Abstract Our understanding of innovation policies has been enhanced. However, there is still a gap in conceptualizing the effectiveness of one of innovation policy’s most important tools: financial incentives (FIs). Scholars developed an understanding of the effectiveness of direct versus indirect FIs, but there is no clear theoretical framework that delineates what kind of financial instruments impact what kind of innovation under what conditions. This paper analyzes the different working and operational logic of the wide array of employed FI worldwide to develop what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first conceptual framework discerning what financial tools fit what aims and contexts. This framework allows the development of testable hypotheses as well as the development of incentives tailored differently for different national innovation missions and market structures, suggesting that the growing reliance among OECD countries on indirect FIs in the form of tax incentives is less then optimal.