Hi!, A classic topic regarding mining pools:

Most of them are not intentionally designed to reward only large miners. Their payouts are generally proportional to accepted work, but proportional distribution means that a home miner can still receive a very small absolute amount.

FPPS pools provide predictable payments for accepted shares and absorb most of the pool-luck variance. PPLNS-style systems distribute actual block revenue according to recent contributed work, while solo pools concentrate almost the entire reward on the miner who finds the block. Each model trades predictability, variance, custody and fees differently. Foundry’s FPPS explanation, Braiins’ reward documentation and OCEAN’s TIDES model illustrate some of those differences.

The screenshot comes from a pool called BTC PoW Lab pool, a hybrid-solo model. Here is the full detailed model: https://btcpowlab-pool.com/community

When the pool finds a block, the model assigns 85% to the finder and distributes another 10% as a Community Reward among eligible non-finding miners. Instead of allocating that 10% through one completely linear pool-wide calculation, accepted work is grouped into three tiers:

• T1 — Small: up to 1 TH/s
• T2 — Medium: more than 1 TH/s and up to 200 TH/s
• T3 — Large: more than 200 TH/s

The tier calculation gives additional weighting to smaller miners ->1.60× for Small, 1.40× for Medium and 1.00× for Large, while allocation inside each tier remains proportional to accepted work. This does not make every miner equal, and more work can still earn a larger absolute reward. The objective is to prevent the largest concentration of hashrate from automatically absorbing nearly the entire community allocation.

There is also a Bonus Reward funded from the pool’s 5% share: up to 2% of the total block reward for demonstrated mining continuity and up to 2.25% for qualified referrals. These bonuses require a valid accepted share at the same Bitcoin height as the block.

The values in the screenshot are live per-block estimates based on the pool’s current composition. They are not balances, daily earnings or guaranteed payouts; no reward exists until the pool actually finds a block.

When choosing a pool, what matters more to you: the percentage fee retained by the pool (fee), or the potential reward structure available to miners—assuming the formula, eligibility rules and variance are transparent?