About Kind Steps
1. What's the purpose of Kind Steps?
Kind Steps is a place to understand the ripples of humanity. Have you ever wondered how the butterfly effect truly works? How one kind act can spread through the world and touch people you'll never meet? Kind Steps lets you see those ripples in real time. Every bill you register, every person who finds it and enters it into the system—that's a moment of connection. You're not just tracking currency. You're watching kindness ripple outward, from person to person, across towns and states and sometimes across the entire country. Where does your bill go? Who touches it? What journey does it take? And how does it change the people along the way? Kind Steps is a community built on curiosity, connection, and the belief that small acts matter.
2. When did Kind Steps go live?
The site went public in 2026.
3. Someone handed me a bill stamped with "Kind Steps." Now what?
Head over to the Kind Steps homepage, type in the serial number from the bill along with the ZIP code of wherever you happen to be, and hit Continue. The screen will walk you through the rest. Looking up a single bill doesn't require an account — but if you sign up, the system will save your activity and notify you whenever your future bills get tracked again.
4. The bill I just looked up shows no prior history. Why?
There are two likely explanations. Either whoever marked the bill never got around to entering it into our database in the first place, or they tried to enter it but typed something wrong. Drop us a line through the Contact Us form with the serial number, denomination, and series, and we'll look into what happened.
5. Is Kind Steps a for-profit operation?
No. The site exists for the entertainment of the people who use it, not as a business. Whatever income trickles in from banner ads and Friends of Kind Steps memberships gets funneled straight back into servers, software licenses, and bandwidth. It's a labor of love that pays its own way.
6. So who actually keeps the lights on?
The site is free for everyone — that's a permanent guarantee, not a promotional offer. Operating expenses are covered by the founder's own pocket, modest ad revenue, sales of branded merchandise, and the generosity of users who choose to join the Friends of Kind Steps program. A lot of unpaid hours also go into running things behind the scenes each week.
7. Tell me more about Friends of Kind Steps.
It's an opt-in supporter membership. For a small recurring contribution, members get a few perks — no banner ads, access to richer reports, the ability to enter bills in batches, and extra customization for their profile pages. Full pricing and the current feature list are available on the Friends of Kind Steps page. Even small contributions make a real difference in keeping the project alive.
Currency, Marking, and the Law
8. Can I legally write or stamp on U.S. paper money?
We want to be clear: Kind Steps doesn't promote defacing currency. The relevant federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 333, draws the legal line at marking that makes a bill "unfit to be reissued." A small stamp tucked into a margin generally falls well within the lawful zone. Heavy markings, cuts, or anything that covers up the denomination, serial number, or anti-counterfeiting features potentially crosses into illegality. The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing is the authoritative source if you want chapter and verse.
9. Are there official Kind Steps stamps for sale?
Not at this time. We don't currently offer branded rubber stamps, and we're sorry if that's a letdown.
10. Where can I get my own stamp made?
Most office supply chains offer custom stamp services, and there's no shortage of online vendors who'll ship you one. We don't have a preferred provider to point you toward.
11. Do you have a Privacy Policy?
We do. The link sits at the bottom of every page on the site. The short version: we don't sell, rent, share, or otherwise hand out your personal information. Your data stays in our hands.
12. Where do I find the rules of the road?
All of the rules for entering and circulating Kind Steps bills live on our User Guidelines page. We strongly recommend reading them before you start entering bills, since accounts that disregard the guidelines can be suspended without prior notice.
Account Management
13. Can I change my email or password without losing the bills I've already entered?
Absolutely. Open the User Settings page and edit whatever you need to — email, password, anything else. Switching email addresses requires you to verify the new one before it takes effect. Don't open a second account if you've simply lost your password. Use the Password Recovery link on the login page instead.
14. I entered some bills before I had an account. Can I add them to my profile now?
You can. Once you're registered and have a user number assigned, head to the Lost and Found Department in the Your Account menu. We'll ask you a couple of questions to confirm the bills are genuinely yours, and if everything matches up — same ZIP code in particular — we'll move them into your account.
15. I used the wrong ZIP code when entering a bill. How do I correct it?
This is something you can handle yourself if you have an account. Go to Your Bills, find the entry in question (Recently Entered Bills is usually where it'll be), and click the Edit ZIP button. Two ground rules to keep in mind:
- The ZIP code should reflect where you were sitting when the entry was made, not where the bill itself came from or went next.
- ZIP edits are one-shot. Once you save the change, the entry locks and can't be edited again.
Anyone caught using the ZIP edit function to fake locations will lose their account immediately.
16. A bill I entered just came back to me. Can I enter it again?
In most cases, no. We only allow self-re-entries when something genuinely remarkable has happened — long stretches of time, or the bill traveling a serious distance and finding its way back. Normally the right move is to add a note about the situation and put the bill back into circulation. If you really do think you've got an unusual case, write to us through Contact Us.
17. Why won't the system accept my 1934 bill?
Our database starts at series 1969 for most denominations. The exceptions are $1 and $2 notes, which we accept going back to series 1963. Older notes are wonderful to find, but they're outside the scope of what we track.
18. What does Kind Steps do with my email address?
Your email enables three things, and you can switch each one on or off independently from the User Settings page:
- Alerts when one of your bills gets a hit (i.e., when another user enters it).
- The occasional update from us about new features, milestones, or other site news.
- The option for other users to send you anonymous notes about your bills through the platform.
We don't sell your address, hand it off to anyone, or use it for unsolicited commercial messages. Period.
Entering Bills
19. The serial numbers on my entries show up partly hidden by dashes. Did the entry go through?
Yes — the database has the full serial number on file. The version you see on screen is intentionally masked so other users can't read your serials and use them to fabricate fake hits.
20. Should the letters in a serial number be capitalized? Do spaces matter?
Neither matters. The system standardizes whatever you type before saving it.
21. I'm entering a bill for the first time and getting a "duplicate entry" message. Help?
Nine times out of ten, this happens because the submit button got clicked twice in quick succession. Older browsers occasionally resubmit forms on their own, too. Either way, the error you're seeing comes from the second submission — the first one already worked. Pop over to Your Bills to confirm the entry is there. If it keeps happening, your browser may be due for an update.
22. Will Kind Steps ever track foreign currency?
Probably not. Defacement laws differ wildly from one country to the next, and trying to handle that legal patchwork inside one platform isn't realistic. Our Cool Links page lists similar projects in other countries that are worth checking out.
23. There's a star at the end of my serial number — what's that about?
That's a star note, also called a replacement note. When the Bureau of Engraving and Printing finds a defective bill during production, it would be impossibly expensive to print another bill with the same serial number. Instead, they print a separate batch of star notes and slot them in to make up the difference. Type the star into the system using the asterisk key (Shift + 8). Most circulated star notes don't carry any extra value, but uncirculated examples and ones with unusual numbers can interest collectors.
24. I've entered a ton of bills and gotten zero hits. What gives?
Three forces are at work:
- Visibility. If you stamp or write on your bills, make sure the URL (www.kindsteps.com) is readable. People can't visit a site they can't make out.
- Where you spend. Bills that change hands quickly — at convenience stores, fast food counters, arcades, toll plazas, and similar high-volume spots — generate hits much faster than bills deposited at banks, where they may sit in vaults for months on end.
- Plain luck. The current overall hit rate sits near 11%, and bills that do generate hits take roughly 27 days on average to surface. Some users have logged over a thousand bills before their first hit and then watched the floodgates open. Patience pays off.
The Kind Score
25. What's a Kind Score?
The Kind Score is a number the system tallies up based on what you've entered and the hits you've earned. The more bills you enter — and especially the more hits those bills generate — the higher your number climbs. The score has no monetary or prize value whatsoever. It exists strictly so users can compare numbers in good fun. The formula appears on the Your Bills, Profiles by State, and Top 10 Users reports. Long stretches of inactivity erode the score slightly; running the Your Bills report when you visit brings it back up. Users below the minimum entry and hit thresholds appear as "scoreless."
26. What are the exact mechanics of the Kind Score?
You need at least 5 hits before an official Kind Score is calculated. The inactivity penalty doesn't kick in until your fifth day away. After that point, the score drops 5% on day five and another 1% for every additional day until you log back in and run the Your Bills report — at which point it rebounds to its full value.
27. Why isn't there a "longest distance" or "fastest travel" leaderboard?
Because that kind of contest invites cheating. People would be tempted to enter bills from places they've never been just to grab a record. We don't want any of that, and any entries that turn out to be fraudulent get removed automatically.
Logging In and Multi-User Access
28. The site keeps logging me out even though I have an account. What's happening?
This is almost always a cookies issue. Browsers, privacy settings, and extensions clear cookies for any number of reasons. Just sign back in with your registered email and password, and you'll pick up exactly where you left off — same user number and all. You can also pick how long your session stays active; on a public computer, choose One Hour or One Day so you don't accidentally leave yourself logged in. The Cookie FAQ has more.
29. Can I get rid of a bill I entered by mistake?
Yes — within limits. Go to Your Bills → Recently Entered Bills, where you can delete anything entered in the last 72 hours that hasn't received any hits. For older bills or any bill that already has hits, send us the serial number through Contact Us and we'll handle it.
30. I entered the wrong series, denomination, or serial number. Now what?
Delete the bad entry first (see above), then enter the bill again with the correct information.
31. How can I confirm whether I'm currently signed in?
Click the Cookie Check link in the help menu. It'll show you what cookies the site has on file for your browser.
32. Can I use one account from multiple computers or locations?
Definitely. As long as you log in with the same email address, your activity stays under your existing user number. Just make sure to use the local ZIP code for wherever you actually are when you enter bills on the road.
33. Can two people share a single computer and use separate accounts?
Yes. Each person logs in with their own email address and password. Your browser does need to allow cookies for this to work.
34. I'm headed out of town. What's the right way to handle bills while traveling?
Always enter bills using the ZIP code of wherever you physically are at the time of entry. Don't save them up for when you get home, and don't enter them with the ZIP code of your destination or the place you just left. The system stamps every entry with the moment it's submitted, and mismatched ZIP codes garble the data.
If you've got internet wherever you're going, enter bills in real time as you spend them — public libraries, hotel lobbies, internet cafés, even the demo computers at a Best Buy will all do the trick. If you have no connection at all, just leave it. Take the vacation and skip the entries. We'd much rather have nothing in the system than something inaccurate.
Profiles, Forums, and Sharing
35. I want to put a Kind Steps link on my own website. Are there banners I can use?
There are. The User Links page is full of community-made banners and graphics that are free for you to grab.
36. How do I set up a user profile?
Register first to get an account, then visit the User Profile page to fill out and customize your profile.
37. How do I get one of those "Hits by State" maps on my profile?
The state maps are a Friends of Kind Steps perk. You'll find a full breakdown of member benefits and the sign-up process on the Friends page.
38. How do I link bill reports inside my forum posts? And can I make a fancier profile?
A handful of veteran users put together a community guide that walks through profile customization, signature lines, embedded bill reports, and a bunch of other tricks. The link sits on the User Resources page.
39. Can I enter many bills at once instead of going through them one at a time?
Yes. Bulk entry — by strap, by sequential serial number, or by file import — is a Friends of Kind Steps feature. Details are on the Friends page.
40. How do I cancel my account?
Go to the Contact Us page and pick Unsubscribe under Type of Inquiry. Your message must include your email address, user number, and password — without all three, we can't process the request. Once your account is gone, every bill you entered gets unregistered, and none of it can be restored if you change your mind later. Account removal is final and complete: every record tied to your account is wiped from the system.
Additional Common Questions
41. Does Kind Steps have a mobile app?
Not yet. There's no native iOS or Android app at the moment. The website itself is built to work on phones and tablets in any modern browser, so you can do everything from a mobile device. If we ever launch a dedicated app, the announcement will go out on the homepage.
42. Can I download a copy of my bill data?
Friends of Kind Steps members can export their bill history and hit data as a CSV file from the Your Bills page. Free accounts can view the same information in the browser, but downloading isn't available at the free tier.
43. What happens to a bill in your system if it's destroyed or pulled out of circulation?
Nothing changes on our side. The bill's record stays in the database with whatever history it has accumulated. If by some unlikely twist another bill with the same serial number ever shows up — extremely rare — that hit would just be added to the existing record. We have no way of knowing when bills are taken out of circulation by the Federal Reserve, so destroyed bills aren't flagged.
44. Are there official Kind Steps events or meet-ups?
Not from us, no. But our user community is active and frequently puts together regional get-togethers, organized "bill drops," and seasonal entry challenges through the Public Forums. Check the forums to see what's happening near you.
45. How do I report another user for fraud or abuse?
Use the Contact Us form and select Report Abuse as the inquiry type. Include the user number or username you're concerned about, and any specific bill serial numbers or hits you suspect are fraudulent. Our staff reviews every report, and we keep them confidential. Please don't air these concerns in the public forums.
46. Do you also track coins?
No. Kind Steps is paper-currency only. Coins don't carry unique serial numbers, so there's no way to identify any individual coin the way we can with notes.
47. Someone got into my account without permission. What should I do?
Change your password right away on the User Settings page. After that, send us a message through Contact Us and select Account Security as the type of inquiry. Include your user number and a description of what you're seeing. We can review recent activity, lock the account temporarily if needed, and help sort out which entries are legitimately yours.
48. How do I get in touch with Kind Steps support?
Use the Contact Us form for absolutely anything — bill questions, account issues, abuse reports, business or partnership inquiries, press, or anything else. Pick the inquiry type that matches your message so it lands with the right person, and include any relevant specifics (user number, serial numbers, screenshots) right up front. Reply times vary, but most messages get a response within a few business days.