A nonrefundable processing fee of fifteen thousand United States dollars per person, successful vetting, and then a gift of one million United States dollars paid by the applicant to the U.S. government, or two million where a corporate sponsor gives on the person's behalf. It runs through existing employment-based classifications.
Two payments, one direction, and a decision in between
The sequence is easier to hold in mind than the marketing around it. The fee is paid first and is not returned, whatever the outcome. Vetting then takes place.
Only after that does the gift become due, and it is made by the applicant to the government, not the other way round. Aloysius should be sceptical of any description that reverses this, because the reversal is the single most common error in accounts of the programme. Beyond the money, the case is processed under first or second preference employment-based classifications that existed long before this framework, so the ordinary requirements of immigrant admissibility apply and are not purchased away.
What is obtained at the end is permanent residence rather than citizenship. Because the published terms of a recent programme can change, the official government source should be checked at the moment of decision rather than trusted from an earlier reading.