Challenge

GitHub Sponsors aimed to support open-source developers who maintain open-source projects that are key to the global digital supply chain. GitHub sought to create a sustainable and scalable program that could be trusted globally and managed at scale for organisations and developers.

As the core open-source funding platform, GitHub Sponsors needed to provide a simple onboarding experience for developers and funders in the US and abroad, while ensuring compliance with regulations. This was particularly important for expanding into developing nations with thriving open-source communities, such as India and Brazil.

While rapid launch and scaling were priorities, GitHub Sponsors also needed to maintain high levels of security and trust. "Enterprise funders require a high level of trust and scale in order to invest time and money into funding their open-source dependencies", said Kevin Crosby, senior director of open-source funding. In particular, the platform needed the tools to identify and prevent malicious activities such as credit card fraud.

Enterprise support also depended on GitHub's ability to invoice companies for their financial commitments – typically a time-consuming manual process that often prohibits organisations from funding due to internal organisation hurdles. GitHub needed an invoicing system that was enterprise-grade, flexible, fast and able to provide the necessary tools for organisations to comply with their own requirements. It also needed to help GitHub Sponsors grow and evolve to meet the future needs of its users.

Solution

GitHub Sponsors launched with Stripe Connect in 2019. Connect's easy onboarding flow and its ability to go live quickly made it a natural fit for the platform. With Connect, GitHub Sponsors can make payouts to international developers in their local currencies quickly and securely, anywhere Stripe is active.

"Partnering with Stripe provided a brand that enterprises know, tools to maximise trust and compliance and the capability to scale across the globe", said Crosby. Additionally, Stripe's support and understanding of the open-source ecosystem have been fundamental in making it easier for maintainers to receive funding, ensuring that open-source projects have the resources they need to grow. "Like so much of the internet, open source is a fundamental part of what we do at Stripe", explains Mike Fix, Stripe engineer and head of open source.

GitHub Sponsors also implemented Stripe Payments, and particularly the Payments Intelligence Suite, which includes Adaptive Acceptance, network tokens and card account updater. The AI model that powers the suite is trained on tens of billions of transactions and uses self-supervised learning to boost performance.

To manage fraud risk, GitHub deployed Stripe Radar, which uses AI to detect and block fraudulent transactions. The platform also recently turned to Smart Disputes, a new AI-powered solution from Stripe that automates the chargeback response process by automatically generating and submitting evidence to counter disputes. "Given the nature of GitHub Sponsors, we encounter credit card testing", said Crosby. "Stripe's new dispute process helps us manage that at scale".

GitHub used Stripe Invoicing, a global invoicing software platform that helps organisations process payments more quickly, providing faster access to funds and better service to enterprises that want to pay via invoice. Invoicing helped the platform efficiently track and trace funds from sponsor to developer, a key factor in appealing to enterprise businesses.

Results

Two months to launch the platform

GitHub Sponsors was able to launch the Connect integration in two months. Once live, new developers could be onboarded in just minutes, which helped the platform scale quickly. To date, the platform has helped facilitate over US$60 million in investments in open-source software.

Connect's global payouts drive a five-times increase in global coverage

When GitHub Sponsors launched in 2019, its initial integration supported 22 countries. Today, the platform supports 103 countries, with more on its waitlist. "Stripe has enabled us to expand into areas where we've seen significant growth from the developer community", said Crosby.

Through GitHub Sponsors' Stripe integration, developers can register on the platform via an interface in their own language, with prompts applicable to their own local banking and compliance information.

Invoicing now takes minutes instead of days

GitHub Sponsors' original manual invoicing approach used to take days. With Invoicing, the Process is simplified, reduced to minutes. "Large organisations like Microsoft can participate in GitHub Sponsors since customers can request a single invoice, pay and set up sponsorship within minutes", said Crosby. "We've expanded our invoiced customer base due to the flexibility of our new process and increased the total amount of US dollars paid out. Additionally, we've seen an average 13% year-over-year increase in new organisations requesting invoices".

Time spent addressing disputes reduced by 20 hours per month, on average

Prior to the use of Smart Disputes, GitHub Sponsors would review disputes manually. Tracking down evidence for some disputes was time-consuming and strained the team. Disputes were rarely, if ever, contested due to the time involved. With Smart Disputes, GitHub Sponsors saves four to five hours of work per week.

"In the first months since we introduced Smart Disputes, we've seen promising momentum in our ability to shift resources to other priorities, without the concern of disputes expiring before we can attempt a dispute", said Crosby.