> Markdown version of [/magazine/690-use-github-sponsors-like-patreon-gate-features-and-check-sponsorships](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/690-use-github-sponsors-like-patreon-gate-features-and-check-sponsorships). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md).

---

# Use GitHub Sponsors Like Patreon: Gate Features and Check Sponsorships

**By:** [Daniel Cranney](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@daniel-cranney)

**Published:** February 5, 2026

On a recent episode of Coffee with Developers, we heard from cURL founder Daniel Stenberg about what it’s like to run a popular open source project, and the challenge of monetising it. Some survive on donations from sponsors, others on income from paid features or enterprise-level customers, or perhaps revenue from adverts.

Daniel’s experience raised an interesting question: could we use GitHub’s API to build a Patreon-style membership system that gives sponsors access to exclusive features?

Before we start, we’ll say GitHub’s sponsorship API is still relatively new, and it’s far from perfect. It will, however, handle payment infrastructure, so that’s one big weight off of our mind before we get going.

If you’d like to skip to the end and check out the code for yourself, check out the [GitHub Sponsors Feature Gate Example repository](https://github.com/WeAreDevelopers-com/github-sponsors-feature-gate-example) to see how it works.

* * *

## The Complete Process

So before we get started, here’s the complete flow for our system, from start to finish:

1. **User signs in with GitHub** (OAuth) → You get their access token
2. **Store the token** (session/database) → Retrieve it when needed
3. **Check sponsorship** (GitHub GraphQL API) → “Does this user sponsor me?”
4. **Process the response** → Determine sponsor status
5. **Expose to frontend** → Return `isSponsor: true/false`
6. **Render UI** → Show full feature for sponsors, gate for everyone else

To keep this article concise, we’ll assume you have [configured some sponsorship tiers on GitHub](https://docs.github.com/en/sponsors/receiving-sponsorships-through-github-sponsors/setting-up-github-sponsors-for-your-personal-account), and already completed steps 1 and 2, allowing users to log in to your application with their GitHub credentials.

If you haven’t already done this, we recommend either following the [GitHub guide](https://docs.github.com/en/apps/oauth-apps/building-oauth-apps/creating-an-oauth-app), or configure it along with a database using [Supabase’s docs](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/auth).

**Note:** Finally, before we get started, we should say that there is one key limitation in GitHub’s API, which is that you cannot check if a user has sponsored a specific project, and instead you can only check if they sponsor its creator (as sponsorships are user-to-user, not user-to-project).

Also, the API only returns one-time sponsors in API calls for 30 days after their sponsorship begins, and so we recommend storing sponsorship data in a database so it persists beyond this limit.

## GitHub GraphQL

GitHub’s [GraphQL](https://graphql.org/) API is incredibly underrated. Easy to use and reliable, we’re going to use it to ask “does the current (authenticated) user sponsor account X?” - where the _viewer_ in GraphQL refers to the user identified by the token exchanged on login.

## List Who the Viewer Sponsors

While the GitHub API is promising, it does have some funny quirks. When we first attempted this, we used the API field `viewer.isSponsoredBy(accountLogin)`, which returns a boolean, but in practice it often returns `false` even when the user has sponsored you (see the one-time sponsorship bug mentioned above). So, instead list everyone the viewer sponsors and check if your account appears in that list.

Here’s the GraphQL query we send to GitHub:

    query {
      viewer {
        login
        sponsorshipsAsSponsor(first: 100) {
          nodes {
            sponsorable {
              ... on User {
                login
              }
              ... on Organization {
                login
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }

This query essentially retrieves:  
(a) `viewer` — the authenticated user (the person whose token we’re using)  
(b) `login` — their GitHub username  
(c) `sponsorshipsAsSponsor` — all the people/organizations this user sponsors  
(d) `sponsorable` — the account being sponsored (could be a User or Organization), and  
(e) `login` (inside sponsorable) - the GitHub username of the account being sponsored.

## Check If They Sponsor You

The API returns an array of accounts the user sponsors in `viewer.sponsorshipsAsSponsor.nodes`. Each item has a `sponsorable.login` field containing the GitHub username of the account being sponsored. Simply iterate through this array and check if any `sponsorable.login` matches your account’s username - if it does, they’re a sponsor.

**Note:** Use the exact same username that appears in your GitHub Sponsors URL. For example, if your sponsors page is `https://github.com/sponsors/your-username`, then `your-username` is what you check against.

## Server-side Check

Create a function that uses the GraphQL query from above to check sponsor status, passing in the `githubToken` to authorise the call:

    async function checkIfSponsor(githubToken, founderUsername) {
      // Send the GraphQL query we defined earlier
      const response = await fetch("https://api.github.com/graphql", {
        method: "POST",
        headers: {
          Authorization: `Bearer ${githubToken}`,
          "Content-Type": "application/json",
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({ query }), // The GraphQL query from above
      });
    
      const data = await response.json();
      const sponsorships = data.data?.viewer?.sponsorshipsAsSponsor?.nodes || [];
    
      // Check if your account is in the list
      return sponsorships.some(
        (sponsorship) => sponsorship.sponsorable?.login === founderUsername,
      );
    }

This `checkIfSponsor()` function returns `true` if they sponsor you, `false` otherwise.

## Exposing to the Frontend

The GraphQL check happens on your **server** (where you securely store the GitHub token), so finally we’ll create an API endpoint that calls `checkIfSponsor` and returns the result:

    async function getSponsorStatus(req, res) {
      const githubToken = req.session?.githubToken; // From your auth system
      const isSponsor = await checkIfSponsor(githubToken, "your-github-username");
      res.json({ isSponsor }); // Frontend gets { isSponsor: true/false }
    }

Your frontend calls this endpoint (e.g., `GET /api/github/sponsor-status`), stores the `isSponsor` value in state, where we can conditionally render features or elements based on their sponsorship status: show the feature if `isSponsor` is `true`, show a gate message or re-direct if `false`.

## Extending the System: Tiered Sponsorships

The implementation above checks for any sponsorship, but you can extend it to support tiered access. The `sponsorshipsAsSponsor` query can return tier information (tier name, `monthlyPriceInCents`, `isOneTimePayment`), allowing you to gate features based on sponsorship tier or amount — just extend your GraphQL query to include these fields and check them in your logic, similar to how we check `isSponsor`.

## Conclusion: Monetising Your Project with GitHub Sponsors

We’ve shown how you can use GitHub Sponsors to monetise your open source project by gating features behind sponsorship—similar to Patreon, but with GitHub handling all the payment infrastructure. By checking sponsorship status via GitHub’s GraphQL API, you can offer exclusive features to sponsors while keeping your codebase simple, and you can even extend this to support tiered sponsorships based on sponsorship amount or tier level.

This gives you a straightforward way to monetise your project without building payment infrastructure, GitHub handles the payments, and you just check who sponsors you. Don’t forget to visit the [GitHub Sponsors Feature Gate Example repository](https://github.com/danielcranney/github-sponsors-feature-gate) to see the complete working code and let us know what you think on socials.



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