Payment Schedules (legacy)
Please note: legacy incentives are ending effective June 15, 2023.
The final reconciliation and payout cycle under the legacy program will run on the timeline described below.
FAQ
Why was this change made?
Since its creation in 2017, hCaptcha has grown to become a core security component of many online services. Our Pro and Enterprise paid offerings are widely adopted and have become our primary focus.
Thus, while we will continue to provide our free tier of service with a generous usage quota, the earnings program no longer aligns with most people's needs or expectations of the service.
What is the impact on existing free (Publisher) accounts?
There is no impact to existing free (Publisher) accounts other than the fact that they will no longer accrue incentives. All services will continue working unchanged.
The dashboard will be updated on June 15, 2023 to show request counts rather than earnings data.
hCaptcha Payouts ran quarterly on a 60 day trailing basis. To illustrate what this means, please see the table below.
††††† This will be the final payout under the program, after which all accounts will no longer be eligible for earnings.
†††† Enhanced review procedures have been put in place to ensure compliance with new US and EU sanctions. This will cause some payouts to be delayed when flagged for review. Please reply punctually to any system emails requesting action in order to reduce processing times. Please also note that when the last day of the Payout Date window falls on a weekend, this period will be extended to include the following week.
††† As Jan 15th falls on a weekend and Monday is a national holiday, this payout cycle will end on Jan 21st instead.
†† From September 2021, reconciliations and payouts now run over an approximately 30 day period rather than a single day, in order to simplify operational constraints related to growth in the service.
† Some June 2021 reconciliations and payouts will run in the following week due to delays in verification of final calculations during the reconciliation window.
Payouts typically run throughout the day on the Payout Date, and are in general completed by midnight Pacific time. If an account has been flagged for review, it may take up to five additional business days to release a payment.
As a reminder, only accurate human traffic is eligible for payouts. You can see more details on this in our FAQ, linked below. Available balance must also meet a minimum threshold in order to be eligible for payout, currently 10 HMT.
Real-time estimates do not reflect final accuracy or humanity, and thus your final earnings may vary substantially up or down from numbers shown in the Dashboard prior to your first reconciliation.
After each reconciliation, your per-sitekey estimates will be updated and the accuracy of future predictions should increase, unless your site has a material change in user behavior.
What does Reconciliation mean?
Reconciliation is the process whereby traffic is analyzed after the fact to verify its humanity and accuracy, once all data from all reporting sites is in. You can read more details in our FAQ as well as our blog posts, e.g. How hCaptcha Calculates Rewards.
What traffic is eligible for earnings?
As of June 15, 2023, no hCaptcha traffic is eligible for earnings.
Previously:
Valid traffic that is eligible will generally be marked with the `credit: true` flag in siteverify. This is subject to the limitations described in our Terms.