For creators

Writing a good budget

How budget lines work, how to size them, and three example budgets.

#How a line works

Each line becomes a Squads spending limit on the vault:

• One payee. The limit can send SOL to that wallet and no other.
• A cap per period. Up to the amount, per day, week or month (30 days). A new period refills it.
• Who can use it. Automatic lines can be used by the Fuelgauge keeper and by you; manual lines only by you.

A line never "owes" anything: if the vault is empty, nothing is paid. If the vault holds less than a line needs, the keeper skips that line and pays the next one it can.

#Automatic or manual

Automatic suits steady costs: hosting, a salary, a subscription. The keeper pays the line's full amount once per period, as soon as the period starts and the vault can cover it.

Manual suits costs that vary: commissions, bounties, one-off work. You pay from your coin's page, choosing the amount (up to what the line has left this period) and writing a public note that becomes the receipt. See Paying a budget line.

#Proof URLs

An automatic line can name a proof URL: a public https address, such as your game server's health check. Before each payment the keeper requests it. If it does not answer with a success status within eight seconds (redirects count as a failure), the payment is held until it does.

This turns "we pay for servers" into "we pay for servers while they are up." The URL is shown on your coin's page.

#Sizing the budget

The gauge shows days funded (balance divided by the whole budget's daily cost) and fee coverage (last week's fees against the daily cost). A useful starting point:

• Add up what the project really costs per month.
• Compare it with what the coin's fees bring in. Your pump.fun dashboard shows past creator fees; multiply by 0.95.
• If fees cover less than the budget, the gauge runs down. That is honest, and visible. Holders can watch the runway.

#The sunset settings

Paying any line resets the idle clock. See The sunset.

#Three example budgets

A browser game

An AI character

A community project

#What payees cannot be

A line cannot pay the vault itself, the Fuelgauge keeper, the $GAUGE burn wallet, or the coin's sunset wallet. Anything else is allowed, including your own wallet; holders will see it.