Help & FAQ

A Path is an ordered sequence of Outcomes toward a larger goal — for example, "Run Your First Marathon" or "Zero to Founder". A Path gives you a structured route; you don't have to follow it in order unless the outcomes genuinely build on each other.

An Outcome is a single credential-worthy goal you pursue — for example, "Ship a first web app" or "Run a 5K race". When you complete an Outcome, it earns a green ✓ badge and appears in your Trophy Case. Outcomes are permanent.

A Milestone is a checkpoint inside an Outcome that a Proof attaches to. For example, the "Become an AI Engineer" Outcome has six milestones. Milestones guide your work; completing them advances your progress.

A Proof is the evidence you submit against a Milestone — a link to a repo, a race result, a recorded conversation, a shipped URL. A Proof must be a real artifact: something that exists in the world and that a peer can inspect. Proofs are public by default (you can set them private).

Your Trophy Case is your public profile at powstik.com/[your-handle]. It shows every completed Outcome, your proof history, and your trust tier. It is distinct from your account settings, which are private.

No. You can take any Outcome directly from the Outcomes catalog without joining a Path. A Path is useful if you want structure; standalone Outcomes are useful if you know exactly what you want to prove.

Yes. There is no limit on active Outcomes. Your dashboard shows all active Outcomes; the Path you enrolled through (if any) tracks your progress across them.

A Path is a sequence of Outcomes — a bundle with an overall credential at the end. An Outcome is a standalone goal with its own milestones and proof requirements. You earn a ✓ on each individual Outcome you complete, regardless of whether you're on a Path.

University Paths (marked with an "Undergraduate" or "Postgraduate" badge) follow academic proof standards — practitioner-reviewed documents, live Q&A challenges, and supervised practice logs. They are structured to simulate rigour equivalent to a university course, but built around real-world artifacts, not essays or tests.

Yes, permanently. Taking any Challenge (Path or standalone Outcome), submitting Proofs, peer verification, earning and sharing a completed Outcome, browsing Paths and Outcomes, and K12 contest participation are all free with no trial period and no usage cap.

Two real paid features exist today: an optional per-vertical Arena subscription (competing in a weekly ranked group — see Arena & billing below) and paid coach programs. Neither gates anything in the free core proof loop — every Path, every Outcome, verification, and your Trophy Case stay free regardless.

The policy is free-first: Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp, MIT OCW, fast.ai, Kaggle Learn, OSSU, and YouTube are the default resource sources across the catalog. A small number of older milestone resources still point at Coursera, which is no longer free to audit — we're aware of this and treat it as a defect to clean up, not the intended standard.

Never. No advertising, ever, in any version of Powstik.

Trust Tiers (T0–T4) reflect the quality of verification behind a completed Outcome. T0 = unverified. T1 = 1–2 independent peers confirmed the proof. T2 = 3+ independent peers. T4 = an institutional verifier with a professional profile URL. (T3, reserved for verified-coach endorsements, is a real tier in the system but isn't active yet — no proof can be at T3 today.) Higher tiers mean your credential carries more weight.

Any Powstik user with a 7-day-old account who is not you can verify a Milestone-linked proof. For higher trust tiers, you can add up to 3 external verifiers (a colleague, mentor, or professional contact) to your outcome's verifier panel.

Self-verification is blocked server-side. You cannot endorse any proof where your user ID matches the submitter's. No exceptions.

You get a link and send it yourself — on WhatsApp, by text, or however you normally reach that person. Powstik does not send email. This works the same from a proof and from your outcome's verifier panel. After they open the link, everything happens in the app.

Submit a Proof for the Milestone. Then three different people must verify it — never you, and never the same person twice. Once all three have checked it, you can mark the Milestone complete.

Yes — a verified Powstik coach can endorse your proof the same way any eligible peer can. The dedicated higher-trust "verified coach" tier (T3) exists in the system but isn't active for real endorsements yet.

A named human — a peer, coach, or panel member — reviewed your proof artifact and confirmed it. It's not an automated score.

No. The link opens directly — no sign-up, no login, no account of any kind for the viewer.

Yes. It stays live and keeps showing your current record — if you complete more outcomes later, the same link reflects that automatically.

You select which of your completed outcomes to include, and your permanent link is generated immediately — that's it. You send the link to schools yourself; Powstik does not send email.

A per-vertical Arena subscription is $5/month (rest of world) or $12/month in the US, Europe, and a few other markets, priced by where you're signing up from — billed monthly through Dodo, our payment processor. The competition itself resets weekly, but you're charged once a month, not once a week.

Everyone who subscribes to a given Arena vertical in a given week is ranked in one shared group. There are no separate brackets or matched pairs. Ranking is by weekly XP, the same number behind Powstik's free leaderboard, counted Monday 00:00 UTC to Sunday. There is no cash prize — ranking and status only.

Arena access — the ranked group view, priority verification queue, weekly streak freeze, compact Trophy Case layout — ends as soon as your cancellation is confirmed. Proof and XP you already logged that week are not erased. You will not be placed in a new weekly group until you resubscribe.

From Settings → Arena subscriptions — it’s a real in-app button, not a redirect to email support. Cancellation takes effect immediately once you confirm.

Verified coaches on Powstik create structured programs built on top of Growth Paths. Joining a coach program gives you milestone guidance and resources selected by the coach. Coaches must hold a verified Outcome in any domain they coach.

Anyone who has logged verified proofs on Powstik and can demonstrate a track record in their domain. We look for practitioners, not theorists — people who have done the thing they want to teach.

Our team reviews applications within 5 business days. We read every application personally and provide feedback if we decline.

Payouts are processed manually via bank transfer or Wise within 30 days of a sale. Your cut is set by your own commission rate (75% by default), net of Dodo's processing fee.

Dodo Payments is our Merchant of Record for both coach programs and Arena subscriptions — they handle VAT, GST, sales tax, compliance, and currency conversion in every market.

Yes. The Teams domain includes a claim system: if someone logs a proof that involves you as a subject (e.g., a manager who tagged you in a leadership proof), you receive a notification and can confirm or dispute the claim within 48 hours.

A team is 3 or more people working on the same challenge. The person who starts the team needs Arena; everyone they invite joins free. Once a team has 3 people it enters its Arena's weekly league. Your team scores XP when a milestone is checked by 3 different people, and when someone finishes the whole challenge. Each week ends Sunday 23:59 UTC: the top 20% of a league move up a tier and the bottom 20% move down. A league opens once 5 teams are in. Under 18, you join a team only by invite, and teams with anyone under 18 are never shown publicly.

Yes. K12 Paths (grades K–5, 6–8, 6–12, and 9–12) have age-appropriate proof requirements: a minimum of 40 combined words (vs 100 for adults), guided prompts ("What did you make or do?" / "How do you know you succeeded?"), and accepted verifiers include teachers and parents, not only peers.

K12 proofs can be verified by peers, teachers, or parents. For physical proofs (photos, project results), a parent or teacher attestation is explicitly accepted as valid verification.

No. K12 proofs require 40 words total across two guided prompts. Photo or link proofs (image, URL) bypass the word count entirely — the artifact is self-evidencing.

Proof-of-Work is Powstik's contest at powstik.com/pow. It runs every two months (UTC): October–November, December–January, and so on. Anyone 13 or older can join for free. Each of your proofs that a real person first verifies during the round scores 10 points. Students aged 13–17 are in the Teen bracket and are never named on the leaderboard; schools appear only as a school, country and total.

No. Student data is never shared with third parties. No advertising. No selling of data. See Privacy & safety below for full details.

Proofs are PUBLIC by default. You can set any proof to PRIVATE at submission time. LONGEVITY domain proofs marked "clinical / sensitive health data" are forced PRIVATE automatically and never appear in any feed.

Your Trophy Case URL is always accessible (Powstik is about verified public track records). If you want to share a curated view privately instead, you can create a passcode-protected, expiring supplementary link from your Trophy Case settings — the canonical /{handle} URL itself stays public.

No. Your email is never shown publicly. It is used only to identify your account. Powstik does not send email right now.

The CLINICAL flag is for sensitive Longevity proofs — blood glucose targets, weight loss under medical supervision, cardiac rehab, and similar health data. These are always PRIVATE and never appear in feeds, even your own public feed.

Yes. In your settings, you can download all your data as a JSON file. This includes your proofs, enrollments, endorsements, and profile.

Yes. In your settings, you can permanently delete your account. Deletion is irreversible.

Yes — deliberately so. Your completed Outcome and Path credentials survive account deletion: the record stays public and verifiable, with your name replaced by "Former Powstik Builder." Deleting your account removes your personal data (email, profile, unfinished work) but does not erase the credential itself — a proof that could vanish on request would have no integrity.