Trust & safety
Buying and selling code should feel safe.
Cinderella is built around one worry on each side: a seller shouldn't leak secrets, and a buyer shouldn't get burned. Here's exactly how we handle both.
🧼 Every upload is scrubbed
Before a repo can list, an automated scrubber removes .env files, API keys, credentials, database dumps, and personal data, replacing them with safe placeholders. It emits a report you can read on the listing, and anything it can't safely clean is held for human review instead of going live. It never touches your git history — the bundle a buyer receives is the cleaned one.
✓ Every check is run by machine, and we publish the failures
Three marks, all automatic: 🧼 Scrubbed (secrets removed), ✓ Verified build (we took the code into a sandbox, installed it, built it and ran its tests), and 🔍 Deep-scanned (it passed every check we run). Every listing gets the same treatment, so nothing waits on a person finding the time. A build that fails is published too, with the log — a badge that could only ever say good things wouldn't be evidence of anything.
📜 Verified repository history — without exposing the seller
A seller can prove they control the original repository, and we then read its real commit history from GitHub: how much was built, by how many people, over how long, and how long it's been quiet. An uploaded zip can't fake any of that. What we never publish is anything that identifies the repository — no name, URL, star count, description or exact dates. Those are all things you can search GitHub by, and a buyer who could find the project could go straight to the seller and around the escrow protecting them both. So the figures appear as ranges. The buyer gets the full record on purchase.
🔒 Payments are held in escrow
A buyer's money is held, not sent straight to the seller. It's released only after the buyer confirms the hand-off — or automatically after the inspection window — so a seller can't vanish with the payment and a buyer can't receive the goods and stiff the seller. See Pricing & fees for the timing.
💳 Serious offers are verified
Before an offer of any real size reaches a seller, the buyer authorizes a small refundable hold on their card — an authorization, never a charge, released as soon as the seller responds. Offers that clear it carry a verified buyer badge. It costs a genuine buyer nothing and makes a fake one expensive, which is why a seller's offer list here is worth reading rather than wading through. Small offers skip it entirely.
⭐ Sellers build a public reputation
After each completed sale, the buyer rates the seller 1–5. Those reviews aggregate into a star rating shown on the seller's listings and their public seller profile — so a track record is visible before you buy.
🤫 Ideas stay confidential until you agree to look
A raw idea has a public teaser and a protected full pitch that never ships in the page source. It unlocks only after you sign in and acknowledge confidentiality, and the seller gets a logged trail of who accessed it — so concepts aren't free to lift.
🚩 Report anything that looks wrong
Every listing has a report link for copyright, stolen code, or misrepresented ownership. Reports go straight to a moderation queue, and clear infringement is taken down. If something seems off, tell us — we'd rather hear it.
📄 The fine print, in plain sight
Ownership terms (full, exclusive, or non-exclusive) are stated on every listing. Our Terms, Seller Agreement, Acceptable Use, Scrub Disclaimer, and Privacy Policy spell out the rest. The scrubber is a strong safety net, not a guarantee — sellers are still responsible for what they upload.