Outcomes-based financing (OBF) ties money to results. Funds, incentives or governance steps move only when an agreed outcome has been claimed, backed by evidence, and decided under rules set in advance. Plan it when value should follow a verified outcome, not a schedule or someone's word. This page helps you design the first condition that releases money.
This is a design guide. It helps you plan, and it gives you nothing to run. For paths you can follow to a working result today, see Choose your path.
| You end with | A design for one condition that releases value: the outcome, the claim and its evidence, who checks and who reviews, what each decision sets in motion, the safeguards, and the trail a funder or auditor can follow. |
| Who decides | The funder sets the outcome and the payment rules. A decision oracle produces the facts and the IXO decision engine decides each claim. Money moves only under terms that someone with authority over it set in advance. |
What you are designing
A project submits a claim that an outcome was reached, and links the evidence. An agent checks the rules and flags exceptions. The claim is decided, and an approved outcome releases funding or starts the next governance step.
What follows a decision can be any of these:
- releasing funds
- issuing a reward or unlocking an incentive
- approving a milestone
- changing a governance state or a programme record
- issuing or updating a credential
- sending the case to a dispute or an escalation
Design steps
Start with one condition
Keep the first version to one outcome type, one funder or payer, one claim and evidence template, one review path, one settlement action (automatic or approved by a person) and one dispute step.
Name the outcome that releases value
Write the outcome in operational terms. For example: a milestone delivered, a metric past a threshold, or a verification complete. Name the domain it is about, such as a project, a programme or an asset.
Define the claim and its evidence
Name the claim type that stands for the outcome. List the evidence it must carry, in which format and from which sources. Decide what a complete claim looks like before review starts.
Decide who checks and who reviews
Say who may approve, dispute or escalate: people, organisations, services or agentic oracles. Mark each action that needs a person. Design an evaluator turns your conditions into gates, facts and review tasks.
Map each decision to what it sets in motion
For each result (approved, rejected, disputed), write the exact action: a transfer, an unlock, a record only, a hold, or a route to dispute resolution.
On IXO, payment terms on a claim collection pay when a claim is approved, and a bond can settle outcome payments. If the outcome is to be tokenised, tokens are minted, transferred and retired as Manage tokens describes. A dispute is a separate record: see How claim disputes work on chain.
Add safeguards
Add the ones your model needs: time limits, handling for duplicate claims, partial outcomes, clawbacks or holds. Write down the audit trail that funders or regulators must be able to follow.
Plan one payment path
Walk one outcome through on paper: claim submitted, evidence attached, claim decided, value released. Check that every party would see the record and the notification they expect.
What outcomes-based financing does not do
- It does not make a decision into a payment. A decision says what the rules concluded. Money moves under terms set in advance by someone with authority over it. See What each record proves.
- It does not prove the money arrived. A payment instruction or a signed receipt is not confirmation that the recipient has the money.
- It does not replace professional review. OBF can involve legal, regulatory, accounting, tax and governance requirements. Get the right professional review for a regulated financial product or a contract.
Where it is built
Use an agentic oracle in qi.space to turn your outcome definitions, verification rules, settlement actions and dispute paths into an OBF workflow design.
Create a bond and settle outcome payments from it.
Manage tokensCreate, mint, transfer and retire tokens.
Design a digital MRV workflowPlan how the outcome is measured and checked before money moves.
What each record provesWho has authority to pay, and what a decision does and does not show.