How it works

Questions and answers

Plain answers about OnTheList.Live, for screen owners who sell ad spots on their screens and for the local businesses that buy them. Where an answer touches a contract, it links the legal text, and the legal text governs.

Every answer on one page, as plain text: llms-full.txt

For screen owners

You have a screen in your venue, or a page people visit. Setting up, pricing your spots, approving advertisers, putting the board on your screen, and getting paid.

How OnTheList.Live works for screen owners
What a board is, who pays what, how spots are ranked and shown on your screen, and what you need to start.
Setting up your screen
From paying for host access to your board on your screen, step by step: the setup link, your account, Stripe, your board and publishing.
Prices and cycles
Your starting price and minimum raise, how prices rise when businesses compete for the top spots, and what happens when a cycle ends.
Approving advertisers
How approval works: the card hold, your review queue and its deadline, what you can change, blocked websites, and what each decision does to the money.
The screen
What your board's screen view shows, how to put it on a screen in your venue, how it updates, and what it shows before anyone has bought a spot.
Your board page
What visitors see on your board's public page, what you can change on it, featured slots, follower counts, busy hours, click counts and sharing.
Getting paid
Where an advertiser's payment goes, what reaches your bank and when, what Stripe shows you, your Payouts page, and sales tax.
What screen owners earn
Worked examples of what a board can bring in at its starting price, with every assumption stated, and what moves the numbers up or down.
Refunds and disputes
When advertisers are refunded and who pays, refunding from your dashboard or from Stripe, and what happens when a card payment is disputed.
Your team and your account
Who can use your host account today, the five roles the product is built on, signing in, passwords, devices, what is recorded, and closing your account.

For advertisers

You run a local business and want a spot on someone’s screen. Buying a spot, what you pay, how ranking works, approvals and refunds.

How advertising works
How a local business buys an ad spot on a screen owner's board, what it costs, how spots are ranked and what happens after you pay.
Buying a spot
Step by step, how to buy an ad spot on a local screen's board from your phone: what you need, what each step asks and what happens after you pay.
Prices and fees for advertisers
What an ad spot costs: the spot price you choose, the one service fee on top, worked examples from $5 to $200, sales tax and what your card statement shows.
Ranking and outbids
How spots on a board are ranked by total paid, what happens in a tie, what an outbid is, how outbid emails work and how to move back up.
Approval and card holds
On a board where the screen owner approves each new ad first, your card is held, not charged, until approval. When it is charged, released or cancelled.
Managing your spot
Managing an ad spot after you pay: the emailed link, your spot's page, changing its name, sentence, tags and icon, raising, and the sponsor account.
Refunds for advertisers
When an advertiser gets money back for an ad spot, what is returned (everything but the card processing), who returns it, how long it takes and how to ask.

For everyone

About the service itself.

Rules for ads
What may and may not be advertised on an OnTheList.Live board, what an ad's words may say, how ads are checked and labelled, and how to report one.
Privacy and cookies
What OnTheList.Live keeps about advertisers, screen owners and visitors, who else sees it, how long it is kept, which cookies are set and how to choose.
About OnTheList.Live
What OnTheList.Live is, who runs it, how screen owners and local businesses use it, how it makes money and how to reach a person.