Trust and safety
Nobody has to go first.
The oldest problem in sponsorship is who takes the risk: the athlete who works before being paid, or the business that pays before seeing the work. Sponsmi holds the money in the middle so neither has to.
How a protected deal runs.
The deal is written down first
Nothing starts on a handshake. An offer names the deliverables, the price, and the timeline. Both sides see the identical text, and it cannot be edited after acceptance.
The business pays before work begins
The business commits the money when it sends the offer, not after. The card is authorised for the full amount up front, so an offer never reaches talent unless the money is genuinely there. Nothing is taken until the talent accepts; decline it, or let it lapse, and the hold is released without a charge. On acceptance the money is captured and held by Sponsmi, not paid on, so talent are clear to start the moment the status reads funded.
Talent submits proof of delivery
When the work is done, talent writes what they delivered and links to it: the posts, the photos from the event, whatever was agreed. That record is attached to the deal permanently.
The business gets 5 days to check
The business reviews the proof against the original deliverables and either confirms or opens a dispute. Confirming releases the money.
Silence releases the funds to talent
If the business never responds, the deal closes automatically after 5 days and talent is paid. A business cannot get free work by simply ignoring the confirmation.
A dispute freezes everything
Either side can open a dispute before funds release. Nothing moves to either party while we read the written deliverables against the submitted proof and decide.
If you are talent, you are protected from
- Doing work for someone who then disappears without paying, because the money is already collected and held before you start.
- A business quietly moving the goalposts, because the deliverables are frozen at acceptance.
- Being ignored at the end, because funds auto-release to you after the review window.
- Vague expectations, because you can decline any offer whose scope is unclear.
If you are a business, you are protected from
- Paying for work that never happens, because you confirm delivery before funds release.
- Getting less than you agreed, because you review written proof against the written scope.
- Having no recourse, because you can dispute inside the review window and freeze the money.
- Repeat bad actors, because every completed deal leaves a public review on both sides.
The honest answers.
Including the parts we have not solved yet.
Are follower counts verified?+
Not yet. Talent enter their own numbers, so treat them like any self-reported figure and ask for a screenshot of their platform insights before funding a larger deal. Review history is the signal that is genuinely hard to fake.
Who decides a dispute?+
Right now, we do, by reading the agreed deliverables against the submitted proof. We are a small team and we will tell you plainly when a case is ambiguous. As volume grows this gets a formal policy and a published resolution time.
Where is the money actually held?+
With Stripe, our payments processor. Card details never touch Sponsmi servers. Funds sit on the platform balance between funding and release, and payouts go to the talent's own Stripe account, which Stripe identity-verifies before it can receive money.
What stops someone taking the deal off-platform to skip the fee?+
Nothing technical, and we would rather be honest about that. What we can say is that once you leave, every protection on this page disappears: no held funds, no written scope, no dispute path, no review history. The fee is what buys those.
What about scams that start in messages?+
Never send money outside Sponsmi, never share bank details in chat, and be suspicious of anyone pushing you to move to another app before agreeing scope. Report it through the contact page and we will look at the account.
See something wrong? Tell us.
We would rather hear about a problem early than read about it in a review.