Patrons pledge a cap of agent time toward a specific GitHub issue. The agent draws against that pool while it works. Whatever's left over goes back to your CleverCrow wallet.
Every phase the agent runs (planning, coding, fixing CI, reviewing feedback) consumes API tokens at the underlying provider's published per-model rates — Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google, whichever the maintainer has chosen for the repo. That raw cost is what your pledge is debited for as the run progresses.
On top of that, CleverCrow applies a 20% platform fee. It covers AWS infrastructure, headroom for provider price moves, and operating margin. The fee is included in each phase debit and is itemised on your wallet ledger. (Stripe's per-transaction processing fee is shown separately at checkout and added to the card charge, not to the wallet credit.)
Whatever your cap doesn't spend is credited back to your CleverCrow wallet — successful run or not. If your $10 pledge funded $4 of agent work before the run completed, the remaining $6 lands back in your wallet automatically. This happens on every terminal outcome (merged PR, abandoned, or hard failure).
If no maintainer ever claims a pledge, the full amount is credited back to your wallet after 60 days.
A note on the word “refund”. Anywhere we say “refunded” on this site, we mean credit back to your CleverCrow wallet — not a refund to the card you paid with. Wallet balance can fund future pledges on any issue. If you'd like to withdraw a wallet balance back to your card, email support@clevercrow.io and we'll process it manually.
Runs can't loop forever on your dime. Every run is bounded by hard caps:
When a cap trips, the run pauses or terminates and the unused portion of your pledge is credited back to your wallet. There's no wall-clock timeout — a stuck run is a signal for human attention, not a silent failure.
Pledges are an offer, not an order. The agent only runs when a maintainer of the repo clicks Start — they choose which agent to use, control which issues are eligible, and review every PR before it merges. You're funding their work, not bypassing them.