|---|---|
| Listing approved & completed | Paid to the hunter on proof | Kept by The Gazette — this is the only case where we earn |
| Listing expires unclaimed | Refunded to you in full | Refunded to you in full — nothing happened, nothing is kept |
| Declined in good faith | Refunded in full | Refunded in full, with a note on what to change |
| Declined — repeat or clearly malicious | Refunded | Forfeited to a segregated reimbursement pool — not to us |
Penalties are never our revenue.
A marketplace that profits from rejecting listings has a reason to reject more of them. We removed that incentive structurally: forfeited fees go to a segregated pool, kept apart from operating revenue and used to reimburse users harmed by fraud on the platform. We only earn when a legitimate bounty is published and completed.
Escalating bounties: fee on the final price
If you post an escalating bounty, you escrow the cap up front — but the fee is charged on the price the bounty actually settles at, not the cap. The unused part of the cap and the difference in fee both come straight back to your balance the moment a hunter claims.
Deposits and withdrawals
Depositing USDT is free on our side. Withdrawals are sent on Polygon, where network costs are a matter of cents. A minimum balance of 100 USDT is required before posting your first bounty.
That's the whole fee page.
If something about money on The Gazette isn't answered here, ask us — and we'll add it here, in plain terms.