You didn't say what your goal is. More code submitted? The fundamental problem of such schemes applied to open-source is that the money is pitiful compared to

You didn't say what your goal is. More code submitted? The fundamental problem of such schemes applied to open-source is that the money is pitiful compared to what a programmer can make. $50 is 30 mins worth of a decent SV programmer. So the money isn't worth it but by mere offering the money (i.e. external motivation) you destroy internal motivation. As cjbprime pointed out, this has been studied and it's generally believed that internal motivation is stronger that external motivation. I would focus on other things that can have a positive impact here. I don't know your project but there are things that open-source project maintainers often do badly. Some examples of things done badly: - no page with clear description of how to contribute to the project. What is expected of the contributor (e.g. before submitting PR, run tests by doing xxx), what contributor can expect the maintainer (the PR will be looked at within a week and either rejected or merged or changes will be requested), what are mechanics of contribution - no clear roadmap. Can a contributor get a sense of what are things that should be worked on in the short term - PRs linger for months without a comment Focus on making the process really smooth, prioritize contributions over your own work, be quick to trust and give people direct checkin access and rights to manage bugs, review PRs etc. That would probably have a bigger impact than complicated schemes of paying negligible amounts of cash.