The shop and grants
Approved hours become stars, and stars are spent in the shop. Prices are in stars; under each price the shop says roughly how many approved hours that is at this week’s rate, so you can tell what an item costs you in work.
Your balance
Your balance is what your approved ships have paid, plus any correction the team has made, minus every order you have placed that is still standing. It is worked out fresh each time, never stored, so a cancelled order puts its stars straight back. It can go below zero: if a reviewer later lowers the hours on a ship you had already spent, the difference comes off.
What is on the shelf
- Goods from the warehouse. Sent from a warehouse in one region. A parcel that crosses a border may be stopped for customs, and the item says so before you buy. Some countries need a tax id for the parcel to clear; the shop asks for it at checkout and keeps it only as long as the order needs it.
- Goods bought for you locally. A fulfiller orders the item from a store in your own region, so nothing crosses a border.
- Grants. Money on an HCB card grant, sent to the email on your account. A grant comes with rules: what it is for, sometimes which merchants or categories it can be spent at, and when it expires. What you do not spend goes back to the program; the stars you paid are not refunded, so only take a grant you will use.
- Specials. Things that are not things: a streak freeze, a drawing of your profile, and whatever the team dreams up.
Some items are one per person. Some are only for authors of a project a reviewer marked golden. Stock is real: an item that sells out is gone until it is restocked.
Where you are
The shop shows the prices and items for your region, worked out from the address in your Hack Club Auth profile, or, before you have one, from your browser’s timezone. Goods need an address; the shop picks from the addresses in your profile and links you there to add one. Crescent keeps a copy of the address on the order only until the parcel is settled, and never anywhere else.
Verification
Buying needs a verified Hack Club Auth account. If you order before you are verified, the order waits for you with its stars reserved, up to thirty days; verify in that time and it goes in on its own, otherwise it expires and the stars come back.
Prices change
When a price moves, the old price stays struck through beside the new one for two weeks and the change is announced in the bulletin. Orders already placed keep the price they were placed at.
Larger orders
An order above a few hundred dollars gets a second look from an admin before it is fulfilled. That is a check on us, not on you; it only shows as a slightly longer wait.