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Stavo is a rewards app for people who love discovering local businesses. When you visit a participating business and submit photos of your experience, you earn points. Those points can be redeemed for gift cards. The better your content, the more your photos contribute to your overall standing as a creator.
Head to stavo.app and create a free account. Once you're in, you can browse participating businesses near you, submit photos from your visits, and start earning points right away. No subscription, no fee.
Yes, completely free. Stavo is free for creators to sign up and use. You earn, we deliver. There are no hidden charges, no premium tiers, and no costs to redeem your rewards.
Quality over quantity. We look for photos that are well-lit, clearly focused, and genuinely capture the experience at the business. Think products, spaces, atmosphere, and the details that make a place worth visiting. Blurry, dark, or off-topic images are likely to be rejected during our AI-assisted review. Screenshots and reposts from other apps are not accepted.
You can submit up to a set number of unique photos per business within any 30-day rolling window. This keeps the content library fresh and ensures that businesses receive a diverse range of shots from their community. Duplicate or near-identical images are automatically flagged and won't count toward your points.
Yes. Submissions should be original photos taken during an actual visit. Our system checks photo metadata to help verify authenticity. Photos without verifiable location data may be flagged for manual review before points are awarded. If your photo is flagged and passes review, you'll still receive credit.
Photos may be rejected for a few reasons: poor image quality, content that doesn't relate to the venue, a duplicate or near-identical photo already in the venue's library, or submission outside the allowed window for that venue. You'll receive a notification when a submission is reviewed, and rejected photos will include a brief reason. You're welcome to try again with a new image.
Points are awarded for every approved photo, plus bonuses for a few key moments:
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Photo approved at a participating business | 100 pts |
| Photo approved at an unclaimed business | 50 pts |
| Business posts your photo — publish bonus | +300 pts |
| First photo at a new business — one-time per location | +50 pts |
| Unclaimed business joins Stavo after your submission — retroactive upgrade | +50 pts |
Unclaimed businesses are spots that haven't yet joined Stavo — they're still listed so you can submit and earn, just at a reduced rate until they claim their profile.
Points are redeemed for gift cards delivered digitally to your email. The minimum redemption is 1,000 points = $5, and the value scales from there:
| Points | Gift Card Value |
|---|---|
| 1,000 pts | $5 |
| 2,000 pts | $10 |
| 4,000 pts | $20 |
| 10,000 pts | $50 |
Every point is worth $0.005. Gift cards are delivered by email — no waiting, no manual handling. The gift card catalog may expand over time.
Each point expires 12 months from the date it was earned. Points are tracked individually, so an active account naturally refreshes its balance over time. The app surfaces expiring points prominently in your wallet so you're never caught off guard.
Your creator standing reflects the overall quality and consistency of your contributions on Stavo. A higher standing can unlock opportunities like private invitations from venues to attend events, early access to new features, and increased visibility within the platform. Standing is built over time through approved submissions and a strong acceptance rate.
Submit photos that get approved. The simplest path to a higher standing is consistently submitting quality content across a range of venues. Avoid submitting low-quality or duplicate images, as rejections can affect your rate. Your standing progress is shown as a visual progress bar in your profile, not as a specific number, so focus on the trend rather than a target.
Some businesses on Stavo host special events and invite select creators to attend. These are private invitations extended directly to creators who have demonstrated consistent quality and engagement. Invitations are not guaranteed and are at the discretion of each business. If you're invited, you'll receive a notification through the app.
You do. Submitting a photo to Stavo does not transfer ownership of your content to us or to the venue. You grant Stavo and the relevant venue a license to use your photo for digital and social media purposes. This means a venue can use your approved photo in their social media posts or on their website, but they cannot use it in print materials or for paid advertising without your separate permission, which is facilitated through Stavo.
The standard license grants venues the right to use approved photos for digital and social media. We encourage venues to credit creators when sharing content publicly. Any usage that goes beyond the standard license scope, such as paid ads or print, requires your explicit permission obtained through the platform.
You can request removal of your photos from the Stavo platform at any time through your account settings or by contacting support. Keep in mind that if a venue has already used your photo externally before the deletion request, that prior use may not be retroactively reversed. For questions about specific situations, reach out to us at support@stavo.app.
Our support team is happy to help. Reach out anytime.
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