Plain Money, Stated Up Front.
Every fee we charge is on this page. No listing fees, no carry, no spread on escrowed capital, and nothing that only appears at signature.
Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai
Three Ways In
Pick the Side of the Table You Sit On
Nobody pays to be listed and nobody pays to look. You pay when something real happens: a review is delivered, or a round funds.
Founders
Get Scored, Then Get Funded
$180
for a Single Expert Assessment, or $450 for the investor-grade Blind Double, plus a 1% success fee only when a round funds
- Company profile and assessment ledger, free forever
- Written expert rationale on every dimension
- Milestone escrow with no fee on held capital
- Investor introductions based on fit and score
- Listing fees
- Monthly subscription
- Carry on your round
Investors
Most UsedDiligence Included, Carry Never
2.5%
on capital you actually deploy through FounderGrade, charged at escrow funding
- Full company index, screening and watchlists, free
- Every expert review and rationale on scored companies
- Milestone escrow with 2-of-3 multisig release
- Portfolio and milestone tracking after close
- Carried interest
- Subscription
- Placement or listing fees
Accelerators
Run Your Cohort on Rails
From $199
per month per organisation, billed monthly, cancel any time
- Cohort management, applications and curriculum
- Cohort-wide scoring and benchmark reporting
- Demo day tooling and investor network access
- White-label surfaces on Growth and above
- Setup fees
- Per-founder charges
- Long-term contract
Assessment Products
Three Assessments, Priced Above What They Cost
An assessment pays real experts real money. Each product below is priced as expert cost plus the service fee, so the arithmetic is visible rather than implied.
Founders, entry level
Single Expert Assessment
From $180
One calibrated expert scores all eight dimensions and writes the rationale. The fastest route to a credible, evidenced score.
- Priced at the expert's own rate plus the service fee
- The expert receives 100% of their listed rate
- Recorded permanently in your assessment ledger
- Calibrated expert
- $180 to $480
- Senior expert
- $360 to $960
- Lead expert
- $720 to $1,800
Investor grade
Blind Double Assessment
From $450
Two independent experts score you blind, without seeing your identity, and a tie-break reviewer is funded in advance for material disagreement.
- Two expert rates, both paid in full
- Tie-break reserve of half an expert rate, held before you start
- The product investors ask for by name
- Calibrated expert
- $450 to $1,200
- Senior expert
- $900 to $2,400
- Lead expert
- $1,800 to $4,500
Accelerators and funds
Programme-Commissioned Assessment
From $165 per company
An accelerator, fund or programme commissions and pays for the assessment on its cohort. The founder is not the customer, which removes the conflict entirely.
- Reduced 10% service fee at 10 companies or more
- From $1,650 for a cohort of 10
- Billed to the programme, never to the founder
- Calibrated expert
- $165 to $440
- Senior expert
- $330 to $880
- Lead expert
- $660 to $1,650
Worked Example
Single Expert Assessment, Calibrated Expert at $150
- Expert rate, paid in full
- $150
- Service fee, 20%
- $30
- Total
- $180
Expert cost of $150, fully covered before we keep anything.
Worked Example
Blind Double Assessment, Two Calibrated Experts at $150
- Two expert rates, both paid in full
- $300
- Tie-break reserve, half an expert rate
- $75
- Service fee, 20%
- $75
- Total
- $450
Expert cost of $300 plus a $75 tie-break reserve, fully covered before we keep anything.
Worked Example
Programme-Commissioned Assessment, Calibrated Expert at $150
- Expert rate, paid in full
- $150
- Service fee, 10% at cohort volume
- $15
- Total
- $165
Expert cost of $150, fully covered before we keep anything.
Expert Compensation
Experts Keep 100% of Their Rate
We do not take a cut of expert earnings. Experts set their own price, receive all of it, and we add our service fee on top so the founder can see exactly who is paid what.
Worked Example
A Founder Books a Senior Expert at $400
Expert Rate
$400
Set by the expert
Service Fee
$80
20% added on top
Founder Pays
$480
Quoted before you commit
The expert receives $400, which is the full rate they listed. Zero is deducted from the expert. Our 20% covers matching, blind-review integrity, escrow of the engagement fee and dispute handling.
Directory Rate Bands
What calibrated experts typically list per engagement.
- Calibrated
- $150 to $400
- Senior
- $300 to $800
- Lead
- $600 to $1500
No Assessment Is Sold Below Cost
Every price on this page is derived from the expert rate it pays, plus the service fee. A two-expert product costs at least two expert rates. We would rather charge that openly than subsidise it and quietly cut reviewer pay.
- Experts are paid their full listed rate on every product
- The tie-break reviewer is funded before the work starts, not afterwards
- A programme-commissioned assessment is billed to the programme, never the founder
For Grant Programmes and Funds
Programme Pricing
Three lines, nothing else. You pay per milestone verified, per team screened at entry, and an annual fee for the console and the public transparency page. Experts receive 100% of their listed rate in every line.
Per Milestone Verified
An independent expert examines the evidence against the milestone as defined and records a written finding.
- Standard Verification
- $275
- Technical Verification
- $495
- Deep Technical Verification
- $880
Document and evidence review against a defined milestone. Expert receives $250, service fee $25 at 10%.
Code, data or integration inspection with a written finding. Expert receives $450, service fee $45 at 10%.
Hands-on replication, audit-grade testing and a full report. Expert receives $800, service fee $80 at 10%.
Annual Platform Fee
Console, verification queue, disbursement controls, aggregate reporting and the public transparency page.
- Pilotup to 15 funded teams
- $6,000 / year
- Programmeup to 50 funded teams
- $18,000 / year
- Ecosystemup to 150 funded teams
- $42,000 / year
- Foundation150+ funded teams
- On scope
One cohort, full console, public transparency page.
Unlimited cohorts, integrity checks, exportable reporting.
Multi-team access, API export, custom verification standards.
Above 150 funded teams, priced on scope.
Cohort screening is a Programme-Commissioned Assessment, from $165 per company at the reduced 10% service fee.
Worked Example
A Cohort of 20 Teams, Four Tranches Each
- 80 milestone verifications at $275 each
- $22,000
- 20 entry assessments at $165 each
- $3,300
- Annual platform fee, Programme tier
- $18,000
- Total for the year
- $43,300
That is $2,165 per funded team for the full year, covering every tranche decision. Set it against the capital that cohort disburses.
We Take Nothing from Capital We Hold
Escrowed capital sits in a milestone-gated smart contract under 2-of-3 multisig. No interest, no spread, no rehypothecation. The only money that moves is the tranche a verified milestone releases.
How Escrow WorksThe Full Matrix
Everything We Charge, in One Table
If a fee is not on this table, it does not exist. That includes anything that would otherwise surface at signature.
Create an account and profile
- founder
- Free
- investor
- Free
- accelerator
- Included
Browse scored companies
- founder
- Free
- investor
- Free
- accelerator
- Included
Single Expert Assessment
- founder
- From $180
- investor
- Included
- accelerator
- From $165 per company
Blind Double Assessment
- founder
- From $450
- investor
- Included
- accelerator
- Cohort rate
Directory expert, chosen by you
- founder
- Expert rate + 20%
- investor
- -
- accelerator
- Expert rate + 20%
Milestone escrow, capital held
- founder
- No fee
- investor
- No fee
- accelerator
- No fee
Success fee when a round funds
- founder
- 1%
- investor
- 2.5%
- accelerator
- None
Carried interest
- founder
- None
- investor
- None
- accelerator
- None
Monthly subscription
- founder
- None
- investor
- None
- accelerator
- $199/month
How That Compares
Publicly listed fee structures for the closest comparable platforms, as stated on their own pricing pages. Structures differ, so read these as context rather than a like for like ranking.
Republic
Around 6% plus 2% of securities
Wefunder
Around 7.5%
AngelList
SPV setup fees plus carry
FounderGrade
2.5% investor fee, 1% founder success fee, no carry
Where We Operate
One Jurisdiction, Stated Plainly
FounderGrade operates from DIFC in Dubai and is pursuing a DFSA Innovation Testing Licence. Fees, escrow terms and dispute handling are all governed under that framework.
- Fees are quoted and settled in USD
- Escrow terms are disclosed before any capital moves
- Disputes route to an independent reviewer, not to us
Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai
Score Integrity
You Cannot Shop for a Better Score
Every completed assessment is recorded permanently, whatever it says. Founders decide which scores to reveal. They never decide whether an assessment shows up.
The Conflict Everyone Ignores
Conventional ratings are paid for by the thing being rated. That is the issuer-pays model, and it is what produced ratings inflation at the credit rating agencies. If the subject can also bury a poor result, every published score is good by construction and tells you nothing.
What a Founder Controls
A founder chooses which assessment scores to reveal. That is the only lever. A founder can never delete an assessment record, and can never hide that an assessment happened. The count, the date and the rubric version are permanent and public.
Why That Ends Score Shopping
Ordering assessments until one comes back flattering does not work when the ledger shows three completed and one shared. Non-disclosure becomes its own signal, so nobody has to be forced to publish a bad number for the number to mean something.
What an Investor Sees
3 Assessments Completed, 1 Shared, Most Recent March 2026
The value of a sealed assessment is never revealed, only that it exists and when it happened. Illustrative example of the ledger format.
And the Strongest Assessments Are Not Bought by the Founder
A programme-commissioned assessment is paid for by the accelerator, fund or programme rather than the company being assessed. That inverts the conflict rather than merely disclosing it, and it is why those assessments carry more weight in the ledger.
See How Assessments Are PricedQuestions
Fee Questions, Answered Directly
Get Started
No Card, No Listing Fee, No Catch
Create a profile and see your first score path in minutes. You only pay when a review is delivered or a round funds.
Pursuing DFSA Innovation Testing Licence · DIFC, Dubai