PowerHub is open at powerhub.dev. Backers pledge to a creator's AI budget, we hold that money and buy the provider access with it, the creator receives an API key rather than cash, and the people who funded the work get the creator's latest build to play and comment on.
Who this is for
PowerHub is built for creators and studios that are already making something and already use AI as a tool inside their work. A team four months from a vertical slice. A technical artist whose agent handles the setup passes in Blender or Houdini while she makes the decisions. A solo creator with one released project behind them and a larger one in front.
It is not built for turning a prompt into a finished game. Nothing here generates a project on a creator's behalf, and a campaign that describes the model as the author is not what we publish.
What a creator gets
Three things, and they arrive in this order.
- A funded AI budget. Backers pledge to a campaign. We keep a platform fee and the rest becomes that campaign's AI budget. The creator keeps building.
- One API key. The key reaches the models we serve through a single endpoint that speaks the OpenAI, Anthropic and Google request formats, so an existing tool is pointed at it by changing a base URL and a key. The models and their prices are listed on the models page.
- Backers who play the work. A creator can attach a build link that only people with a paid pledge can open. Those backers leave written feedback and a score, and it reaches the creator directly.
Creators receive access, not money. There is no payout path, and that is a design decision rather than a limitation we intend to remove.
What a backer gets
A pledge is a contribution to the AI budget of the campaign it was made to. It is not a purchase and it buys no product. What a backer gets is the thing that is actually scarce: early access to the work and a way to be heard about it.
- The creator's latest build, when the creator publishes one.
- A feedback box and a rating that go to the creator, not into a void.
- The campaign's spend, visible: what was raised, and what has been used so far.
If a fixed round does not reach its goal, every pledge in it goes back to the backer's PowerHub wallet in full. What is refundable and what is not is set out in the refund policy, and that page is the only statement of it.
Every campaign is reviewed
We read each campaign before it is published, and we send a lot of them back with a note saying what would clear it. We are looking for a real creator or studio with work behind them, a concrete milestone with something playable or watchable at the end of it, AI described as a tool with named tasks and a cost against each, original or licensed assets, and a schedule somebody on the team believes.
Rough work is welcome. Placeholder art, programmer art and unfinished scenes all pass, as long as the creator says which parts are placeholder and there is a loop worth a player's time. We will publish the standards in full, along with the reasons campaigns get sent back.
Publishing a campaign is not an endorsement, a check of anyone's ability, or a statement that the creator will finish. The terms say so plainly, and we mean it plainly: the agreement a backer forms with a creator is between the two of them.
What PowerHub does not cover
It funds one line item. AI model costs, and nothing else. It will not pay rent, salaries, an artist, a store fee or a licence. A project with no AI line item has nothing to raise here, and we would rather say that now than after somebody has written a campaign page.
We are also an intermediary rather than a provider. The models reachable through the endpoint are operated by third parties, and what each of them permits is set out in the third-party AI providers statement. The endpoint's current state is on the status page.
The first campaign is our own game
PowerPlex: First Light is ours, and it is the first campaign on the platform. Nine real-time circuit levels, built by hand, made for a phone and playable in a browser. Its creator uses AI as a companion for the mechanical passes and says which parts those are. We are funding it here in public so that the mechanism can be watched working on us before anyone points it at their own project.
Campaigns open today are listed on the games page.
A pledge is a contribution to a creator's AI budget. It is not an investment, a purchase, a loan or a donation, and it buys no product. PowerHub is an intermediary and does not operate the AI models.
