Put your Mac to work while you sleep.
Acorn pays your Mac to run AI jobs — speech transcription today, with image generation and more opening over time — during the hours you're away from it.
All job IDs, earnings, timestamps, temperatures, and counts below are fictional demo data.
Apple Silicon earns money in idle time.
Acorn connects your Mac with the highest-paying jobs it can do. Today that's speech transcription. Image generation and more model categories roll out as we expand the fleet.
Jobs that fit your chip.
Your Mac runs the models it does well — transcription today, with image generation and more planned as we expand. Opt in or out of each available category. You get paid per completed job; developers pay a fraction of what the big clouds charge them.
You decide when it runs.
Run Acorn overnight, or anytime you're not using full compute. Touch the keyboard and it pauses. Unplug the laptop and it stops.
Cash, not points.
Every completed job adds to your balance. After earnings clear their hold, Friday automation creates a payout request from your eligible balance for operator review. An operator settles approved requests externally through PayPal or Venmo. New hosts start with a short holding period that shrinks as your machine builds a track record. No tokens, no points, no platform credit — just money.
What your Mac could earn.
Estimated from your hardware, idle hours, and measured fleet demand. Actual earnings vary with demand and your local power rate.
Loading measured fleet demand…
Planning sensitivity only: a $10–$50 per Mac per month retention band is unvalidated arithmetic (the $30 midpoint is not measured retention). Monthly figures still scale with measured fleet fill when available.
Your Mac
Pick your model and chip, how many hours it sits idle, and your local power rate. The estimate updates live.
Loading measured fleet demand…
- Apple Silicon — M1 or newer
- macOS 14+ Sonoma or later
- Plugged in
Safe by default, not by config.
Acorn is built to keep your machine and your data protected without you having to tune anything.
Scoped to the work Acorn receives.
Jobs can't touch your files, mic, camera, or keychain. Inputs are encrypted in transit; local scratch files are wiped after every job.
Paused when you need the machine.
Pauses on keystroke, on unplugged power, and above 75°C. Other Macs in the network pick up the work.
You pick what runs on your Mac.
Opt out of any model or category — image generation, specific weights, anything you'd rather not serve. Uploads are checked for safety before they reach you.
A short clip lives on your Mac only while it is being transcribed.
For transcription jobs, the Mac app downloads one small audio clip into your Mac's temporary directory. Developer CLI workers use Acorn's local audio cache instead.
What hosts ask first.
Will this slow my Mac down?
By default, no. Acorn waits until your Mac is idle, then pauses when you come back. You choose how long the Mac should be inactive before work starts, and you can keep video calls and similar apps treated as active time. If you decide to run jobs while you work, you still control how much capacity Acorn can use.
What about my electricity bill?
The estimate above already subtracts power cost using the kWh rate you enter. Apple Silicon is efficient under AI load, but electricity still matters, so the number we show is net of estimated power instead of a gross payout number.
Can Acorn see my files?
No. A job contains only the input a developer sends to Acorn for that job. It cannot browse your disk, open your documents, use your microphone or camera, or access your keychain. Job data is encrypted in transit, and local scratch files are wiped after the job finishes.
What kinds of jobs run on my machine?
Today, Acorn focuses on speech transcription. Image generation and more model categories are planned as the network grows. You choose which available categories your Mac can serve, and Acorn matches it with the best-paying eligible job for its hardware.
How do I get paid?
Your completed jobs add to your Acorn balance. To protect the network while a machine is new, earnings become eligible after a short hold: 14 days for new hosts, dropping to 7 and then to as little as a day as your machine builds a track record. Friday automation creates a payout request from your eligible balance for operator review when PayPal or Venmo is on file. An operator settles approved requests externally. Payouts are income, so you're responsible for any taxes — we'll provide the right tax forms if the law requires them.
Is there a minimum commitment?
No. You can pause Acorn, stop hosting, or uninstall whenever you want. Any unpaid balance that has reached the $10 cash-out minimum is still yours to withdraw.
What about Intel Macs, iPads, or battery mode?
Acorn is focused on plugged-in Apple Silicon Macs, meaning M1 or newer. Intel Macs, iPads, and battery-powered hosting are not on the near-term roadmap because the performance, reliability, and economics are best on plugged-in M-series hardware.
What does "alpha" mean for me?
Acorn is still early. Demand may be uneven, so real earnings can be lower than the calculator suggests, and the app will change as we learn from hosts and developers. The upside is direct access to the team: if something feels confusing or broken, you can reach a human quickly.
Get paid for the cycles your Mac isn't using.
Three minutes to install. Once your machine is idle, Acorn looks for eligible jobs it can run.