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Premium Prompts

Premium prompts let creators monetize their expertise. The content is encrypted - buyers purchase a license to decrypt and use it.

Why Premium?

Not all prompts should be free:

  • Expert knowledge took years to develop
  • Specialized prompts serve niche audiences
  • Creators deserve compensation for valuable work
  • Premium content funds continued development

Sage supports premium content through Personal DAOs where the creator controls both the content and governance.

Personal Premium

Individual creators sell prompts directly to buyers.

Creator ──publish──▶ Marketplace ──encrypt──▶ IPFS
                          │
                          ▼
Buyer ──purchase──▶ License Receipt (ERC1155)
                          │
                          ▼
Buyer ──decrypt──▶ Full Prompt Content

Publishing Premium Content

# Publish a premium prompt
sage personal premium publish trading-strategy \
  --file ./prompts/trading-strategy.md \
  --price 25

The CLI:

  1. Encrypts the prompt content using Lit Protocol
  2. Uploads encrypted content to IPFS
  3. Registers the prompt in PersonalMarketplace contract
  4. Sets the price (in SXXX tokens)

Buying Premium Content

# Check the price
sage personal premium price 0xCreator trading-strategy
# Output: 25 SXXX (+ 2.5 SXXX protocol fee)

# Purchase license
sage personal premium buy 0xCreator trading-strategy -y

Buyers receive an ERC1155 license receipt token proving ownership.

Accessing Purchased Content

# Decrypt and view
sage personal premium access 0xCreator trading-strategy

# Output: Full prompt content appears

The CLI:

  1. Checks you own the license receipt
  2. Uses Lit Protocol to decrypt
  3. Displays the prompt content

Pricing

Prices are set in SXXX tokens:

Price Typical Use
5-25 SXXX Simple prompts, templates
25-100 SXXX Domain expertise, workflows
100-500 SXXX Premium strategies, systems
500+ SXXX Enterprise, consulting-grade

Protocol fee: 10% goes to the protocol treasury.

Managing Listings

# Update price
sage personal premium price --id 42 --new-price 30

# Remove from sale (existing licenses still work)
sage personal unlist trading-strategy -y

# View your listings
sage personal list

Why Personal DAOs Only

Premium content is only available for Personal DAOs by design. Community DAOs are for public prompts only.

The Governance Paradox

In community DAOs, members vote on adding prompts to the library. With encrypted content, they cannot evaluate what they're voting to include - this breaks the governance model's core assumption of informed decision-making.

Creator ──submit encrypted──▶ DAO Governance ──vote──▶ ???
                                    │
                                    ▼
                        Members can't decrypt to evaluate
                        (they don't own licenses yet)

Why Personal DAOs Work

Personal DAOs solve this because:

  • The creator IS the governance (single voter)
  • The creator already knows the content
  • No blind evaluation problem exists

What About DAO Revenue Sharing?

DAOs can still monetize through:

  • Public prompts - Community-curated free content builds reputation
  • Bounties - DAOs fund prompt creation, results are public
  • Staking rewards - Token holders earn from protocol fees

For premium monetization, use a Personal DAO where you control both content and governance.

See ADR-001: Personal-Only Premium for the full architectural decision.

Encryption (Lit Protocol)

Premium prompts use hybrid encryption combining AES-256-GCM and Lit Protocol:

  1. Content encryption: Prompt encrypted locally with AES-256-GCM symmetric key
  2. Key gating: Symmetric key encrypted with Lit Protocol access conditions
  3. Access condition: Must own the ERC1155 license receipt
  4. Decryption: Lit nodes verify ownership, release key; content decrypted locally

This means:

  • Content is encrypted at rest (on IPFS)
  • No central server holds decryption keys
  • License ownership is on-chain and verifiable
  • Creator doesn't need to be online for decryption

For technical details on the encryption architecture, data structures, and implementation, see the Encryption Architecture Reference.

License Receipts (ERC1155)

License receipts are semi-fungible tokens:

PersonalLicenseReceipt.balanceOf(buyer, promptId) > 0

Properties:

  • Transferable: Can sell or gift your license
  • Provable: On-chain proof of purchase
  • Composable: Other contracts can check ownership

When to Use Premium

Use premium for:

  • Specialized domain expertise
  • Prompts with significant R&D investment
  • Content serving professional/enterprise users
  • Monetizing your prompt engineering skills

Keep free for:

  • Basic/foundational prompts
  • Community-building content
  • Prompts you want maximally distributed
  • Content meant to attract users to premium

Free vs Premium Strategy

Many creators use a hybrid approach:

Tier Content Price
Free Basic prompts, templates 0
Free Community contributions 0
Premium Expert workflows 25-100 SXXX
Premium Domain-specific systems 100-500 SXXX

Free content builds audience; premium content monetizes expertise.

CLI Reference

# Publish premium
sage personal premium publish <key> --file <path> --price <amount>

# Check price (as buyer)
sage personal premium price <creator> <key>

# Purchase license
sage personal premium buy <creator> <key> -y

# Decrypt content (after purchase)
sage personal premium access <creator> <key>

# Update price (as creator)
sage personal premium price --id <id> --new-price <amount>

# Unlist (as creator)
sage personal premium unlist <key> -y

# View your licenses
sage personal my-licenses

# List premium prompts
sage personal list --creator 0x...