Pay to reveal, the other way a sealed post opens

Pay to reveal is the sealed-post mode with no crowd in it: one price, paid per person, for a payload that stays private. Most of this series describes the collective version, where a crowd puts up a goal and the payload opens for everybody at once. That mode is the more interesting mechanism and it is not the more common need. Plenty of posts do not want a crowd. They want a price.

What is a pay-to-reveal post?

You write the post, mark the parts that are the payoff, an image, a clip, an audio track or the text that gives it away, and set one number. Everyone sees the tease. Anyone who pays the price sees what is underneath, for themselves, immediately. Everyone who does not, does not.

Three things are missing compared to the crowdfund, and each absence is the point:

• No goal. Nothing has to be reached. The tenth buyer changes nothing for the first nine, and the first buyer did not need anyone else to show up.
• No deadline. A reveal post stays open indefinitely, which means it keeps earning long after it has scrolled out of the feed.
• No bond pool. There is no failure state to insure against, so there is nothing for a bonder to stand behind.

And one thing is added that the crowdfund does not have: the payload stays private. It is delivered to the people who paid and it does not join the public post, which is the whole reason to pick this mode.

How does it differ from crowdfunding a sealed post?

The cleanest way to hold the difference is to ask what the money is buying.

Backing a crowdfunded sealed post buys an outcome for everyone. You are paying toward a threshold, your money is only a hold until that threshold is crossed, and what you get if it is crossed is a post that is public for the entire network, including the people who paid nothing. That is why it can carry a bonus: there is a failure state worth insuring, and the failure state is collective.

Paying to reveal buys access for you. There is no threshold to cross, so there is nothing to hold your money against; the charge settles and the post opens on the spot. There is no failure, so there is no bonus and no bonder. And nothing about your purchase changes what anyone else sees.

A post is one or the other, decided when it is sealed, and the terms cannot change afterwards. Both modes share everything else: what gets hidden is chosen the same way, both surface the same panel on the post, and either kind can be posted anonymously, with the real creator kept privately on the money spine so payouts still reach them.

Is a reveal a hold or a charge?

A charge. This is the one place where the two modes feel different under your thumb, and the reason is structural rather than a preference.

Backing and bonding place holds because their outcomes are decided later: the money has to wait for a deadline before anyone knows which side should pay. A reveal has no later. You are the only participant, and the moment you pay, the question is settled. So paying is one step, the charge settles immediately, and the post opens.

It also cannot double-charge you. An account that has paid for a post holds a permanent unlock, and a second purchase that races the first is cancelled rather than credited to anyone. Come back in a year, on another device, and the post is still open for you.

Is the payload actually hidden?

Yes. A sealed payload is not blurred in the browser or tucked behind a class name anyone could inspect away: the server decides whether you hold an unlock and, if you do not, the hidden text and media are not part of the page you were sent, sealed media lives in storage that public URLs do not reach, and search indexes the public parts only. The series overview covers how that holds.

What does the creator get?

Each sale credits the creator the full price they set, immediately, as a notification and a line in their balance; the figure the buyer confirmed has openmog’s fee inside it, and the arithmetic is in the FAQ below and on the FAQ page. The credit lands as pending, becomes withdrawable seven days later, and withdrawals start at $50. The wait is the same dispute buffer that applies to every other credit on openmog: card disputes cluster in the first days after a charge, and they are much easier to absorb while the money is still here.

The open-ended part is what makes this mode earn differently. A crowdfunded post has one settlement and then it is done. A reveal post has no such moment, so it keeps selling for as long as people keep finding it, which makes it the better fit for anything with a long tail: an archive, a full version, the working file behind a result, the part of the story you would only tell someone who asked.

Which mode should a post use?

One question sorts almost every case. Do you want this to end up public?

If yes, crowdfund it. You are asking the network to open something together, the bonus gives people a reason to move first instead of waiting, and the payoff is a post that exists in the open with your name on it, in the feed and in search. The mechanism that makes that work is worth understanding before you set the terms, and the bonus it pays only exists if somebody bonds the post, which is a seat worth understanding too.

If no, price it. Some things are worth money precisely because not everyone has them, and asking a crowd to fund something you did not want published is the wrong shape of question.

Both are two taps from the composer. Next: your first sealed post walks a creator through setting either up, or go see what is sealed right now.