> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.b3iq.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Start Earning How an onboarded B3IQ machine earns: claim it, offer its capacity in Earn mode, and read payouts in USD. This guide assumes you already have a provisioned B3IQ machine: online and serving locally, with the host agent installed and set up by B3IQ. Earning is optional and explicit. A machine serves **your** inference first, for free, and earns only when you offer its capacity for rent. **Serving inference is not what pays** Inference on B3IQ is free, including anything B3IQ routes to your machine. A served request produces no payout line. Earnings come from the machine's capacity being rented — which is what Earn mode offers it for — so installing a model and clearing readiness does not, on its own, make a machine earn. **Earning availability is managed** Machines join the earning path by invitation and manual onboarding, and demand for rented capacity varies. This guide describes the mechanism honestly, not a guaranteed level of activity. ## Before you start **Earning prerequisites** **A working machine** Your provisioned machine is online, with a fresh heartbeat and at least one model that responds to a local chat completion. **Onboarded to the fleet** Enrolling a machine uses an onboarding code from the B3IQ team; purchased machines arrive pre-onboarded. **Claimed to your account** The account that owns the machine receives its payouts. Sign in on the dashboard with that account before claiming. **A payout account** Earnings settle in USD to the payout account on the owner you claimed with. If your machine is not yet serving locally, confirm a local chat works before continuing here. See [Run your first node](/guides/run-your-first-node) and the [Setup wizard](/operators/setup-wizard) reference. ## The path to earning **Claim the machine to your account** The setup wizard shows an 8-character claim code for the machine, as a QR code and as a manual code. Sign in to the dashboard with the account you want to own it, then scan the QR or enter the code (or redeem it at the dashboard's claim page for a pre-onboarded machine). Claiming sets ownership. Readiness and payouts attach to the owner you redeem with, so claim on the intended account the first time. The claim binds to whichever account is signed in at redemption. If you redeem on the wrong account, sign in to the intended one and re-run the claim with a fresh code. **Get the machine routable and healthy** Routing readiness is not an earnings gate, but it is the cheapest proof that the machine works: route health, an installed and benchmarked model profile, and fresh observed benchmark evidence. A machine that cannot serve your own keys is not one you want to rent out either. Sign in to [your machines](https://b3iq.org/dashboard/nodes) and open the machine's Models and Health tabs. Read [Route readiness](/operators/route-readiness) for the routing diagnosis, blocker definitions, and next actions. **List models your machine serves** Use the id of a model your machine actually serves. List the live set with `GET /v1/api/models` rather than guessing a name. **Request Earn mode** **Earn** mode offers a machine's capacity to external GPU marketplaces, and it is the switch that makes a machine earn. Press **Request Earn mode** on the machine's page: the team is notified and will be in touch to schedule it. Moving a machine between environments reboots it, so it is arranged with you rather than flipped underneath you. The change itself is deliberately drastic. In Earn mode the machine is withdrawn from every B3IQ routing query, so your own keys stop reaching it, and its SSH lane is disabled. Ask us to move it back to Bare metal to reclaim it. **Watch earnings and payouts** The dashboard **Earnings** page shows USD trends over 7-day and 30-day windows, and each machine's detail page carries an *Earned (24h)* tile. **Payouts** lists what has settled to your payout account, with a status on each row. Earnings are denominated in USD and settlement follows your agreed terms. Read the status and evidence attached to the specific payout. Historical request-payout batches and their public transaction references do not establish how current hourly rental revenue is settled. Accrued earnings and finalized payouts will not always match at a given moment. Rental revenue accrues from rented capacity; an accrual is not proof that funds have been paid. Confirm timing under your agreement. ## Earnings come from real use Earnings reflect capacity that was actually rented and used. Nothing pays for capacity that no one books: a machine sitting in Earn mode with no takers earns nothing until it is booked. **Serve yourself first** A Bare-metal machine serves your own inference free, always. Earning and your own traffic never share a box: Earn mode takes the machine out of your serving pool entirely. **Expect earnings from readiness alone** Readiness makes a machine routable. It is not a payment gate, and a Bare-metal machine earns nothing however ready it is. ## Common blockers **My machine serves my requests but shows no earnings.** Expected. Serving inference is free and earns nothing, for you or for anyone. A machine earns only while it is in Earn mode and its capacity is actually rented. **It is in Earn mode but nothing is accruing.** Earn mode offers the capacity; it does not book it. A machine with no taker earns nothing. Demand varies, and the machine stays out of your serving pool the whole time it is offered. **My machine went to Earn mode and my own requests stopped working.** Expected. An Earn-mode machine leaves your serving pool (and SSH is disabled) while it is offered to external marketplaces. Ask us to move it back to Bare metal and it rejoins your pool. **Earnings show, but my payout is still pending.** An accrued balance is not a completed payment. Inspect the payout status and evidence in your account and the settlement terms in your agreement; do not infer the cause of a pending record from its label alone. ## Related **[Claiming and earnings](/operators/earnings)** The reference for claiming, what a machine earns from, and reading payout history. **[Route readiness](/operators/route-readiness)** Diagnose why a machine or model is routable or blocked. **[Run a private fleet](/guides/private-fleet)** Bare metal vs Earn mode, and reaching your machines day to day.