The pyramid, stood on its head.
Reading tips, browsing loadouts and following any build is free for everyone, forever. Membership is about who pays whom: newcomers pay for guidance, contributors pay nothing, and the people whose setups everyone copies get invited and paid. The more you give, the less it costs, until it pays you.
Tier ≠ path. Your path (Architect or Pilot) is what you do here. Your tier (Initiate, Operator, Architect) is who pays whom. Your level (Asteroid to Supercluster) is how far your setup has gone. Three separate axes: change your path in Settings, earn your tier by publishing, measure your level at /level. Choose a path.
Tiers
Initiate
$15 / monthYou are new. You want a working setup this month, not a reading list.
How you get in: Paid membership. Open to anyone.
- A guide picks a build for you and walks you through it
- Setup help when a step will not work on your machine
- Office hours with Operators and Architects
- Priority answers on your build thread
- Drops to free the day you publish a build
Operator
FreeYou run a setup you are not embarrassed by, and you wrote it down.
How you get in: Publish a loadout with a build guide someone else can follow.
- Everything Initiates get, for free
- Your loadout in the gallery, your tips in the feed
- Operator badge on your profile and cards
- Vote on which builds get featured
- Fork other builds and keep the credit trail
Architect
We pay youPeople copy your build. Newcomers cite your tips. You are why they came.
How you get in: Invite only. We come to you.
- Featured as a Creator's Build on the home page
- Sponsored gear and early hardware for your loadout
- A share of Initiate revenue from builds you author
- Paid office hours and workshops
- A say in where softcyb goes next
| What | Initiate | Operator | Architect | Visitor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read tips, browse loadouts, follow any build | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Publish a loadout and tips | Included | Included | Included | — |
| Guided onboarding and setup help | Included | Included | Included | — |
| Vote on featured builds | — | Included | Included | — |
| Featured as a Creator's Build | — | — | Included | — |
| Sponsored gear, revenue share, paid office hours | — | — | Included | — |
| Monthly price | $15 / month | Free | We pay you | Free |
A monthly subscription through Stripe Checkout. You get a guide, setup help and office hours until the day you publish a build — then it stops.
Price:$15 / month
- Why do beginners pay and experts don't?
- Because the beginner is buying time from the expert, and the expert is giving it. Charging the person who already wrote a guide would be charging them for their own work.
- How do I stop paying?
- Publish a build someone else can follow. The day it goes live you are an Operator and the invoice stops. Most people get there in a month or two.
- How do I become an Architect?
- You don't apply. When enough people finish your build and cite your tips, we come to you with a sponsorship and a revenue share. The Creator's Build on the home page is what that looks like.
- Is any of this real yet?
- The structure is. The prices, billing and accounts are not — they arrive with the database. Until then everything on the site is free and the form above just says hello.