Support This Platform

TIP is free to access and always will be. No paywall, no subscription, no locked articles -- that's a founding decision, not a placeholder for one.

What Tips Actually Fund

This isn't a symbolic "buy me a coffee" button. Specific, real costs:

• Server and hosting costs — the database, edge functions, and compute that serve every page on this site.
• API access — FEC.gov, Congress.gov, CourtListener, and Federal Register data feeds. Most are free at low volume; sustained daily ingestion at this platform's scale has real costs as usage grows.
• Document processing — the compute cost of turning raw filings and opinions into the plain-English explainers on this site, and of the human editorial review every one of them goes through before publishing.

What Tipping Does Not Get You

Nothing. That's intentional. No ad-free tier, no early access, no "premium" articles held back from everyone else. Every reader sees the exact same site regardless of whether they've ever tipped a dollar. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed here and in our corrections log as a real editorial policy change, not slipped in quietly.

Ways to Support

Pick an amount below, or send whatever you'd like via CashApp. Square processes payments securely -- Tooms Company never sees or stores your card details.

Who This Supports

TIP is built and edited by Christopher Smoot at Tooms Company. See Editorial & Methodology for exactly how this platform sources and verifies what it publishes.