The GitHub Sponsors readiness checklist: 10 signals, ranked by weight

What Sponsor Ready actually checks, and how much each one is worth. Fix the top of this table first — it is ranked by weight for exactly that reason.

All 10 checks, highest weight first

Weights sum to 100. This is a heuristic against public signals, not a GitHub eligibility rule.
Points	Signal	One-line fix
30	A valid FUNDING.yml is present	Add `.github/FUNDING.yml` with at least one funding platform.
12	Pushed to within the last 90 days	Ship a commit — even a small docs or dependency update.
10	README makes a visible sponsorship ask	Add a short "Support this project" section near the top of the README.
10	README is a real onboarding doc, not a stub	Cover what the project does, why it exists, and how to start in the first screen.
8	Repo has a description	Set a description in the repo's "About" panel.
8	At least 3 topics set	Add topics in the "About" panel describing what the project does.
8	A license file is present	Add a LICENSE file — GitHub's repo creation UI can generate one.
6	CONTRIBUTING guide is present	Add a CONTRIBUTING.md describing how to file issues and submit changes.
4	A homepage / live demo link is set	Set the repo's homepage URL to a demo, docs site, or landing page.
4	A CODE_OF_CONDUCT is present	Add a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md — GitHub's community health template is a reasonable default.

The gap between the top and bottom of this table is deliberate, not arbitrary: FUNDING.yml alone is worth as much as the bottom five items combined. A repo can have a perfect README, a license, topics, and a code of conduct, and still show no Sponsor button to a single visitor, because that button's existence depends on one file none of those other signals touch.

Run the checklist against a real repo — your own, or this tool's own repo as a worked example — to see which of these ten it currently passes and fails.

This is an informational heuristic against publicly documented signals, not a GitHub eligibility rule. It is not affiliated with GitHub and does not guarantee any sponsorship outcome or approval.

Common questions

What does it actually take to look ready for GitHub Sponsors?

There is no official eligibility checklist from GitHub for how a repo looks to a visitor. This page lists the 10 publicly-checkable signals Sponsor Ready scores, ranked by weight: a FUNDING.yml file (30 points) matters most because it is the file that turns on the Sponsor button at all, followed by recent activity, a visible sponsorship ask in the README, and seven smaller signals covering README quality, discoverability, and community health.

Which single fix improves a Sponsors readiness score the most?

Adding .github/FUNDING.yml with at least one funding platform, for example github: [your-username]. It is worth 30 of the 100 points Sponsor Ready checks for — three times the next-highest single item — because without it a repo has no Sponsor button for a visitor to click at all, regardless of how strong every other signal is.