Performance-based payments and incentives are the core principles of the REDD+ mechanism. This characteristic leads many authors to consider REDD+ as a transposition of payment for environmental services (PES) at the international level. This article aims to put into perspective the discourse of political innovation conveyed by the incentive principle of REDD+ with the reality of REDD+ pilot projects, which until now are the main expression of “REDD+ in the making”. Using a theoretical approach of management arrangements, we deconstruct three REDD+ pilot projects implemented in Madagascar. Our analysis is organized in three steps: (i) we analyze the logic guiding the creation of the projects, considering their relationship to the carbon market and the doctrine of the environmental NGOs in charge with their management; (ii) we compare their territorial arrangements, trying to figure out whether different logics of creation imply different arrangements; and (iii) we describe the concrete modalities of the implementation of the projects for the local population, ascertaining the place of incentive tools. Our analysis point out a gap between the economic ideal type of REDD+ international mechanism and its national implementation as a constraining conservation tool in Madagascar. This gap is mainly due to the existing unbalanced power relations between the local population and the project managers. Far from having initiated a new area of conservation policies based on incentives, REDD+ in Madagascar mainly serves to fund existing coercive policies.