People pay for effort and hope for results. A family in Nairobi pays a term of tutoring and the grade doesn't move; a café owner in Melbourne pays a marketer and can't tell if a single extra coffee was sold. The provider is paid either way, so the buyer carries all the risk.
What exists and what is new
Closest: outcome-based tutoring contracts some school districts sign, and ordinary escrow. District contracts take lawyers and months; ordinary escrow releases on delivery, not on a measured result. New: outcome escrow for families and small shops, written in a 2-minute builder and checked against connected data or official results, with partial payouts and a human reviewer agreed in advance.
The data it runs on
Exam results, store sales data or other agreed metrics the buyer connects: an independent marker's score, an official exam result when published, read-only point-of-sale totals or bank deposits. Only the agreed number is read, never customer names or a student's other records.
1. The mission
Every service you hire comes with a result you can check. Tutors, coaches and marketers compete on verified outcomes, and families and small shops stop paying for hope.
2. Why people can't resist it
Risk shared, not dumped. Half up front feels fair to the provider; half on results feels safe to the buyer.
A live scoreboard. Both sides watch the same chart rise. Progress is visible and motivating, especially for a student.
Bragging rights for providers. A verified "52% to 71%" result is the strongest advertisement a tutor can post.
3. How it works for real
Accounts and money: email login with a passkey smart wallet (Privy or Coinbase Smart Wallet). Funds come in by M-Pesa, card or bank via licensed ramps and are held as USDC on Base in a per-agreement escrow contract. Gas is sponsored.
Agreement builder: a frontier LLM (Claude or GPT via OpenRouter) turns plain language into a structured agreement: metric, baseline, target, source, deadline, payout curve. It also sanity-checks ambition and gaming risks.
Data connectors: point-of-sale APIs (Square, Lightspeed style) or bank feeds, read-only; a marketplace of vetted independent markers who upload scored papers; official results entered with proof.
Monitoring: a scheduled worker pulls data nightly; a fast cheap model (Gemini Flash or DeepSeek) flags anomalies (bulk orders, price rises, duplicate tests) and writes the mid-way warning.
Release: a deterministic rules engine (not the LLM) computes the payout from the agreed curve and signs the release; the escrow pays out and returns the rest.
Disputes: a human reviewer pool with a fixed 5-day decision window, paid from a small fee on each agreement.
4. Cost per use
Agreement drafting: about $0.02. Nightly data checks for 8 weeks with a Flash-class model: about $0.10. Independent marker: $3 to $8 per paper (passed through). Gas for funding and release: under $0.02. A café agreement costs about $0.15 to run; a tutoring one about $0.10 plus marking.
Free: the builder and one agreement up to $200. Paid: 2% of the held amount (minimum $2), paid by the buyer, or providers pay $12 a month for unlimited agreements and a verified results profile.
5. Growth loop
Providers bring their own clients: a tutor who wants to stand out offers "pay me on results" to every new family, and each verified result goes on a public profile link. Buyers who got results tell other parents and shop owners, who ask their own providers to use it. Every Monday the scoreboard shows each open contract against its flag, and when one closes the next 8-week target renews from the real result, so each round adds a bar to the provider's track record and gives both sides a reason to stay.
6. Risks and guardrails
Gaming: exclusion rules written into every agreement (bulk orders, price changes, retaken tests), anomaly flags confirmed by a human.
Unfair targets: the builder warns when a target is unrealistic; effort half is always paid up front; partial payouts by default.
Children's data: only the agreed score is stored, with a parent's consent; markers see papers without names.
Legal: escrow and payment rules vary by country; use licensed escrow and payment partners. Everything in the app is general information, not legal or financial advice.
7. MVP build order
Agreement builder that outputs a structured agreement both sides sign.
Card-funded escrow with half paid at signing, on Base Sepolia.
One data connector (a POS API) plus manual result upload with proof.
Rules engine for payout curves and the release receipt.
Mid-way warning, dispute form and the provider results profile.