AI Sponsorships

How community-funded AI identification works

What are AI sponsorships?

Rastrum lets community members share their AI provider credentials so everyone can identify species — even without their own API key.

Become a sponsor

Go to Profile → Sponsorships, add your API credential, then invite beneficiaries or donate to a platform pool.

1. Go to Profile → AI Sponsoring and add an Anthropic credential (API key sk-ant-api03-… or long-lived token sk-ant-oat01-…).
2. The credential is stored encrypted in Supabase Vault. Only the Rastrum Edge Function can decrypt it at call time. Never appears in logs or in the browser.
3. Add your friends by username, set a monthly cap (default 200 calls/month, max 10,000), and pick a priority if you have multiple credentials.
4. When a friend identifies a photo, Rastrum uses your credential automatically. You earn social karma for sharing.

Request a sponsorship

If you don't have an API key, you can request a sponsorship from an active sponsor or use a platform pool.

Ask someone already on Rastrum — a friend, an expert you follow, someone from your community — to sponsor you. You can also send a formal request from Profile → Sponsored By → Request tab.

Platform pools

Platform pools are community-funded shared resources. Any sponsor can donate calls; any user can consume them (with daily limits).

Operators or institutions donate credentials to a shared pool. Credits are distributed fairly among users without a BYO key, with a per-user daily cap to prevent abuse.

Usage rules

• BYO always wins: If a user configures their own API key, that's used first. Sponsorship only applies when there's no BYO.
• Hard monthly cap: When a beneficiary reaches 80%, you get notified. At 100%, their Claude access cuts off until the 1st of next month.
• Auto-pause on abuse: If a beneficiary makes more than 30 calls in 10 minutes, their sponsorship auto-pauses and you get an email to review.
• Karma capped: +20 karma on sponsorship activation. +1 karma per call used, up to the monthly cap. No karma for self-sponsorships or if the beneficiary has less than 10 own karma (anti-Sybil).

Privacy guarantees

API keys are encrypted in Supabase Vault. They're never logged, never stored in browser state, and never visible to beneficiaries. BYO keys always take priority over sponsorships.

• Your beneficiary list is public by default on your profile (you can hide per sponsorship).
• Who sponsors you is private by default on your profile (you can make it public per sponsorship).
• For the relationship to be publicly visible, both parties have to opt-in.

Cost estimates

Costs depend on the model. Claude Haiku 4.5 costs ~$0.30 per 100 calls. See the model picker for current estimates.

Identifications count against your Anthropic quota, not against Rastrum. If you use a long-lived token (OAT) against your Pro/Max subscription, calls are effectively free within your plan.

FAQ

Can sponsors see my photos?

Not directly. Sponsors see how many calls you made and when, but not the images or the identifications. If your observation is public (default), anyone can see it — but that's not sponsorship-specific.

What happens if my sponsor revokes the sponsorship?

Future identifications stop using their credential. PlantNet (free) and Phi-3.5 on-device keep working. Configure your own API key for continued Claude access.

Can I sponsor myself?

Yes, that's useful for using the same UI for your own usage. It doesn't generate karma (would be farming), but everything else works normally.

Technical spec: docs/specs/modules/27-ai-sponsorships.md