Web3 grant budget: how to price your proposal
Updated 7 min readBy the web3grant editors
A Web3 grant budget lists every cost line, ties each line to a milestone, stays inside the program's published range and says how you will handle token price moves. Price people as hours times rate, add infrastructure, audits and legal costs where they apply, and leave out anything the program excludes. Reviewers fund costed work, not round numbers.
Key takeaways
- 50 of the 99 programs in web3grant's directory publish a maximum grant size. The median ceiling is $50,000, with a 25th percentile of $25,000 and a 75th of $100,000.
- Akash's community pool asks for a cost breakdown in hours and hourly rate, and proposals to Livepeer's community treasury rarely pass without a line-item budget.
- 39 of the 99 programs pay only in a native or other token, while 33 can pay in stablecoins or USD, so token price risk belongs in the budget.
- Exclusions are specific: Ink's Spark grants don't cover salaries, runway, routine hosting or subsidized trading.
- Tie every line to a milestone. The Stellar Community Fund asks for a budget split across three tranches.
What goes in a Web3 grant budget?
A Web3 grant budget has up to six kinds of line: people, infrastructure, audits, legal and accounting, contingency and, for token-paid grants, a price buffer. Each line needs a basis a reviewer can check. The budget is one section of a Web3 grant proposal, and it has to agree with the milestones.
| Line item | How to price it | What programs say |
|---|---|---|
| People | Hours x rate, per person | Akash asks for hours and hourly rate |
| Infrastructure | Monthly cost x months | Ink excludes routine hosting; Kaia's IOK Fund pays hosting |
| Audits | The auditor's quote | Uniswap Foundation Open Grants don't fund standalone audits |
| Legal and accounting | Fixed-fee quotes | MoonDAO excludes entity fees |
| Contingency | A stated percentage | Keep it small and explained |
| Token buffer | A stated percentage | Only when you are paid in a volatile token |
People: hours times rate
People are often the largest line, so show the arithmetic: each person, their role, the hours on this project and their rate. Akash's community pool asks for exactly this breakdown, though no outside team has won a pool vote there since August 2025. Split the hours by milestone, so a reviewer can see what each tranche pays for.
web3grant does not publish rate benchmarks, and reviewers compare what they see across many applications. Use the rate you actually pay or charge, be ready to explain it, and keep hours realistic: a part-time contributor at 20 hours a week for 12 weeks is 240 hours, not 480.
Infrastructure and services
List the services the project needs to run during the grant: RPC and indexing, hosting, compute, CI and domains, priced per month. Programs treat these differently. Kaia's IOK Fund pays infrastructure costs such as hosting and Kaia integration, Nosana pays part of its grants in GPU credits, and Ink's Spark grants exclude routine hosting.
Audits and security reviews
If the project ships new smart contracts, budget an audit from a real quote, or say which audit subsidy you will apply to. Horizen's builder fund splits part of its payment around a security audit, half before and half after you pass it. The Uniswap Foundation does not fund standalone audits through its Open Grants and sends v4 hooks audits to a separate security fund; the Foundation is spending down its remaining budget and plans to close once it is committed. Subsidies such as the Ethereum Audit Subsidy Program, which covers up to 30% of an audit, can cut this line; see smart contract audit subsidies.
Legal, accounting and payment costs
Grant agreements, KYC, accounting for token income and converting tokens all cost time or money. Include them where the program allows: MoonDAO's budgets cannot include foundational equipment or entity fees, while other programs say nothing. How grant income is taxed depends on your country and structure, so ask a professional; are crypto grants taxable explains the principles.
Token price buffer
When a grant is paid in a volatile token, its dollar value can change between approval, payment and the day you use or convert the tokens; how much of that risk is yours depends on when the program sets the exchange rate. VeChain's VeBetter pays B3TR at a token-to-USD rate fixed when the proposal goes to vote, so the dollar value moves with the price (and VeBetter activity was very low in 2026). Rocket Pool applicants ask in USD while its treasury, which is short of funds, is held mostly in RPL.
You have three options: ask for stablecoins where the program offers them, state the conversion assumption in the budget, or add a stated buffer and say what happens to it if prices don't move. Grants paid in tokens and grants paid in stablecoins compare the programs.
How big should a Web3 grant budget be?
A Web3 grant budget should cost the scoped work and land inside the program's range, ideally well below the ceiling. In our directory of 99 programs, 50 publish a maximum, with a median of $50,000, and 19 publish a minimum, such as $50,000 for Maelstrom's Bitcoin grants and $10,000 for the Gear Foundation.
A ceiling is not a typical award. Rocket Pool's committee approved amounts from $680 to $7,500 between May and September 2026 and declined everything larger, and its Round 41 declined every application. The Solana Foundation said in March 2026 that its open-source grants average about $40,000.
Bigger asks also need more approvals. Lido's grants committee lets one member approve up to $1,000, two members up to $10,000, its Council up to $100,000, and a DAO vote beyond that, although Lido's granting slowed sharply in 2026. To compare ranges, sort the Web3 grant directory by grant size.
How do you tie the budget to milestones?
Assign every line to the milestone it pays for, so each tranche covers the work delivered in it. The Stellar Community Fund asks for a budget split across three tranches and pays 10% on acceptance, then 20%, 30% and 40% as each tranche is verified. The Uniswap Foundation asks for milestones mapped to deliverables and line-item costs.
Plan your cash flow, because most money arrives after delivery. Some programs pay a share up front: RootstockCollective pays a 20% to 30% first tranche, and Nervos's CKB Community Fund DAO pays at most 20% of the budget, capped at $10,000, before the first milestone. More in milestone-based grants.
What should you leave out of a grant budget?
Leave out anything the program excludes and anything not needed for the deliverables. Programs publish specific exclusions:
- Ink Spark grants: salaries, runway, routine hosting and subsidized trading, as its Spark program docs set out.
- Uniswap Foundation Open Grants: token launches, liquidity mining, consulting and standalone audits.
- MoonDAO Projects: foundational equipment and entity fees.
- STON.fi DEX Grants: funds must go to development, without outsourcing.
- RootstockCollective Grants: events, conferences, hackathons, pure marketing and content-only proposals.
Also leave out work you have already done (unless the program is retroactive), costs for features outside the milestones, and padding. A budget that shrinks when a reviewer asks one question loses trust for the whole proposal.
Illustrative budget for a fictional project
A fictional team asks a foundation with a $50,000 ceiling for an open-source network dashboard, built in 12 weeks across three milestones, paid in the foundation's token.
| Line item | Basis | Amount | Milestones |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backend developer | 360 hours x $55 | $19,800 | M1, M2 |
| Frontend developer | 240 hours x $45 | $10,800 | M2, M3 |
| Designer | 40 hours x $50 | $2,000 | M2 |
| Indexer node and hosting | 6 months x $350 | $2,100 | M1, M3 |
| Legal review of the grant agreement | Fixed fee | $1,200 | M1 |
| Accounting for token income | Fixed fee | $800 | M3 |
| Contingency | 5% of the lines above, rounded | $1,800 | M1, M2, M3 |
| Token price buffer | 8% of the first six lines, rounded | $2,900 | M1, M2, M3 |
| Total | $41,400 |
By milestone, that is $14,500 for M1, $17,800 for M2 and $9,100 for M3. The hosting line runs three months past launch so the dashboard stays up while the team looks for maintenance funding. If the foundation pays in stablecoins, the buffer line goes and the ask drops to $38,500.
FAQ
Can a Web3 grant budget include salaries?
It depends on the Web3 grant program. Ink's Spark grants exclude salaries and runway, while developer grants such as Btrust's and Maelstrom's are paid monthly to individual contributors, and Brink pays salaries to its fellows. Where people costs are allowed, present them as hours times rate tied to deliverables rather than as open-ended monthly pay, so reviewers can see what each payment buys.
Should a Web3 grant budget be in USD or in tokens?
Price a Web3 grant budget in USD unless the program says otherwise, and state the token you expect to be paid in. Zcash Community Grants set budgets in USD, Kusama's Vision bounties agree amounts in US dollars and pay in DOT, and OpenSats sets grants in USD and pays in bitcoin. Pricing in USD keeps the request comparable when token prices move.
Can a grant budget include work you have already done?
A forward-looking grant budget should not include work already done, because reviewers fund new deliverables. Retroactive programs are the exception: Rocket Pool's committee makes retrospective awards for completed work, though its funds are tight, and Algorand's xGov funds open-source tools already built and in use, with payouts currently waiting on a treasury top-up. Optimism's Retro Funding has been paused since January 2026.
How much contingency should a Web3 grant budget have?
Keep contingency in a Web3 grant budget small, stated as a percentage and explained, so it reads as risk planning rather than padding. web3grant has no program data on accepted contingency levels, and programs rarely publish a rule. If a reviewer questions the line, be ready to say which risk it covers and what happens to unspent money, such as returning it or rolling it into the next milestone.
Programs in this guide
Where each one stands today, soonest deadline first.
- Rocket Pool GMC grantsRocket Pool DAOFunds are tight. Round 41 declined every application, Round 40 approved 1 of 10, and nothing above $7,500 has been approved since May 2026.Undisclosed6 days
- Stellar Community FundStellar Development FoundationUp to $150K7 days
- Akash Community PoolAkash NetworkNo outside team has won a community pool vote since August 2025. Recent spends went to work run by the core teams.UndisclosedAnytime
- Horizen Builder Ecosystem FundHorizen FoundationUp to $150KAnytime
- Ink Spark grantsInk Foundation$500–$20KAnytime
- Lido Ecosystem Grants (LEGO)Lido DAOUp to $100KAnytime
- Livepeer Community TreasuryLivepeerUndisclosedAnytime
- RootstockCollective GrantsRootstockCollectiveUp to $35KAnytime
- STON.fi DEX GrantsSTON.fiUp to $10KAnytime
- Uniswap Foundation Open GrantsUniswap FoundationThe Foundation is spending down its remaining grants budget and plans to close once it is committed. Check the site before you apply.UndisclosedAnytime
- VeBetter GrantsVeChain FoundationActivity is very low: one application arrived in Q2 2026 and none was processed.Up to $50KAnytime
- MoonDAO ProjectsMoonDAOUp to $2.1KClosed
Related guides
- How to write a DAO funding proposal that passes a voteHow to write a DAO funding proposal that passes: forum draft, feedback, vote and reporting, with real deposits, quorums and vote lengths from 9 DAOs.
- Web3 grants paid in USDC and other stablecoinsGrants paid in USDC and other stablecoins: 33 of 99 Web3 programs can pay in stablecoins or USD. See which ones, grouped by currency, and why it matters.
- DAO grants: 20 DAO-run programs and how they decideDAO grants compared: 20 programs run by DAOs, token-holder votes or elected committees, with who decides, how to apply, size, payout token and status.
- DeFi protocol funding: grants, audit subsidies and moreDeFi protocol funding in 2026: which protocol DAOs and chains still give grants, three audit subsidies, retro rewards, and DeFi programs that closed.