We sponsor DCS and IL-2 content creators with free hardware and a discount code for their audience. This page is the full set of rules, including the part people most often get wrong: what actually counts as a use of your code.
Fox3 gives a small number of content creators free or upgraded server hardware, plus a discount coupon code to share with their viewers. In return we ask that the code actually gets used, meaning it brings us new paying customers. That is the whole arrangement: we cover your hosting, you send people our way.
It is aimed at people who publish DCS or IL-2 content regularly and who fly on, stream from, or record on a server. If you host missions for your viewers, run a training channel, or fly a series on a server you pay for, this is for you. It is not a general affiliate scheme and it is not automated. Every application is read by a person, and so is every decision after that.
The bar we check first is simple, and it is a YouTube bar:
We verify both by hand, on your public channel page, at the time we review your application. There is no API check, no tracking pixel, and nothing for you to install.
Meeting the numbers does not guarantee acceptance. The thresholds are a floor, not a formula. We also look at whether the content is actually DCS or IL-2, whether the audience looks like people who would run a server, and how many sponsorships we are already carrying. We deliberately do not publish a scoring formula, because we do not have one and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. A denial is not a judgement on your channel.
You will need a Discord account, and it helps if you are already in the Fox3 Discord so we can match your handle and talk to you directly.
Every accepted creator gets a coupon code for their audience. The discount on it is set when we approve you and is shown in your welcome email, along with the code itself.
On top of that, one of two hardware arrangements, decided by us at approval:
If you are already a Fox3 customer on Squadron Tier or higher, we move your existing server up one tier of hardware at no cost. Squadron (12 GB, 16 slots) goes to Wing (16 GB, 40 slots), Wing goes to Division (24 GB, 60 slots), Division goes to Air Superiority (32 GB, 80 slots). You keep the same server, the same address and the same data, and you get the extra RAM and player slots.
Your subscription, price and billing date never change. You carry on paying exactly what you pay today. Nothing is prorated, nothing is re-quoted, and no new subscription is created.
Two honest limits. Air Superiority is the top of the ladder, so there is no tier above it to give you. And the dense shared tiers, Co-Op and Value, sit below the eligibility bar, so an upgrade from those is not part of this program. In both cases you can still be sponsored with a coupon code, we just cannot bump the hardware.
Because the upgrade rides on your paid subscription, it ends if that subscription ends. If you cancel or the server lapses, there is nothing left to comp.
At 10,000+ subscribers we may instead provide a server outright, at no charge. This one is discretionary. It is not something you unlock by passing a number, and we say no to it more often than we say yes, because a free machine is a real running cost for us.
Free sponsored servers are capped at Wing Tier (16 GB, 40 slots). Division and Air Superiority are not available as free servers at any subscriber count. You do not need to be an existing customer to be considered for this.
This is the most important section on the page, because every target below is measured in these units. Read it twice.
A “use” means one new customer signs up for a Fox3 server using your code. It is counted once per customer, at signup. A viewer who uses your code and then stays a Fox3 subscriber for two years still counts as one use, not twenty-four.
We are counting net-new paying customers, not recurring monthly payments, not clicks, not views, not people who type the code in and abandon checkout. The redemption is recorded a single time, on the day that customer first signs up, and it is never counted again on their renewals.
Worked example, so there is no room for doubt:
So when the next section says twelve per year, it means twelve net-new paying Fox3 customers in a year. We would rather you decide up front that this is or is not achievable for your channel than have you find out in month eleven.
To keep a sponsorship active, your code needs, in the units defined above (one new customer signing up, counted once, at signup):
Those are the same rate expressed in three windows, not three separate quotas stacked on top of each other.
Your clock starts the day we approve you, and every window is measured from that anniversary date, not from calendar months. If you are approved on 18 March, your first month runs 18 March to 18 April, your first 3-month period runs 18 March to 18 June, and your first year closes on 18 March the following year. Being approved on the 28th does not hand you a three-day first month. Your start date is in your welcome email and it is the only date the targets ever refer to.
We check each month once it has closed, but a month with no sign-ups is not automatically a miss. If your running total for the current 3-month period is still on pace, nothing happens.
Worked example. You are approved on 1 June. In your first month you get three sign-ups. That already covers the whole 3-month period, so months two and three can be completely quiet and you will not pick up a strike for either of them. A new period starts on 1 September and the count begins again from zero.
The reverse also holds. Two quiet months in a row with only one sign-up banked will fall behind the pace, and the second of those months is a miss.
The 12-per-year figure is a backstop, checked when a sponsorship year closes. A year that ends under twelve uses is a miss in its own right, even if the monthly checks were all covered by grace.
Two strikes, and we tell you about the first one.
Strikes do not expire on their own. A miss in month two and a miss in month twenty are still two strikes. That said, a human reviews these, and a strike can be waived by hand. If a warning email looks wrong to you, or something happened that we should know about, reply to it. We read the replies and we do act on them, including waiving a strike outright when the situation warrants it. Silence is what we cannot work with.
Your coupon code stops working immediately at checkout. Please pull it from your video descriptions when you get a chance so viewers do not hit a dead code.
The hardware side is handled by a person, on a human timescale. Nothing is deleted or switched off automatically, including on the day the sponsorship ends.
A sponsorship can also end for reasons that are not about targets at all, for example a comped upgrade whose underlying paid subscription is cancelled, or a decision by our team. The same rule applies either way: you get an email, and a person handles the server.
Ending a sponsorship does not make you unwelcome. You are free to apply again later.
Logos, overlays, lower thirds and the rest live in the #fox3-branding channel of the Fox3 Discord. Grab whatever you need from there. If something you want is missing, or you need a variant in a particular size or color, ask in that channel and we will make it.
You are not required to use any of it, and we do not review or approve your videos. Please just do not imply that Fox3 endorses something we have not seen.
Fill in the sponsorship application form, linked from the Creator Sponsorship page. We ask for your Discord name, your YouTube channel URL, an email address, your city and country, your current subscriber count, and optionally a short pitch in your own words. The pitch is genuinely read, so if there is context that the raw numbers miss, put it there.
You will get an email confirming we have your application. Then a person opens your channel, checks the subscriber count and the view counts on your recent uploads, and decides. That takes a few days rather than minutes, and we email you either way.
If we say no, please do apply again. Most denials are just a channel that has not grown into the bar yet, and a channel at 2,400 subscribers today is a channel at 3,500 in a few months. Nothing about a denial counts against a later application.
Questions that this page does not answer? Ask in #tickets on our Discord or contact us.