---
title: How do tipping and supporting work on LBRY?
category: getstarted
---

LBRY allows you to tip and support your favorite creators.

A _tip_ sends credits to a publisher permanently, while also boosting the trust and performance of the content.

A _support_ boosts trust and performance, but _does not_ give anything to the publisher permanently.

In both cases, the amount of credits is stored as associated with (staked against) either the piece of content or the publisher themselves. Either way, the amount staked:

- Help content perform better in search results
- Helps content appear higher in the list of top and [trending](https://lbry.com/faq/trending) publishes
- Determines which content is shown at the [community-controlled name](/faq/naming)

## How do I send a tip?

Sending tips via LBRY is easy. Simply go to the page of the content you want to support and click "Tip".

Next, you'll be prompted for the tip amount in LBRY Credits (LBC). Once you enter a value, click "Send". Mahalo!
![sendtip](https://spee.ch/@clem:0/tipsend.png)

**Note: This amount will show up in your transaction list and will be deducted from your balance.**

## How do I redeem my tips?

When you receive a tip, the credits will come into your wallet, and you can see them in your Transaction History. However, since the credits come in as supporting a claim, they will not show in your available balance. See our [suggested guidelines](#guidelines) on tip unlocking.

To have these credits show in your balance, they must be unlocked. Tips can be unlocked in 1 of 2 ways.

### 1. Unlocking tips by publish

You can mass unlock tips from a published item using the LBC Details section of the content page.

![](https://spee.ch/0/file-tip-unlock.jpg)

You'll have an option choose the amount to unlock, with the default being 25%. Enter an amount or use the slider, and then click Unlock. The remaining LBC is sent back to you as a support on your content.

**Please note: Mass tip unlocking mail fail if there are over ~500 active tips, we're working on making this possible! If this occurs, you'll need to unlock some via the per tip method below.**

![](https://spee.ch/b/tip-unlock.jpeg)

### 2. Unlocking tips in transaction history

You can also unlock tips across all of your publishes in your transaction history.

This is done by clicking the unlock icon next to `Tip` and then confirming your action on the following screen. Once the transaction is finalized, the icon will disappear.

Unlock tip: ![Unlock tip](https://spee.ch/@clem:0/tipunlock.png)

Confirmation box: ![Confirmation box](https://spee.ch/@clem:0/tipconfirmation.png)

## What are the downsides of unlocking tips? Are there any good rules to follow? {#guidelines}

While you should never hesitate to unlock LBC you need or want to spend, unlocking LBC does reduce the boost it gives to your content in terms of search results, trending, and discovery mechanisms.

Aside from [community-controlled names](/faq/naming), which are just a small part of how your content is discovered, the rules about how unlocking tips will affect your content is complicated, and can change based on the overall popularity of the type of content you create. For example, a large amount of tips showing up on a previously obscure publish can mean more than a large amount of tips showing up on content that has received large tips before!

If you're feeling uncertain, some easy advice to follow is:

- Never unlock more than half the LBC on content that is performing well
- Never go below 10 LBC on a piece of content you want to continue to get views

But these rules are just suggestions and may change as LBRY evolves.

## How do I send a support? {#supports}

Publishers will see the Support button on their own content. To support other content, enable this option on the Settings page (Experimental Options) of the LBRY Desktop app. Then navigate to a page you want to help and click the support button.

![supports](https://spee.ch/c/supports.jpeg)