Contribution Policy

What a contribution is

Namestead is community-funded. A contribution is a voluntary payment toward the cost of running the project and of the domains it offers. You do not need an account to contribute, and names stay free whether or not anyone contributes. Namestead is an independently operated project owned and maintained by Sushil Kumar. It is not a registered nonprofit, NGO, charitable trust, society or Section 8 company.

Contributions are not tax-deductible, and nothing here is a claim of any tax benefit.

A contribution gives no ownership, equity, voting right or control over Namestead, a domain or any name.

What contributions pay for

Contributions go toward the costs of running Namestead:

• domain registrations and renewals
• hosting and infrastructure, including databases and backups
• APIs, email delivery and other software services
• development, maintenance and security
• abuse handling and community operations
• legal, accounting and administrative costs
• other operating costs of the project

Money given for a particular domain’s campaign or buyout is kept for that domain and spent on it. Everything else goes to the general fund. The public ledger lists every contribution and every expense, including payment-gateway fees, so you can see what happened to the money.

Today the founder is not paid from contributions. That is a statement about the present, not a promise about the future; if it changes we will say so here and on the ledger first.

What you get back

Contributing earns recognition inside Namestead: Trust Points (one for every ₹100, held as provisional for 30 days), a supporter badge, and a place on the public supporters list unless you choose to be anonymous. Trust Points can raise your tier and limits. They are not money, cannot be sold, and never buy a name, an exemption from the name rules, or the top two tiers.

A buyout supporter, who pays the full acquisition cost of a requested domain, gets founding-sponsor credit and first pick of one name on it. The domain itself stays registered to Namestead.

How it works

• You pay in Indian rupees through Razorpay. International contributions are not open yet.
• We ask for your name and email so we can send a receipt. Choosing “anonymous” hides your name on public pages only; we still keep it.
• Buyout prices are our estimate of three years of registration plus payment fees and a 10% buffer, and they can change before you pay. Prices of domains can rise, and a campaign’s goal can rise even after it is met.
• A contribution is recorded once, after Razorpay confirms the payment. Receipts name the operator of the project.

Domain custody

Every catalog domain is registered in Namestead’s own registrar account, which is run by the operator, never in the name of a contributor or the person who requested it. A supporter never becomes owner, registrant or nameserver controller of a domain. A domain is added only after a person has checked it against our acceptance policy; money cannot skip that check.

If the domain cannot be kept, we will give a notice before names under it stop working. Sushil Kumar operates the registrar account today.

Refunds

Contributions are not refunded on request. The only cases in which money is returned are listed on the Refund and Cancellation page.