The honest, detailed version.
If you're skeptical, you're in the right place. This page walks through every part of Fairly — what you can do in the beta, how your profile works, how the wallet pays out, where the 15% goes, and the controls you have over your data. No marketing fluff. No “trust us.” Just the mechanics.
What you can do in the beta
Upload receipts and invoices
Snap a receipt in the iPhone app, or upload receipts and invoices 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. To upload, you turn on the Purchase category first.
Take a short monthly check-in
Once a month, a quick chat asks what's changed. It pays $0.50. “Nothing's changed” is a fine answer. It may suggest updates to your profile, and nothing is saved until you review it and say yes.
Paid surveys and research sessions, as brands join
Fairly is new, so there aren't many brands yet. As they join, you'll be invited to surveys and research sessions that match what you've shared. Each one shows its reward before you start.
Pick a charity
Choose the cause your share of the annual charity pool points to. You can switch any time. More on how the pool works below.
- Share data from any category you've turned off
- Touch sensitive data unless you've explicitly enabled it
- Save a check-in suggestion to your profile without your OK
- Charge you to join or to cash out
What data you can share, and how it's used
Your profile is a set of opt-in categories. Each one defaults to off. You decide which to turn on, and any category can be toggled off again at any time. Sensitive categories need a separate, conscious step before they can be enabled.
size: ~2,800 users
match:
female, 25-34
"clean beauty interest"
distribution: aggregated
Audience size and aggregated demographics. Nothing identifying. Advertisers can run offers or surveys to the segment, but the matching happens on our side.
email: chris@…
categories_on:
demographic, lifestyle
sensitive_on:
[] (none)
wallet: $50.50
Your record exists with your email, your toggles, and your wallet. We need it to pay you. Advertisers never see this side.
How you actually earn money
Two ways to earn are live today. Two more open as brands join Fairly. The specifics — how much per survey, how long a session — vary by brand and study. Here's the structural map.
| Earning source | Status | How it credits |
|---|---|---|
| Receipts and invoicesSnap one in the iPhone app, or upload it on the web. | Live | 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. Invoices pay more for bigger purchases. Available after 1 day. |
| Monthly check-inA short chat about what's changed. | Live | $0.50 once a month when you finish it. Available right away. |
| Paid surveysBrands ask, you answer. | As brands join | Reward varies by length and complexity. Credited on completion, available in 1 day. |
| Research sessionsLonger 1:1 or focus group studies. | As brands join | Session-based reward, varies by study. Credited on completion, available immediately. |
$10.00
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.
PayPal
More options later.
$0.00
Ever. You keep 100% of what you cash out.
2 / week
Up to a monthly cap. Anti-fraud, not anti-you.
How the 15% actually works
At the end of each fiscal year, 15% of Fairly's annual profit becomes the charity pool — net revenue less what it costs to run the platform. The pool is then split across charities in proportion to the qualifying activity each user contributed and the charity each of them had selected over the year. We will publish the revenue, the costs, the pool, and the split in each annual report. In a year that closes at a loss, the pool is $0.
How the pool gets split
Sample · proportional by user choiceHow your data is protected
The architectural answer to “trust us” is: don't have to. Every consent change and wallet event writes to an audit log against your account. You can read it. You can export it. And when you delete a category, the underlying data clears — the log of that something changed stays so you can prove it.
Consent is granular and reversible
No batched “I agree to everything” toggle. Every consent action — turning a category on, turning it off — writes its own immutable row so you can see exactly what you granted and when.
Sensitive data gets extra walls
Race, religion, health, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, and detailed financial each need their own separate opt-in. 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.
Revoking deletes
When you turn a category off, the underlying profile data for that category is cleared. The audit log persists so we can prove what changed.
Download or delete anything
Settings exports a full JSON of everything you can see in the dashboard. Account deletion soft-deletes for 7 days, then cascades through your data.
See what touched your data
The Data Activity page shows every consent change and every wallet event tied to your account in chronological order. Filter by type. Export the full feed.
The questions we get most.
Common skepticism, answered honestly. The full FAQ lives on its own page if you want more.
How does Fairly make money?
Advertisers pay us a subscription, and pay to run surveys and research sessions with people who match what they're looking for. When you complete one, 100% of the advertised reward goes to you. During the beta, Fairly pays the receipt and check-in rewards itself.
At year-end, 15% of Fairly's annual profit — net revenue less the costs of running the platform — becomes the charity pool, allocated across our partner charities by user choice. The rest covers ongoing operations and Fairly itself. In a year that closes at a loss, the pool is $0.
Is the 15% coming out of my earnings?
No. Your wallet is yours. The full advertised reward for any survey or research session goes to your wallet untouched. The 15% is calculated on Fairly's annual profit — what advertisers paid us across the year, less what it cost to run the platform — not on what you earned. It's calculated and disbursed once per year, and in a year without a profit the pool is $0.
Does Fairly use inferred data about me?
Yes — alongside the data you actively share. Fairly's inference engine derives certain attributes from your behavior on the platform — for example, inferring an interest in "outdoor gear" from patterns in the receipts you upload or your survey answers. These inferred attributes can power audience segments alongside self-reported ones.
Inference only operates on data you've already consented to share through your category toggles. Turn a category off and the inferences derived from it clear too. Inferred attributes are visible in your profile, and you can dispute any of them — we'll mark anything you push back on as user-disputed and stop using it for segmenting.
What can I delete, and what stays?
The underlying data for any consent category clears the moment you turn it off. Your wallet history and the audit log of consent changes stay so you can prove what happened — but neither contains the data you opted out of.
Full account deletion soft-deletes for 7 days (so you can change your mind), then cascades through everything: profile data, inferred attributes, wallet records, audit log, account record itself. The only thing kept is a scrambled code made from your phone number and any PayPal address you cashed out to, with your name removed, so those can't be used on a new account.
How is this different from a traditional data broker?
Three structural differences. First, your data is here because you said yes to each category, not because someone scraped it. Second, advertisers see anonymized segments and aggregate counts, not your individual record. Third, when you say no — by toggling a category off or deleting your account — the underlying data actually clears, with a log to prove it.
Why should I trust you?
Don't have to. Most of the trust claims on this page are verifiable: the audit log is visible in your dashboard, the JSON export shows everything we hold against your account, and the charity pool math will be published every year alongside the disbursements, starting with our first annual report.
If anything we ship contradicts what's on this page, that's a bug. Tell us at [email protected].
Read it all? Now it's a real choice.
Ask for early access if it makes sense to you. Close the tab if it doesn't. Both are fine.