The Professional Creator Portfolio.

Every pitch submitted through Aethynex requires a $12.99 Capital Bond, which is a Stripe authorization hold placed against the brand's payment method at the moment of submission. The hold is not charged immediately. It only converts when the creator submits a response. What it does is confirm that the brand has a real payment method with funds available, and that they are willing to put money behind the outreach before knowing whether the creator will accept. That requirement alone removes the majority of low-effort contact. Cold DMs cost nothing to send. Pitches through Aethynex cost $12.99. The pool of senders changes entirely when there is a real cost attached, and brands who do pitch have already demonstrated a basic level of intent before the creator reads a single word.

A Definitive Response is an Accept or a Decline submitted by the creator within the 72-hour window. Both trigger the same financial settlement: the Capital Bond is captured and the creator receives a $4.00 review fee. A creator who declines is paid the same as a creator who accepts, because the service being compensated is the response itself, not the outcome. The only result that differs is a non-response, called a ghost under the protocol. If 72 hours pass with no response, the hold is voided automatically, the brand pays nothing, and the creator's RRI score drops. Both sides know this going in, which is what makes the 72-hour window enforceable in practice.

No. Once a pitch is submitted and the bond is authorized, the protocol is active. The hold stays in place for the full 72 hours regardless of whether the brand changes its position after submitting. This exists to protect the creator: a retraction window would allow brands to send pitches as a form of contact and then pull back before the creator responds, which defeats the point of the financial commitment entirely. If the 72 hours expire with no response from the creator, the hold voids on its own and the brand is not charged. If the creator responds and the brand decides it no longer wants to move forward, that conversation happens directly between them after contact is unlocked. The protocol does not manage that.

No. Aethynex earns from the Capital Bond and subscription plans. Nothing else. Once a creator accepts a pitch and direct contact is unlocked, the deal is between the brand and creator. The terms, deliverables, payment structure, and timeline are negotiated without Aethynex in the room. We have no visibility into what gets agreed and no claim on any resulting revenue. A brand who closes a $50,000 campaign through Aethynex paid $12.99 to initiate it. That is the full extent of what we charged. Platforms that take a percentage of deal value are optimizing for deal size. We are not. Our only financial incentive is that the protocol gets used, which means building something both sides trust enough to use again.

The protocol settles on response or no-response. It does not evaluate the quality of the response or the reasoning behind a decline. A brand who receives a decline paid for a guaranteed answer within 72 hours and received one. Aethynex does not arbitrate what that answer said, whether the creator's reasoning was sufficient, or what happens in the negotiation after an acceptance. Those conversations are between the brand and creator directly. What the platform handles is the structured introduction, the bond settlement, and the review fee payout. Post-acceptance disputes about deliverables, timelines, or creative direction fall outside the protocol and are the responsibility of the parties involved.