# What an invitation pays

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/what-an-invitation-pays

An invitation to judge now carries **its own rates**. Not one figure for the
whole season — one pair per submission category, a technical rate and a
creative rate, each paid **per scorecard filed**.

The figures start from what the season posts on
[Festival settings → Categories](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md). You may change them for that
one judge before you send. The judge reads them in their email, on the page the
link opens, and on their own **Invitations** screen inside FilmScorecard. **The
moment they accept, those figures are fixed** and nothing — not you, not another
coordinator, not editing the season afterwards — can move them.

That is what makes two judges on the same season able to be paid differently
for the same work, which is the point of the whole thing. **And one of them can
be paid nothing at all**: on a paid season you may invite a particular judge as
a volunteer, without changing anything about the season or about anybody else
on it. See [Inviting one judge as a volunteer](#inviting-one-judge-as-a-volunteer).

## Where the money comes from, in four steps

Each step is a **copy taken at a moment**, and nothing upstream can move a
number under you afterwards:

1. **The library default** — what a category is worth by default, anywhere in
   your organization. See [Judge pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md).
2. **The season's posted rate** — copied from the library when the category is
   attached to a season.
3. **The invitation's rates** — copied from the season **when you send an
   invitation**, and yours to tune for that judge. This is the new step.
4. **What a scorecard was worth** — copied from **the judge's own rates** when
   they file it, and never rewritten.

Three consequences worth reading twice:

- **Editing a season's posted rates does not touch an invitation already
  sent.** It changes where the *next* invitation starts.
- **Accepting freezes the invitation.** After that, the rates on that judge's
  place cannot be edited from any screen at all — **and neither can whether
  that place is paid or volunteer.**
- **A scorecard is priced from the judge's rates, not the season's.** If a
  judge holds no rate for the category they are working, the scorecard is
  recorded as **unpriced** — see
  [Two ways to end up with unpriced work](#two-ways-to-end-up-with-unpriced-work).
  **A volunteer judge's scorecards are a different case entirely**: they are
  recorded at `$0.00`, which is a price, not an absence.

**An open-call applicant reaches the same place by a different road**, and it is
worth knowing before you read on: they are quoted the season's posted price per
category and either take it or ask for something else; you may reply with
figures of your own; **they may accept those or send back another set**; and
accepting the application writes whatever the two of you actually settled on.
See [Accepting an application](#accepting-an-application).

## The screens that make an offer

| Where | What you pick first |
| --- | --- |
| [Judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md) → **Invite** on a card, or **Invite to a season** in the profile panel | The **season**. The judge is the card you are on. |
| A season's [Invites sent](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invites-sent.md) tab → **Invite judges** | The **judge**, out of the directory pool. The season is the one you are on. |
| A season's [Roster](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) tab → **Invite judges** | Nothing — you type **email addresses**, and the terms apply to the whole batch. |

**Everything below the picker is the same form.** The rules, the wording and the
refusals are the same wherever you start; the only difference is that the
Roster's dialog sets one set of terms for every address you paste, with no
per-address override. See
[Inviting by email address](#inviting-by-email-address).

## The form, field by field

### 1. Roles

Two toggles, **Creative** and **Technical**, at the start of one row with
**How this judge is paid** and **Pricing** — and **you may pick both**. The
**ⓘ** beside the heading says what each role does; the other two headings
carry one too.

**At least one is required.** What you tick becomes the judge's roles on the
season — Technical reviewer, Creative judge, or both. **Those are the only two
judging roles there are**, so nothing about a judging panel is missing from this
pair; a judging coordinator is a member of your own organization rather than a
judge, see
[Judging coordinators are staff, not judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#judging-coordinators-are-staff-not-judges).

**On the two dialogs that start from a judge — the directory's and the Invites
sent tab's — the pair starts from that judge's own answer**, the judge type on
their directory card: a judge who reviews technical work alone arrives with
Technical on and Creative off. Turn either on or off before you send; Send
obeys what is ticked when you press it. Picking a different judge, or a
different season, sets the pair from their answer again. **The Roster's email
dialog starts with nothing ticked** — there is no profile to read for an
address.

**This is a change.** Every invitation sent from these two dialogs used to
arrive as Creative judge alone, whatever you had in mind.

### 2. How this judge is paid

Two segments, **Paid** and **Volunteer**, under the heading **How this judge is
paid**, with the **Pricing** choice beside them on a paid invitation. What they
decide is **this one invitation**, not the season.

| The season you are inviting into | What the control does |
| --- | --- |
| **Paid** | **Both segments work.** Paid is selected when the dialog opens; press Volunteer to invite this judge unpaid. |
| **Volunteer** | **Read-only, showing Volunteer.** Neither segment responds to a click. |

**On a paid season this is now your choice, and it used to not be.** The control
was read-only in both directions and simply reported which mode the season was
in; a coordinator who wanted one volunteer on a paying panel had no way to say
so. The season's setting is now a **ceiling** rather than a rule — it caps what
any one seat can be, and every seat carries its own terms underneath it.

**A volunteer season still admits volunteer seats only.** That is the other half
of the same rule, and it is why the control does not move there. To pay somebody
on a volunteer season, switch the season to Paid first on
[Festival settings → Categories](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md#paid-or-volunteer-is-a-ceiling-not-a-rule)
— which is always allowed — and then invite them.

**Nothing here can change the season.** Picking Volunteer for one judge writes
nothing to the season, changes nobody else's terms, and does not appear on any
settings screen.

### Inviting one judge as a volunteer

Press **Volunteer** on a paid season and two things happen at once:

- **The two rate columns disappear** from the category list, along with the
  summary block.
- **The `$0.00` rule stops applying**, because there is no figure to get wrong.
  Send turns on as soon as a role and a category are picked.

Nothing takes the summary's place. **What Volunteer means is in the ⓘ beside
How this judge is paid**: "No scorecard they file carries a payout, and the
invitation says so."

**On a volunteer season a line does take the summary's place**, and it is the
one that has always been there:

> On Volunteer, no category on Northern Lights Festival 2026 carries a rate and
> no payout is created. The invitation says so.

**It talks about the season there because it is true of every seat there is.**
On a paid season it would be false — other judges are being paid — which is why
a volunteer seat on a paid season never shows it.

**Switching back to Paid restores whatever you had typed.** The figures are not
cleared when you press Volunteer, so pressing Paid again brings the same numbers
back, tuned exactly as you left them.

**The categories are still picked the same way**, and **the season's posted
figures are still written onto the invitation behind the scenes** — inert, owed
to nobody, and there as the record. See
[What sending does](#what-sending-does).

### 3. Submission categories, and their rates

A searchable list of **every category attached to that season**, A to Z, one
row each:
a checkbox, the category's name, and its type — **Film** or **Screenplay** — in
a column of its own. A category that arrived through an import has no library
record, so its type cell is empty.

- **The search box** matches the name, the `CAT-` code and the type. Escape
  clears it, and so does the ✕ inside the box.
- **All · Film · Screenplay** sits beside the search box when the season has
  both film and screenplay categories, and narrows the list to one type.
- **The checkbox at the head of the list**, beside the **CATEGORY** and
  **TYPE** headings, ticks everything.
  While a search or the type filter is narrowing the list it ticks the matches
  only. A monospace count — `4 of 74` — sits beside the **Submission
  categories** heading, with **Clear** to untick everything.
- **You must pick at least one.** See [What Send needs](#what-send-needs).

**While this judge is being invited as Paid**, a **Pricing** choice sits beside
**How this judge is paid**, above the list, with two segments:

- **Festival** pricing — selected when the dialog opens. Every ticked category
  is offered at the season's posted rates, which each row shows, read-only,
  under one set of headings — **CATEGORY**, **TYPE**, **TECHNICAL**,
  **CREATIVE**.
- **Custom** pricing — the same two figures become boxes, for figures that
  apply to this invitation alone.

Going back to Festival pricing offers the posted rates again. Whatever you
typed is kept, and comes back if you pick Custom pricing again before you send.

Under Custom pricing:

1. The boxes arrive **filled in from the season's posted rates**, whether or
   not the row is ticked.
2. Type an amount in dollars — `8`, `8.50`, `12`. The `$` is part of the field.
3. **On leaving the box it settles to two decimals**, and an empty box settles
   to `0.00`.

Amounts run from **$0 to $10,000.00**, the same range the season's own rates
use — so a legal posted rate can always be copied onto an invitation.

**Reset to posted rates** sits in the section heading, and **it only appears
once at least one figure differs from the season's**. Pressing it puts every
box back to what the season posts and the button disappears.

### $0.00 on a picked category is an error

**While this judge is being invited as Paid**, a **selected** category sitting at
`$0.00` raises a line under the list, marks the field red under Custom pricing,
and **turns Send off**. Under Festival pricing that only happens when the season
itself posts `$0.00` for the category — pick Custom pricing to type a figure for
this judge:

> A paid category cannot sit at $0.00. Set a rate above zero, or invite this
> judge as a volunteer.

**The second half of that sentence is now a door you can walk through.** It used
to describe a season-wide switch on another screen; it is the Volunteer segment
in this very dialog, and pressing it clears the error outright.

Two other things about it catch people out, and both are on purpose:

- **Both boxes on a picked category must be above zero — even the one for a
  scorecard this judge was not asked to file.** The invitation stores both
  figures whatever the judge does today, so a zero left in the other box is a
  mispricing waiting for the day somebody adds the other role.
- **Reset to posted rates can put the error back.** If the season genuinely
  posts `$0.00` for that category, restoring the posted figure restores the
  problem. That is the honest answer: the fix is on
  [Festival settings → Categories](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md#000-in-a-paid-season-is-an-error-not-free),
  or untick the category, or type a figure for this judge alone — or invite
  them as a volunteer.

An unticked category at `$0.00` is not an error and does not block anything, and
**a volunteer invitation is never held to this rule at all.**

### 4. The summary

Under the list, one line **per rate this judge will actually file**:

> **TECHNICAL**  `$4.00 to $12.00`  per scorecard filed
> **CREATIVE**  `$6.00`  per scorecard filed
>
> 3 categories, 128 submissions in scope right now.

- **A range, collapsing to one figure** when every category you picked pays the
  same.
- **Never a total.** The two rates are alternatives on different scorecards,
  not things to add up, so nothing on this screen ever adds them and neither
  does anything else in FilmScorecard.
- **A judge you ticked Creative for gets one line**, because the technical
  figure on their rows is money they will never earn — even though it is still
  stored, and still has to be above zero.
- **The second line sizes the commitment.** The submission count is what those
  categories hold *right now*, which is the difference between a $50 decision
  and a $5,000 one.
- **A volunteer invitation has no summary at all** — the volunteer line takes
  its place.

**The judge's own Invitations list shows both lines, always**, because there it
is a fact about the categories rather than about their roles. Do not be
surprised that a creative-only judge can see the technical figure; the emailed
summary is the one that follows their roles.

### 5. FilmFreeway access

One switch, headed **FilmFreeway access**, above the note, with the line:

> Lets this judge receive submissions that can only be viewed on FilmFreeway.

**It is off when the form opens.** On, a submission whose only screener is on
FilmFreeway can be offered to this judge like any other; off, such submissions
are not offered to them at all. **It is not part of the offer**: it changes no
rate, no summary line and nothing the judge is paid, and **it never holds up
Send invite** — an invitation with it off is the ordinary one. On the two
dialogs that know who the judge is — the directory's and the Invites sent
tab's — a read-only line under it gives the judge's own answer, "Judge says:
has a FilmFreeway account" or "Judge says: no FilmFreeway account", and the
switch is never set from it. See
[FilmFreeway access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#filmfreeway-access).

### 6. A note to the judge

Optional, under 500 characters, placeheld with "Why you would like them on this
season". It goes **in the invitation email, and onto the invitation's own page
inside the app** — it is not repeated on the page the emailed link opens. **The
Roster's batch dialog has no note field**; a note is written to one person.

## What Send needs

**Send invite** turns on when all four are true:

1. a season is chosen (on the directory dialog — the other two already have
   one);
2. at least one judge type is ticked;
3. at least one category is ticked;
4. **when the judge is being invited as Paid**, no ticked category has a `$0.00`
   in either box. A volunteer invitation skips this one.

Two named states stop you before you start:

- **No season chosen yet** — "Choose a festival and season first. The
  categories on offer, and what each one pays, come from that season." **The
  pay control is absent too**, because it is a property of a season.
- **The season has no categories at all** — "This season has no submission
  categories yet." **Send stays off.** A judge invited to a season with nothing
  attached could never be given a single submission, so no invite dialog will
  do it — the Roster's email invite included.

## What sending does

- **A place is created on that season as Invited**, or a dead place — declined,
  removed, revoked — is revived as Invited.
- **The roles are the judge types you ticked**, one or both.
- **The place is paid or volunteer as you chose it**, and that is written onto
  the place itself rather than read off the season.
- **The scope is exactly the categories you ticked.** Not "All categories",
  **even when you tick every one of them.** That is what stops a category
  attached later from silently extending an accepted judge's work onto rates
  nobody set.
- **The rates you were looking at are written onto the invitation**, figure for
  figure.
- **The invitation email is queued** as a background job.
- **The offer appears on the judge's own Invitations screen immediately**,
  whether or not they open the email.
- A message names what went out, and it names **the terms this judge got**
  rather than the season's:

| The message ends | When |
| --- | --- |
| "Invite queued for Ada Reyes for Northern Lights Festival 2026, technical and creative on 3 categories." | A paid invitation. |
| "…, technical and creative on 3 categories, **as a volunteer**." | A volunteer invitation on a **paid** season. |
| "…, technical and creative on 3 categories, **volunteer season**." | Any invitation on a **volunteer** season. |

**The season's posted figures are written onto a volunteer place anyway**,
whatever the dialog showed — on a volunteer season and on a volunteer seat
alike. Nothing is owed on them; they are there so the record is complete, and so
that a place re-invited as paid later starts from real numbers rather than from
zeros.

**A batch invitation from the Roster reports differently**, because it sends
several at once: "3 invites queued as Creative judge, sending in the
background." It names no pay mode either way.

## What the judge is emailed

The invitation is otherwise the message it always was — role line, your note,
the link, the 14-day expiry sentence — with a compensation block in the middle:

> You have been invited to judge Northern Lights Film Festival Spring 2026.
>
> Your role: Creative judge and Technical reviewer.
>
> Compensation, paid by the festival directly:
>   Technical: $4.00 to $12.00 per scorecard filed
>   Creative: $6.00 per scorecard filed
>   Paid 30 days after invoice.
>
> A note from the festival:
> We loved your work on the shorts panel last year.
>
> Accept or decline here:
> *a link*
>
> This invitation expires in 14 days. If you were not expecting it, you can
> ignore this message.

- **The email carries ranges, not the per-category breakdown.** The exact
  figures are one click away, and a fourteen-row table in a plain-text email is
  worse than the range in every mail program there is.
- **One line per scorecard they will file**, driven by their roles.
- **Your payment terms follow the figures** — "Paid 30 days after invoice", or
  "Paid on the 15th of the month" — when your organization has set
  [judge payment terms](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/organization-settings.md#judge-payment-terms). With
  none set, that line is simply absent.
- **A volunteer invitation says** "Compensation: none. You are invited on a
  volunteer basis and no payout is created." — **and it says that for a
  volunteer judge on a paying season too**, with no figures anywhere in the
  message. The email reads the place's own terms, not the season's.
- **An invitation with no rates at all has no compensation block**, exactly as
  an offerless invitation always did.
- **The email is no longer the only route.** A judge with an account and a
  finished profile can read and answer the same offer inside FilmScorecard, so a
  bounced or deleted message is no longer a dead end — see
  [Your invitations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md).

**"Paid by the festival directly" means exactly that.** No money moves through
the platform: you pay your judges yourself and record it afterwards on
[the pay ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md), and the email, the invitation page,
the judge's own statement, the Terms of Use and the Judge Code of Conduct the
judge agrees to all say the same. A judge who wants paying sends you an invoice
from their statement — see [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md).

## What the invitation page shows

The link opens the same page it always did — festival, season, role, the
address it was sent to, the expiry — and then, under **What this festival is
offering**, a table:

| Category | Technical | Creative |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Drama Film | `$12.00` | `$16.00` |
| Documentary Feature | `$4.00` | `$6.00` |

with the line under it: "Per scorecard filed, paid by the festival directly." —
and, under that, your payment terms line when you have set any.

- **The full breakdown, not a range.** This is where somebody binds themselves
  to the figures, so a range that hid the difference between $4.00 and $12.00
  would be the wrong answer.
- **Both columns are always shown**, including the one for a scorecard this
  judge was not asked to file. It is the second reason both boxes have to be
  above zero.
- **The table scrolls sideways, at every width.** Rows stay rows on a phone;
  the heading row stays pinned to the top, the **Category** column stays pinned
  to the left, and the scroll region takes keyboard focus so the figures can be
  read without a mouse.
- **On a volunteer invitation** the table is replaced by "**Volunteer — no
  payout**" and "You are invited on a volunteer basis and no payout is
  created." **That is true of a volunteer judge on a paid season as well** —
  the page reads the invitation, not the season, so two people invited to the
  same season can be looking at two different pages.
- **An invitation with no categories** reads "This invitation does not name any
  submission categories yet. Ask the festival what you would be scoring before
  you accept." **Accept and Decline still work.**

**The judge's own Invitations screen shows the same table**, built from the same
figures by the same component, so the two cannot disagree. What differs is that
the in-app copy also carries your note, does not name their roles, and offers a
third action — blocking your festival. It is written up in
[Your invitations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md).

**A judge is never shown the season's posted rates — only their own.** The gap
between the two would tell them what other judges were offered, so it is not on
the screen and there is no way to ask for it. That still holds after they
accept: their [pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md) and their
[Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md) screen print the rate each of their own scorecards
recorded, and nothing about anybody else's. **A volunteer judge is likewise
never told that anybody else on the season is being paid.**

**An open-call applicant is the one exception, and it is not really one.** They
*are* shown the season's posted price for each category — that is the quote they
are answering — and never anybody else's figures. See
[Open calls](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/open-calls.md#money-on-these-screens).

## Once they accept, the figures are fixed

There is **no screen for editing what an accepted judge is paid**, and the
refusal is at the database rather than only on the page: an accepted judge's
rates cannot be rewritten by anyone, from anywhere.

**Nor can paid become volunteer, or volunteer paid.** Whether a place pays is
frozen by accepting exactly as the figures are, and for the same reason — the
judge agreed to terms, and terms that could still move afterwards would not be
terms. There is no control for it on any screen, and the database refuses it
even if one is reached another way.

What that means in practice:

- **Editing the season's posted rates changes nothing** about a judge who has
  already accepted, and nothing about an invitation already sent to a judge who
  has not.
- **Switching the season between Paid and Volunteer changes nothing** about any
  place that already exists. Existing volunteer places stay volunteer when a
  season turns Paid, so a raise never lands on somebody who did not agree to
  one.
- **Reset pay to library changes nothing** about either.
- **Resending an invitation changes nothing.** It is the same offer with a new
  link — **the same figures and the same pay mode** — so what is already sitting
  in that judge's inbox stays exactly as it is.
- **Revoking changes nothing about the record.** It stops the link working; the
  rates stay on the row as the account of what was offered. **It also takes the
  offer off the judge's Invitations screen entirely.**
- **Detaching a category from the season does remove its rates**, from every
  judge including accepted ones, because the category itself is gone. Their
  other categories are untouched.

**Fixed means existing figures never move — not that nothing new can be
added.** A category an accepted paid judge did not have a rate for gets one,
fixed the moment it is written, in two ways:

- **Adding it to their scope on the Roster** asks you for their rate, filled in
  with the season's posted price. See
  [Judging scope](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#judging-scope).
- **Attaching a new category to the season** gives every accepted paid judge on
  All categories its posted price. See
  [Judge pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md#attaching-a-category-in-a-paid-season).

Either way the judge is emailed, with a line in their inbox, naming the
category and what it pays them.

**To offer somebody different money — or to move them between paid and
volunteer — revoke and invite again**, or, if they declined or you removed them,
simply invite again. A re-invitation rewrites the rates **and the pay mode** to
whatever the dialog is showing you at that moment. **A pending invitation cannot
be edited in place**; revoke and re-invite is the whole of it.

## The other two ways onto a season

### Inviting by email address

**Invite judges** on the [Roster](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) tab is the only invitation
control that takes an email address rather than a name out of the directory
pool — and it commits money the same way the other two do. Under the addresses
and the role picker sits the same terms form described above.

- **One batch, one set of terms.** Everything you set applies to every address
  you pasted; there is no per-address override and no note field. Twenty
  addresses each with their own rate table is what the other two dialogs are
  for.
- **That includes the pay mode, and FilmFreeway access.** Every address in one
  batch is invited on the same footing — all paid, or all volunteers, and all
  with the same FilmFreeway switch. To mix them, send two batches.
- **The rate lines follow the roles you tick.** With nothing ticked yet the
  summary reads "Pick a judging role above to see what it pays."
- **A volunteer season** says so and names itself.
- **The scope is the categories you ticked**, exactly as on the other two.
- **A season with no attached categories cannot send.** The block reads "This
  season has no submission categories yet." and the send is refused. Attach a
  category to the season first.

### Accepting an application

Accepting a judge's application on the [Requests](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md) tab is
**the one route with no rate-setting step**, because the rates were settled
before it reached you: the applicant was quoted your season's posted price for
every category they picked, either took it or asked for something else, and — if
you replied with a counter — either accepted your figures or sent back another
set of their own.

What accepting writes:

- **The place is paid or volunteer as the application was.** An applicant who
  chose Volunteer on a paying call joins as a volunteer; you cannot upgrade them
  at the moment of accepting, and there is no control that offers to. See
  [Paying a volunteer applicant](#paying-a-volunteer-applicant).
- **The categories they picked carry the agreed figure** — **your counter for
  that category only where the judge accepted it, and what they asked for
  everywhere else** — **in the column for the kind of judging they applied
  for.** The other column on those rows keeps your season's posted figure.
- **A counter nobody answered pays the ask.** So does one the applicant answered
  by sending back figures of their own, which replaces their ask and withdraws
  your counter. The Accept dialog names which of the three you are in before you
  commit — see
  [Which rate is used](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md#which-rate-is-used).
- **Every other category on the season carries your posted pair**, in both
  columns — including the ones the judge is not scoped to. Two reasons: a
  category they never named must not inherit a number agreed about a different
  one, and widening their scope later should not land them on unpriced work.
- **A volunteer application takes your posted pairs on every category**,
  including the ones it named. Nothing is owed on them — the place's mode is
  what makes it unpaid — and writing the applicant's zeros there instead would
  leave one judge priced at nothing for good if the place were ever re-invited
  as paid.
- **So a second role added later on the Roster pays your posted rate**, never a
  figure agreed for a different kind of work.
- **Their scope is the application's**, which is a change: the categories they
  picked, and the kind of work they said they could cover. Accepting used to put
  every applicant on the whole season. See
  [The scope accepting writes](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md#the-scope-accepting-writes).

**They are paid what was agreed with them.** That is new, and it took two fixes.
Accepting used to write your season's posted pairs over the top of the whole
conversation, so a judge who had settled on a different figure was quietly paid
something else. Then it wrote your counter whether or not anybody had taken it,
so a festival could reply at its own number and accept at it with no consent
anywhere on record. **A counter is now an offer until the applicant accepts it**,
and what is written is the figure both sides actually settled on, per category.

**The price they were quoted is frozen at the moment they applied**, so editing
a category on [Judge pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md) between their applying and your
accepting does not rewrite what was agreed — it only changes what the *next*
applicant is quoted, and what an unpicked category is worth. **A revised ask
does not move it either**: a revision rewrites what the applicant wants, never
what you were asking.

**It still shows up on the judge's Invitations screen**, as an Accepted row with
no deadline, carrying the rates the acceptance wrote. Nobody sent them an
invitation to answer; the row is the record of the terms.

### Paying a volunteer applicant

**There is no way to turn a volunteer application into a paid one.** Counter is
not offered on one — there is no figure to counter — and accepting honours what
they asked for.

**The route is a paid invitation from the [Judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md)**,
which is the path that puts real figures in front of a judge before they bind
themselves to anything. Decline the application, or accept it and then revoke
and re-invite; either way what they are agreeing to is on the screen when they
agree to it.

## Judges already on your seasons

Nobody had to be re-invited. Every judge on every season was given rates when
this shipped, **taken from that season's posted rates**, over the categories
they were already allowed to work — active, paused, invited, declined and
removed alike. **Every place was likewise given the pay mode its season had at
the time**, so nothing about an existing panel moved.

So a judge who accepted last month is on the posted figures, and a judge you
invite tomorrow is on whatever you type. Both read the same way everywhere.

## Two ways to end up with unpriced work

Nothing falls back to the season's rate at the moment a scorecard is filed —
deliberately, because a fallback would quietly re-introduce the floating number
this whole chain exists to prevent. A judge working a category they hold no
rate for files successfully and the scorecard is recorded as **unpriced**.

**The two gaps this used to describe are closed for accepted judges.** Attaching
a category to the season now prices it for every accepted paid judge on All
categories, and widening an accepted paid judge's scope on the Roster asks you
for their rate. Judges an earlier attach had left without a rate were given the
season's posted figures when that changed — **but scorecards they had already
filed there stay unpriced**; nothing prices work after the fact.

There are still two ways to get there:

1. **A category attached at `$0.00`.** Attaching does not give a judge a posted
   rate of `$0.00` for a role they hold, so a category attached before it was
   priced leaves every accepted paid judge on All categories without a rate for
   it until you price it in Settings, which then gives them the posted figures —
   but anything they filed there in the meantime stays unpriced. Price a category
   in the library before you attach it. See
   [Judge pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md#attaching-a-category-in-a-paid-season).
2. **Widening the scope of a judge who has not accepted yet.** The **Judging
   scope** card asks for a rate only on a place that has accepted. A paid
   judge whose invitation is still unanswered holds rates for exactly the
   categories it named; widen them before they accept and the added categories
   have none. Wait until they accept, or revoke and re-invite over the wider
   list.

**A volunteer judge is neither of these.** Their scorecards are recorded at
`$0.00` — a real price, deliberately free — whatever categories they are given
and whenever they were added. They never land in the unpriced bucket, and they
never need pricing.

**Nothing warns you at the moment it happens, and no judge is ever blocked by
it.** The scorecard files; it simply records nothing about money. Where it does
surface is the season's pay ledger: unpriced scorecards are reported in amber
there and excluded from every figure — see
[Paying your judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md) — **and on the judge's own
side**, in the same amber: their statement reports them, and their
[Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md) screen counts them as "awaiting pricing" with an
em dash where the rate would be — so the person who filed the work can see
that nothing was recorded for it: see [Your pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md). For
a judge who has not accepted yet, revoking and re-inviting over the full
category list rewrites their rates from scratch — for the scorecards still to
come; the ones already filed stay unpriced.

## Reading an offer back

Everything an offer says is on the season's [Invites sent](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invites-sent.md)
tab:

| Where | What it shows |
| --- | --- |
| The **Your offer** column | One span across every rate that judge will file — `$4.00 to $12.00`. `Volunteer, no payout` on a volunteer place, an em-dash when the invitation carries no rates. |
| The **record panel** | One row per scorecard type: **Technical** `$4.00 to $12.00 per scorecard filed`. |
| **Resend invite** and **Revoke invite** | The same per-type rows, so you can see what you are sending again or taking back. |

**`Volunteer, no payout` is now a fact about one row, not about the tab.** On a
paid season it can sit in a column of figures, and the two rows beside it are
being paid normally.

The **Role** column's second line now reads **"3 categories"** rather than "All
categories" for anything sent from an invite dialog, because that is what the
invitation named. **A judge who was invited, went dead, and then came back
through an accepted application reads the application's count instead** — the
acceptance replaces the scope the invitation gave them.

**An application is read back on the Requests tab instead**, where the record
panel shows what you were asking per category, what they asked for, what you
countered and **what they said back** — see
[What they asked for](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md#what-they-asked-for).

**And what one judge is paid is on their own panel too**, on the
[Roster](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#pricing) tab's **Pricing** card — where a volunteer place
reads "This judge holds a volunteer seat on this season."

## What this does not do

- **Nothing charges and nothing pays.** These figures are a written record of
  what you intend to pay. No payout, transfer or Stripe object is created
  anywhere; an invoice exists only when a judge sends you one from their
  statement — see [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md).
- **What a filed scorecard was worth has two screens, and neither is this
  one.** The amount is recorded on every scorecard as it is filed; once the
  scorecard is approved it is added up on the season's **Payouts**
  ledger — see [Paying your judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md) — and it appears on
  the judge's own side, on their [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md) screen and the pay
  statement behind it, which is the same document read from the other side —
  see [Your pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md) and
  [What a filed scorecard records](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md#what-a-filed-scorecard-records).
- **A judge cannot reply to an *invitation* with different rates.** Neither
  invitation surface has a counter-offer: the emailed page offers Accept and
  Decline, and the in-app one offers Accept, Decline and blocking your festival.
  Asking in a reply to the email is how a different figure gets discussed today.
  **An open-call applicant can**, on the application form and again on the
  application itself once you have countered — which is the one negotiating
  surface in FilmScorecard.
- **A judge cannot ask to volunteer on an invitation either.** The choice is
  yours when you send it; theirs only when they apply to an open call.
- **There is no comparison with anything on the judge's profile.** A judge's
  profile says **Paid** or **Volunteer** and names no figure; an offer is a
  pair per category, so there is nothing for it to be compared against. The
  word is still on their directory card, in their profile panel and on the
  judge picker, and the **Compensation** filter still works — but there is no
  **Match asking rate** button and no amber "below their asking rate" warning,
  and nothing like them.
- **You cannot edit an offer in place**, before or after it is answered — the
  pay mode included.
- **There is no per-judge tuning on an accepted application** — the negotiation
  happens on the application itself, before you accept — and no per-address
  tuning inside one batch of email invitations. **The scope is not tunable
  there either**: it is taken from the application and changed afterwards on the
  Roster.

## Messages

| The message | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| A paid category cannot sit at $0.00. Set a rate above zero, or invite this judge as a volunteer. | A picked category has a zero in one of its two boxes while this judge is being invited as Paid. |
| Pick at least one category. Pay follows the categories this judge files on. | Nothing is ticked in the category list. |
| Pick what this judge is being invited to file. | Neither judge-type card is ticked. |
| This season has no submission categories yet. Add one before inviting judges to it. | The season lost its last category between the page loading and your pressing Send. |
| One of those categories is no longer on this season. Reopen the dialog and pick again. | Somebody detached a category while your dialog was open. |
| This season no longer pays its judges, so this judge can only be invited as a volunteer. Reopen the dialog and send volunteer terms. | Somebody switched the season to Volunteer while you were writing a **paid** invitation. Nothing was written. **Volunteer terms are never refused this way** — they sit under every ceiling — so a volunteer invitation goes through even if the season turned Paid while you typed. |
| This season no longer pays its judges, so these judges can only be invited as volunteers. Reopen the dialog and send volunteer terms. | The same thing, from the Roster's batch dialog. |
| Keep each rate at or under $10,000.00. | A rate above the ceiling. |
| A category can only be offered once. | A malformed submission; reload the page. |
| This judge already has a pending invitation to this season. Manage it from that season's Judges screen. | Somebody invited them while your dialog was open. Resend or revoke the existing one instead. |
| This judge is already on that season's roster. | They are active or paused on it. |
| This judge is no longer accepting invitations. | One message, three possible causes, deliberately indistinguishable. See [Judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md#if-the-invitation-is-refused). |
| You do not have permission to invite judges to that season. | Your access changed while the page was open. |
| Keep the note under 500 characters. | The note to the judge is too long. |
| The invitation could not be sent. Try again. | Anything else. Nothing was written. |

## Related guides

- [Judge pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md) — the season's own posted rates, the Paid or
  Volunteer ceiling and what locks it, and what a filed scorecard records.
- [Paying your judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md) — where the recorded amounts
  are added up once scorecards are approved, where a volunteer judge's `$0.00`
  lines appear, and where the payments you make are logged.
- [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md) and [Your pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md) — what the
  judge eventually sees of all this: every festival on one screen, one statement
  per paid place, and a Volunteer tab for the rest.
- [Invites sent](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invites-sent.md) — the tab every offer lands on: resending,
  withdrawing, and reading one back.
- [Judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md) — the pool both invite dialogs draw
  from, and the other place the offer form opens.
- [Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) — the Roster tab: inviting by email address, roles,
  judging scope, the Pricing card, and everything after an invitation is
  answered.
- [Judge requests](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md) — accepting an application, countering
  its prices per category, reading the answer that comes back, and what
  accepting writes.
- [Your judging invitation](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-judging-invitation.md) — written for the
  judge who receives what you send.
- [Your invitations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md) — the judge's in-app list of every
  offer they hold, and the three answers they can give.