Get Paid for Pitch Deck Feedback & Founder Q&A

A booked call suits live, iterative problem-solving; an ask-an-expert marketplace suits discovery beyond your existing audience; a Brillay async link suits one focused written question or file-based pitch deck feedback. Price each format by scope and turnaround, using small test prices rather than an unverified market benchmark. Paid Questions let a follower pay upfront to ask one private question, and you send one written reply on your own time — no live call or scheduling.

If founders already ask to pick your brain about pitch decks, pricing, or fundraising, start by turning one repeated question into a fixed-price written answer; you can test whether people will pay without opening your calendar or building a large audience first. One Brillay link turns those “can I pick your brain?” messages into a fixed-price written answer—no live call, no scheduling, no membership, and nothing to apply for.

This article's dollar ranges are illustrative test prices built with a scope-based method — estimate the effort a useful answer takes, pick a starting price, then adjust with real demand — not third-party market data, an industry benchmark, or an earnings claim.

What does a booked call cost compared with charging for one written answer?

A per-minute expert-call marketplace can bring discovery, but its rates and fees can change (Clarity.fm, become an expert); compare its current terms with Brillay’s Paid Questions, where you set one fixed price for one written answer.

Before comparing costs, check Clarity.fm’s current expert fee on its official terms page; marketplace fees can change. Clarity.fm's expert page states that expert fees "are processed every 15 days via Paypal," so a per-minute call platform pays on a fixed fortnightly cycle rather than per transaction. Followers pay upfront as guests when they send the request, so the request arrives already paid for, and your bank details stay with Stripe rather than with the buyer.

A booked call on your own calendar is best when the advice needs live back-and-forth, but check the scheduling and payment tool's current plan and processing fees before comparing that cost with Brillay’s platform fee on paid work. Calendly's pricing page lists a free plan, Standard at $10 per seat per month, Teams at $16 per seat per month, and Enterprise starting at $15,000 per year (Calendly pricing). Calendly's pay-at-booking feature collects payment through a connected Stripe or PayPal account at the moment a slot is booked, so no marketplace commission is taken from the call fee. One written answer inside the window you set — no call, no calendar, no time zone.

Many “can I pick your brain?” messages are narrower: Should I raise or bootstrap? Is my pricing model sane? What belongs on this slide? Scheduling a call for one specific question can mean blocking thirty minutes for a five-minute answer.

An ask-an-expert marketplace may help new clients discover you, but approval rules, listing access, and commissions vary by platform; Brillay gives followers who already know your work a fixed-price offer on your own page. Intro.co's expert page states that "for bookings through our marketplace, we ask for a 30% commission" and "for bookings that our experts produce, we ask for a 10% commission" (Intro.co, become an expert). Platform rules on approval, listing, and matching vary, so the commission is only one part of the tradeoff.

A written question on an existing Brillay bio link works differently: followers pay upfront as guests, with no account needed, and you reply in writing within the delivery time you set, with no live call or scheduling (Brillay async flow).

When should a founder use a paid question?

Use Paid Questions when the answer fits in writing: the client checks out as a guest, pays your set price upfront, and receives one written reply within the delivery time you set.

With Paid Questions, you set the price for each question. That makes the format appropriate for questions that can be understood from a written description, such as:

• “Should I bootstrap or raise a pre-seed round for my idea?”
• “Can you sanity-check my pricing model?”
• “What should go in my pitch deck’s problem/solution slide?”
• “Is my business idea already saturated, and how do I differentiate?”
• “How do I structure equity between co-founders?”
• “What’s a realistic first hire for my stage?”
• “How do I validate demand before I build this?”

For a low-scope text question, $15-50 is this article's illustrative test range, not an observed market average or an earnings guarantee. For scale, Clarity.fm's own guidance to experts puts a typical 30-minute live call at about $50, so a single written answer priced below that is a smaller, bounded product rather than a discounted call. You set the price for Paid Questions and Custom Work.

The founder is buying one bounded answer—not thirty minutes of calendar access.

When should pitch deck feedback be sold as a custom request?

Sell pitch deck feedback through Custom Work whenever the founder has to hand over a file. A deck, business plan, pricing sheet, or investor update needs document review, so the founder attaches the file through Custom Work and buys a defined deliverable at the creator's stated price and delivery time.

With Custom Work, the client can attach up to five files, and you deliver text plus files of any allowed type and/or a link by the delivery time you set, with no live call or scheduling. That deliverable carries an 8% platform fee (tips and goals carry 5%) and no monthly cost, while Stripe's actual processing fee is deducted separately from creator earnings and can vary by transaction (brillay.com/pricing and Stripe pricing).

The ranges below are editorial starting examples, not third-party market data or a claim about what advisors generally charge: the lower end is a narrower, shorter deliverable, and the upper end is more material, deeper review, or a longer written output. Validate any starting price against your own time, expertise, and demand.

Selling a pitch deck review explains how to scope and price the teardown offer specifically. A written review delivered by the date you set is a small, clearly scoped service—not a discounted version of open-ended consulting.

Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request. A clear Custom Work setup states what the client gets, what you need from them, and what is not included; one delivery fulfils the order, and if the founder has a problem with it afterwards, they raise it with you in a support conversation on that same order.

What does a founder give up by choosing async feedback?

A founder choosing async feedback gives up real-time clarification, watching the advisor reason aloud, changing direction mid-conversation, and a shared whiteboard. Paid Questions provide one written reply, Personalized Videos deliver one video, and Custom Work delivers one defined package of text, files, and/or links—all within the creator’s chosen delivery time, with no live call or scheduling.

For chargeback or scam concerns, this is a concrete pay-before-delivery setup rather than a chargeback guarantee; on refunds, Brillay's platform fee is returned, but Stripe's processing fee is not. A live marketplace call carries the mirror-image risk — Clarity.fm's help center states a caller who cancels at least 12 hours before the scheduled time receives a full refund.

That tradeoff works when the request already has a clear shape. It works poorly for an open-ended request such as “help me build my whole GTM strategy from scratch.” In that case, a booked working session or a carefully scoped custom request is more suitable than one paid reply.

A useful rule is:

• Choose a custom request for one defined file-based deliverable.
• Choose a booked call for live diagnosis, iteration, and collaborative work.
• Choose a marketplace when discovery outside an existing audience matters more than owning the direct audience relationship.

How else can startup advisors get paid for milestone messages, support, and brand inquiries?

Startup creators can handle milestone requests with Personalized Videos, collect immediate contributions through Goals or Tips, and use Brand Collaboration Inquiries to collect a brand’s budget, timeline, and deliverables into a separate brand inbox. Founders celebrate launches, funding rounds, revenue milestones, and team anniversaries, and those requests arrive as DMs today.

Personalized Videos can be used for a congratulations video after reaching $10k MRR or closing a round, a pep talk before an investor pitch, a launch-day message, or a team-anniversary shoutout. Personalized Videos deliver one custom video through Brillay within the delivery time you set, with no live call or scheduling.

Cash per deliverable is not the only way startup advisors are paid, and the standard equity alternative is documented. The Founder Institute's FAST (Founder/Advisor Standard Template) grid sets advisor equity at 0.50% at pre-seed, 0.25% at seed, and 0.10% at Series A for a standard monthly-meeting advisor, rising to 1.00%, 0.75%, and 0.50% at the expert tier, with a three-month vesting cliff (Founder Institute, FAST Agreement). A Paid Question or custom request is a fixed-price alternative to an equity grant: the client pays upfront at checkout and the advisor delivers for that fixed price, rather than compensation vesting over years.

Advisors building a playbook, founder-matching tool, or research-heavy newsletter can use Goals for contributions toward a stated goal. Examples include funding a startup playbook’s first print run, covering software costs for a free founder-matching tool, or supporting research for a deep-dive report.

Tips let followers send a one-time thank-you, with nothing for you to deliver and no membership for them to join. When a CRM, payroll platform, legal-tech product, banking service, or other startup tool wants a newsletter mention, Brand Collaboration Inquiries collects the brand’s budget, timeline, and deliverables into a separate brand inbox instead of an unqualified DM.

Where should startup advice stop and professional advice begin?

If a request asks for legal, tax, securities, or other regulated professional advice, pause before accepting it and check the rules that apply to the advisor, buyer, subject, and jurisdiction; refer the founder to a qualified professional when the request exceeds your credentials.

The SEC states that "an 'investment adviser' is generally a natural person or company that, for compensation, is engaged in the business of providing advice to others...about the value of securities" — a threshold that can reach paid feedback on cap tables, share pricing, or fundraising strategy (SEC, Investment Advisers). The IRS lists "the sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, S corporation, and limited liability company (LLC)" as the common business structures, each with its own federal tax filing rules, so entity-formation guidance touches obligations that change by structure. The State Bar of California defines the unauthorized practice of law as a case where "someone who is not licensed to practice law provides services that can only be performed by attorneys," which includes advice on contracts or entity formation (California State Bar, Unauthorized Practice of Law).

Creators should distinguish personal experience and general educational commentary from professional advice. Questions involving an actual term sheet, binding cap-table decision, securities transaction, tax treatment, contract, or entity structure should be referred to an appropriately qualified startup attorney, accountant, tax professional, or financial adviser.

A disclaimer alone does not determine whether an activity is legally regulated: each source above ties regulation to compensation and the substance of the service, not to how a creator labels it, so local law, actual conduct, and the parties' relationship still matter.

How do you set up paid founder Q&A on Brillay?

Claim the link, turn on Paid Questions at a price suited to a short written answer, add Custom Work for the documents founders already send you, connect Stripe, and paste the link into a YouTube description, LinkedIn bio, TikTok profile, or newsletter footer so a “can I pick your brain?” DM has a defined next step. That one link then takes every kind of paid request a founder audience sends, with no follower threshold to reach first: a written answer, a custom video, a document review, a tip or a contribution toward a named goal.

Nothing is due before a founder actually pays you: no plan to choose, no seat to buy, and no bill arriving in a month when nobody asked you anything. Stripe’s processing fee is deducted separately from creator earnings and can vary by transaction (Stripe pricing and brillay.com/pricing).

Connect your bank through Stripe, manage your earnings in Brillay, and check when Stripe will pay you before promising when money will arrive. Brillay supports payouts in 41 countries, so check that yours is included before using the link to get paid.

The same written-answer-versus-live-call decision applies to adjacent advice creators, including marketing consultants and sales coaches. For the broader model, see what paid follower interaction is.

Frequently asked questions

How can I get paid for startup advice without assuming I am exempt from local business rules?

You can sell a defined written answer or document review without presenting it as an ongoing consulting engagement, but the income is still taxable. The IRS states that the self-employment tax rate is 15.3% and that you must pay it if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more (IRS, Self-employment tax). Registration, licensing, contract, and consumer-protection obligations vary by jurisdiction, so check the rules where you operate.

Is there a Brillay service specifically for paid pitch deck feedback?

Yes. Custom Work lets a founder submit a file for a defined written deliverable, such as slide-by-slide feedback.

Will I get a Form 1099-K for paid founder Q&A?

Whether you receive Form 1099-K depends on the law and reporting rules in effect for the relevant tax year, but receiving no form does not make the income nonreportable. The IRS states that third-party payout organizations are not required to file Form 1099-K "unless the gross amount of reportable payment transactions to a payee exceeds $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200," the threshold reinstated by the One Big Beautiful Bill (IRS, Form 1099-K threshold FAQs). Income below that threshold is still reportable.

Do I need a follower minimum or a startup exit to use Brillay?

Brillay has no follower minimum or application gate: start with one $15 written question or another small test price, share the link with people already asking for advice, and adjust the offer only after you see real demand; there is no application to pass and no eligibility review to wait for. Advisors should still describe their background accurately and avoid implying credentials, outcomes, or guarantees they do not have.

What does Brillay charge, and how are creators paid?

No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. Payouts arrive through the Stripe account you connect.

Create your free Brillay page.