For screen owners
What screen owners earn
These are worked examples, not a forecast. They show what a board brings in under stated assumptions, so you can put your own numbers in their place. Nothing here is a promise: whether businesses buy spots on your board depends on your venue, your audience and the businesses around you.
How much could a board bring in?
At the $50 starting price a new board opens with:
| Spots sold | Spots that run a week (four weeks) | Spots that run a month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 spot | $200 a month | $50 a month |
| 5 spots | $1,000 a month | $250 a month |
In words: one $50 spot sold every week of a four-week month comes to $200, and five of them every week come to $1,000. On a board whose spots run a month, one $50 spot is $50 a month and five are $250.
What do these numbers assume?
- Every spot sells at the $50 starting price. That is the price filled in when you create a board; you can set your own.
- A weekly spot sells every week, and a month is counted as four weeks. A calendar month is a few days longer.
- Five spots means five different businesses, each paying at least the starting price in the same cycle. There is no fixed number of spots on a board.
- Each advertiser pays with a card issued in the United States, at Stripe's standard rate, so the whole price reaches your Stripe balance.
- Nothing is refunded or disputed.
- No sales tax. Tax you collect is not earnings; you pay it over.
Why is the whole $50 mine?
Because the spot's price is the bid, and the bid is yours. You keep every dollar a business pays for its spot. Card processing is added to what the business pays, at the standard US card rate.
Advertisers pay the service fee on top of the spot’s price. The details are in Getting paid.
Does one sold spot cover the setup?
Yes. Host access is $49.99, paid once, and a single $50 spot more than covers it on the assumptions above. There is no monthly charge from us after that.
Can I earn more than the starting price?
Yes, when businesses compete for the top spots. Spots are ranked by what each business has paid, so a business that wants a higher place pays more than the one above it, and every extra dollar is part of the bid. You can also set a higher starting price, in whole dollars, at any time. Neither is guaranteed to bring a higher total: it depends on how many businesses want a spot.
Why might I earn less?
- Some cycles may sell fewer spots than the examples, or none.
- A lower starting price than $50 earns less per spot.
- On a card issued outside the United States, Stripe's higher charge comes out of the bid.
- A refund or a card dispute takes back some or all of a payment.
- Stripe's fees on sales tax, and Stripe Tax's own fee if you use it, come out of your balance.
Is any of this guaranteed?
No. We promise no traffic, no advertisers and no revenue; the Host Terms say so. The examples only show how the arithmetic works when spots do sell.
Are there other costs?
From us, only the one-time host access fee. On Stripe's side, the card processing in the service fee pays Stripe's fee on US cards at its standard rate. Stripe charges your account its own fee when a card dispute is opened, and its fee for Stripe Tax if you turn that on. The screen, its browser and your internet connection are your own.
Does a weekly or a monthly board bring in more?
At the same price, a weekly board has four chances a month to sell each spot and a monthly board has one, which is why the weekly examples are four times larger. In practice it depends on what businesses near you will pay for a week or a month of your screen, so the price and the cycle are yours to set; the price, and how often a board that starts over does so, can both be changed later. See Prices and cycles.
Where do I see what I have actually earned?
Your dashboard's overview shows what sponsors bid on your boards, what was returned to them in refunds, what card networks took back in disputes, and the total that is yours after both. The board editor shows each board's last 30 days, day by day. Your Stripe Dashboard is the record of what was deposited and paid out.