Sponsors

The sponsors image renders a grid of an account's active public GitHub Sponsors — their avatars, names, and links — as a single portable SVG (or PNG) served from shieldcn. Like headers and charts, everything is encoded in the image URL, so it works anywhere a Markdown image does and never needs a build step or a CI job.

Builder

The fastest way to make a sponsors image is the interactive generator. Enter a login, pin tiers, pick a background and theme, then copy the Markdown.

Open the sponsors generator

URL format

/sponsors/{login}.svg     SVG grid
/sponsors/{login}.png     PNG grid
/sponsors/{login}.json    resolved sponsor list (JSON)

{login} is any GitHub user or organization that has GitHub Sponsors enabled. Drop it into your README with a Markdown image:

![Sponsors](https://shieldcn.dev/sponsors/shadcn.svg)

Or center it with an HTML block:

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://github.com/sponsors/shadcn">
    <img src="https://shieldcn.dev/sponsors/shadcn.svg" alt="Sponsors" />
  </a>
</p>

Tiers

GitHub only exposes sponsor dollar amounts to the sponsored account's own token. shieldcn fetches through a shared pool of community tokens, so it can read the public sponsor list but not each sponsor's tier. Instead, you arrange tiers yourself by pinning logins:

• special — a comma-separated list of logins shown larger, at the top, in a "Special Sponsors" row.
• backers — a comma-separated list of logins shown smaller, at the bottom, in a "Backers" row.
• Everyone else falls into the default "Sponsors" row.

![Sponsors](https://shieldcn.dev/sponsors/shadcn.svg?special=vercel,clerk&backers=octocat)

Rename the rows with specialTitle, sponsorsTitle, and backersTitle. A @login prefix is accepted and ignored, so special=@vercel also works.

Sizing and layout

The size parameter sets the base avatar diameter; the special and backers rows scale from it automatically. Use width to set the canvas width — avatars wrap into as many rows as needed.

Parameter	Values	Default
size	32–140 (px)	64
width	320–2000 (px)	800
limit	1–80	60
names	true, false	true
radius	0–80 (px)	12
border	true, false	true
watermark	true, false	false

limit caps how many avatars are shown — pinned special and backers sponsors are always rendered, and the cap applies to the default row. Pass names=false for a tighter, avatar-only grid.

![Sponsors](https://shieldcn.dev/sponsors/shadcn.svg?names=false&size=48&limit=40)

Title and colors

The grid has a "Sponsors" heading by default. Override it with title=..., or hide it with title=false. Color controls:

• bg — a solid background color (hex without #), or transparent to blend into the page.
• accent — the color of the hairline rule under the title (hex without #).

![Sponsors](https://shieldcn.dev/sponsors/shadcn.svg?title=Our+Backers&bg=transparent)

Backgrounds

The card uses the same premade background system as headers — so it's just as customizable. Set a preset with ?preset=:

Preset	Description
surface	Clean flat zinc surface. The default.
gradient	Subtle neutral vertical gradient.
dots	Dot grid over the surface.
grid	Line grid over the surface.
graph	Fine and coarse graph paper.
glow	Soft themed spotlight from the top.
transparent	No surface fill — blends into the page.

For full control, override the background directly:

• theme — tints the glow/accent: zinc, slate, blue, green, rose, orange, violet, purple, cyan, emerald.
• gradient — comma-separated hex stops with an optional trailing angle, e.g. gradient=7c2d12,9f1239,86198f,135.
• pattern — dots, grid, graph, or none.
• glow — the spotlight color (hex without #).
• bg — a solid color (hex without #), or transparent.
• image — a background photo (Unsplash or any image URL), inlined behind an auto scrim; tune it with overlay (0–1) and tint.

![Sponsors](https://shieldcn.dev/sponsors/shadcn.svg?gradient=7c2d12,9f1239,86198f,135)

Light and dark mode

The grid reads correctly in both modes. Pass mode=light or mode=dark, or pair two images in a <picture> element so it follows the reader's GitHub theme. See Light & Dark Mode.

Parameters

In addition to the shared mode and font parameters from the API reference:

Parameter	Values	Default
special	comma-separated logins	—
backers	comma-separated logins	—
specialTitle	string	Special Sponsors
sponsorsTitle	string	Sponsors
backersTitle	string	Backers
title	string, or false	Sponsors
size	32–140 (px)	64
width	320–2000 (px)	800
limit	1–80	60
names	true, false	true
preset	surface, gradient, dots, grid, graph, glow, transparent	surface
theme	zinc, slate, blue, green, rose, orange, violet, purple, cyan, emerald	—
bg	hex without #, or transparent	card surface
gradient	comma-separated hex stops, optional trailing angle	—
pattern	dots, grid, graph, none	preset
glow	hex without #	per preset
image	Unsplash / image URL, or data: URI	—
overlay	0–1	0.45
tint	hex without #	000000
accent	hex without #	—
radius	0–80 (px)	12
border	true, false	true
watermark	true, false	false
mode	dark, light	dark

Data source

Sponsor data comes from the GitHub Sponsors GraphQL API, fetched through shieldcn's community token pool. Only public sponsors are listed; private sponsors are counted in the total but never shown. Avatars are fetched once and inlined into the image, and the list is cached for 30 minutes (serving the last-known-good list during any GitHub outage). Accounts without GitHub Sponsors enabled render an empty-state message.