Common questions.
Honest answers.

Fairly is a consent-first consumer data marketplace. Users opt in to sharing specific categories of data — demographic, lifestyle, financial, and so on — get paid for that data through several earning surfaces, and direct a share of Fairly's annual profit toward a charity of their choice. Advertisers get access to anonymized audience segments built from consented data.

The model is structurally different from traditional ad-tech: every consent is granular and reversible, the user's wallet receives the full advertised reward (no platform cut from earnings), and the 15% charity commitment comes from Fairly's annual profit, not from user payouts.

Yes. There's no fee to create an account, no fee to participate, and no fee to cash out. Users keep 100% of the advertised reward for everything they earn.

Today: the iPhone app (in private beta) and the Fairly website, which works in any modern browser on a computer or phone.

Only data users actively consent to. The profile is a set of opt-in categories — demographic, lifestyle, financial, and purchases from the receipts and invoices you upload — plus several sensitive categories that have their own separate opt-in (race, religion, health, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, detailed financial).

Each category defaults to off. Users can see what's in each category in their dashboard, and turning any category off clears the underlying data.

We don't sell raw user data to anyone. What we sell to advertisers are audience segments — anonymized, aggregated counts of users matching specific criteria. Matching happens on our side; the advertiser sees segment size and aggregated demographics, not individual records.

Every category in the profile has its own toggle, defaulting to off. Sensitive categories require a separate, conscious opt-in — there's no "agree to everything" shortcut. Every consent change writes its own row to the user's audit log so they can see exactly what was turned on, when, and what's currently active.

Sensitive details are only used to match you when you've turned on sharing for that category. Advertisers never see your individual answers, and access to them is logged.

Yes — and we want to be straightforward about it. Beyond what's actively shared, we derive certain attributes from user behavior on the platform (for example, inferring an interest in outdoor gear from receipts you've uploaded). Inferred attributes can be used in audience segments alongside self-reported ones.

Inference only operates on data already consented to — turning a category off clears the inferences derived from it. Inferred attributes are visible in the profile, and users can dispute any of them. Disputed attributes stop being used for segmenting.

Two ways. First, turning a category off in the dashboard clears the underlying data for that category immediately, with the audit log retaining a record that the change happened. Second, full account deletion soft-deletes for 7 days (so users can change their mind), then cascades through profile data, inferred attributes, wallet records, and the audit log itself. The only thing kept is a scrambled code made from the user's phone number and any PayPal address they cashed out to, with their name removed, so those can't be used on a new account.

Two ways today, and two more as brands join:

• Receipts and invoices — snap or upload them in the iPhone app or on the web. 12¢ per receipt for up to 15 a month, plus a one-time 50¢ bonus for your first receipt and $1.00 each month you reach 15.
• The monthly check-in — a short chat once a month that pays $0.50
• Paid surveys matched to your profile, as brands join
• Research sessions — longer 1:1 or focus-group studies, as brands join

No. The 15% is calculated on Fairly's annual profit — what advertisers pay us across the year, less what it costs to run the platform — not on what users earn. Users keep 100% of the advertised reward for every survey and research session, and every receipt and check-in reward.

$10. Once your available balance reaches $10, your email and phone are verified, and your account is 30 days old, the cash-out button unlocks. During the beta, cash-outs over $25 in total get a quick review before they’re sent.

None. No sign-up fee, no membership fee, no withdrawal fee. The wallet pays out the full available balance with nothing skimmed.

Some rewards wait out a short clearance window before you can cash them out, so we can catch duplicate or mistaken uploads. Once it passes, the reward moves from pending to available.

Receipt and survey rewards clear in about a day. The monthly check-in reward, your first-receipt bonus, and research-session payments are available right away.

At the end of each fiscal year we take Fairly's net revenue, subtract what it cost to run the platform, and 15% of what remains becomes the annual charity pool. The pool is then split across charities proportionally — weighted by the qualifying activity each user contributed and the charity each of them had selected over the year, not by simple user counts. We publish the annual report with the revenue, the costs, the pool, and the per-charity split. If the year closed at a loss, the pool is $0 and the report says so.

Because any number we showed you during the year would be a guess. The pool depends on Fairly's profit for the full year, and profit isn't known until the year closes — so a running per-user figure would be quoting you a share of a total that doesn't exist yet, and it would be wrong in any year we don't turn a profit.

Your dashboard shows the charity you picked, which is the part you control. The amounts land in the annual report, where they can be checked against the same revenue and cost figures we used to compute them.

Yes, any time, from the dashboard. The year-end split follows whichever nonprofit you had selected across each part of the year, so switching in July does not retroactively move the first half of the year.

Annually. After the fiscal year closes, we will calculate the pool, publish the report, and send each nonprofit a single annual disbursement. The first year to close is fiscal year 2026.

We will publish an annual impact report at joinfairly.com/impact/[year] with the net revenue, the operating costs, the resulting pool, and what each nonprofit received — so the 15% can be checked against the same figures we used. The first one covers fiscal year 2026, and past years will stay accessible.

Don't have to. Most of the trust claims on this site are verifiable independently: the audit log is visible in your dashboard, consent records are exportable as JSON, and the charity pool math will be published openly each year, starting with our first annual report.

If anything in the product contradicts what we say on this site, we treat that as a bug. Tell us at [email protected].

Three structural differences. First, user data is here because they said yes to each category, not because someone scraped it. Second, advertisers see anonymized segments and aggregate counts, not individual records. Third, when a user says no — by toggling a category off or deleting their account — the underlying data clears, with a log to prove it.

Fairly asks before it uses each kind of data, lets you turn any category off at any time, and pays wallet credits you can cash out to PayPal. Receipts, the monthly check-in, and — as brands join — surveys and research sessions all add to the same wallet. The 15% charity commitment comes from Fairly's profit rather than user earnings.

Anonymized audience segments built from consented user data, plus surfaces to deploy sponsored offers, paid surveys, and research sessions. Targeting happens on our side against verified, opt-in attributes. Advertisers pay Fairly; the agreed reward is shared with users when they engage.

Advertisers build segments using demographic, behavioral, and self-reported attributes — with the option to include inferred attributes that carry confidence indicators. The matching is performed on Fairly’s side; the advertiser sees audience size and aggregated distribution, not individual users.

Self-reported attributes are cross-checked against behavioral signals where possible (for example, declared brand affinities cross-checked against purchase history on supported retailers). Inferred attributes are derived from observed activity. Every targeting attribute carries a confidence indicator visible in the segment builder.

Reach out at [email protected] and we'll walk through the platform, segment-building, and pricing. There's a detailed advertiser overview at joinfairly.com/advertisers.