[accountoftheday]

10% may seem fair when the company is small but it will cause trouble later. What if the company becomes Facebook? Will future hires be angry that a short-time contributor gets 50x their equity upside? Will investors not balk at paying $500k for 10%, when someone else gets 10% common for having done a logo?

Imho, the correct way to compensate not-really-founders is with a convertible note for the market value of their services times an appropriate risk multiple, or, if you can afford it, cash. (I have actually done this.)

[columbo]

Yeah I agree, it really depends on if you are talking about single instance work (just a logo) or for prolonged support (permanent unpaid).

If I was asking someone to do logo and design work for free (and just that) I'd offer something like 10% of net income with a end of life maximum at $35,000. That would allow them to potentially receive much more cash than the time they invested. It also establishes an upper bound to prevent someone for getting 1% of a billion dollar company because they wrote some html a few decades ago.

It's a risk-reward on both sides. Companies die off all the time. The vast majority of people that do work 'for a percentage' are going to get nothing.

With all that said, cash is always easier