Support the project

The applications are free. The protocol is open. The TigerPOD shell is a free download, the TigerScale is open hardware anyone may build and sell, and the chips work whether you buy ours or the cheapest NTAG on a marketplace.

None of that pays for itself. Here is what actually does — and, since the whole point of an open standard is that you owe it nothing, what you can safely ignore. If you have not started yet, start free: start for $0.

Buy the official parts, if you were buying anyway

The protocol is deliberately not tied to official chips: any blank NTAG bought anywhere works identically, and nothing blocks it. But when you do need chips or a reader, buying the official ones funds the standard rather than a marketplace listing.

TigerTag chips — stickers and refill carriers, from the official shop or a reseller.
The TigerPOD electronics kit — the same two readers you would source yourself, with the project’s logo on them, usually cheaper than buying the parts separately.

Building the whole thing from generic parts is not a lesser path. It is the same Pod, the same protocol, the same result.

Wear it

The official cap and the short-sleeve polo live at tigersystem.io/goodies. Sizes, prices and availability are on that page — it owns them, this one does not.

It is the least useful way to help and the most visible one, which is rather the point: a cap in a makerspace explains the project faster than a link.

Contribute what you know

Nothing here costs money, and some of it is worth more than money.


Fix the documentation	Every page has an edit link. A wrong sentence you correct is one nobody else trips on — see CONTRIBUTING.
Translate	English is the source, French is derived. A third language starts with one page.
Build something compatible	A reader, an app, a printer integration. Say “compatible with TigerTag” freely — no permission, no fee (trademark policy).
Get your name on the Hall of Fame	Every issue and every pull request lands there. No application, no approval.
Report what breaks	A precise bug report — chip, reader, app version, what you did, what it showed — is a contribution.
Tag your spools, and say so	Adoption is the argument. Every tagged spool and every manufacturer who asks their supplier about it moves the standard further than we can.

Ask your filament brand

The single most useful thing anyone has ever done for this project is ask a filament manufacturer why their spools are not tagged. Six brands ship TigerTag from the factory today (the registry); each one started with customers asking.