# OnTheList.Live — questions and answers, in full > Every topic of the OnTheList.Live questions-and-answers wiki, whole: how the service works for screen owners, who sell ad spots on their screens, and for advertisers, who buy them. The index is https://onthelist.live/faq. --- # How OnTheList.Live works for screen owners URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/how-it-works-for-screen-owners 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. OnTheList.Live lets you sell ad spots on the screen in your venue, or on a page your visitors and followers read, without sales calls, negotiating or a rate card. Local businesses buy their spots themselves, the spots are ranked by amount paid, and each payment goes straight into your own Stripe account. This page is the overview; the other screen-owner topics go into each part in detail. ## What is OnTheList.Live? OnTheList.Live is self-serve advertising software. You open a **board**: a public page at an address like `onthelist.live/your-board` where local businesses pay to be listed. Every paid listing on a board is an ad, and the board says so at the top of the page: "Sponsored Board — paid ads. Unpaid entries are labeled." If you have a screen in your venue, the board also has a **screen view**: a full-screen page you open in the screen's web browser, showing your top five spots. Businesses see their spot on your screen, and the people in your venue see the businesses that paid for one. In our legal texts you are the **host** and the businesses are **sponsors**. On these pages we say screen owner and advertiser, but they mean the same people. ## Who pays what? - **You** pay $49.99 once for host access. It is not a subscription and nothing is charged monthly. - **An advertiser** pays the price of their spot, which is their bid, plus a service fee they see before they pay. Advertisers pay the service fee on top of the spot’s price. 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. OnTheList.Live earns the one-time setup and its own fee, which is part of the service fee advertisers see before they pay; the rest of the service fee pays Stripe for the card processing. The details are in [Getting paid](https://onthelist.live/faq/getting-paid) and in the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms). ## What is a spot, and how long does it last? A spot is one business's listing on your board: its name, its message and a link to its website. A spot lasts for the rest of the current cycle. You choose the cycle when you create the board: a day, a week, a month, or a board that never starts over, where a spot lasts as long as its total keeps its place. In words: a business pays the spot's price plus the service fee. On a board without approval its spot shows right away; with approval on, its card is held until you decide, charged only if you approve, and nothing is charged if you do not. On the board, spots are ranked by the total paid. A business that is passed moves down and can pay more to move back up. When the cycle ends, nothing renews. There is no fixed number of spots. Every business that pays at least your starting price is listed (once you approve it, if approval is on), in order of what it has paid. When a cycle ends the board starts again from zero, and spots do not renew on their own. More in [Prices and cycles](https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-cycles). ## How are the spots ranked? By the total each business has paid in the current cycle, highest first, and by nothing else. A business that wants a higher place pays more, and what it adds goes on top of what it already paid. If two businesses have paid the same total, the one that reached it first stays ahead. You cannot move a listing up or down, and neither can we. That is what makes the board honest to the people reading it: position is bought, and the page says so. The advertisers' side of this is in [Ranking and outbids](https://onthelist.live/faq/ranking-and-outbids). ## What does my screen show? The screen view shows your top five paid spots as tiles, the first one largest. The first spot carries a QR code that opens the business's website; spots two to five show their website's address. Every tile shows the business's message, or the description from its website. Across the top: the board's name, a line saying these are paid ads, and, while the board takes bids, a QR code inviting any business watching to buy a spot of its own. It updates by itself as businesses pay. Everything about setting it up is in [The screen](https://onthelist.live/faq/the-screen). ## Do I get to choose who advertises? Yes. A new board starts with approval on: when a business buys a spot, its card is held, not charged, until you approve it. If you reject it, or never get to it, nothing is charged. You can also block whole websites from your board before anyone pays, and our own rules on what may be advertised apply to every board. See [Approving advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/approving-advertisers). ## Do I need a screen? No. The board's own page works without one: you can share its link and its share card wherever your customers or followers already are, and businesses buy spots from that page. The screen view is there for venues that have a screen people look at. ## What do I need to get started? 1. An email address and a card to pay the $49.99 host access fee. 2. To be 18 or older, and to accept the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms). 3. A Stripe account for your payments. You set it up on Stripe's own pages during setup; Stripe asks for your business details, a tax ID and the bank account your money goes to. 4. If you want the screen view, a screen with a web browser. The steps, in order, are in [Setting up your screen](https://onthelist.live/faq/setting-up-your-screen). ## Does OnTheList.Live ever hold my money? No. Every payment for a spot is made on your own Stripe account, with you as the seller. The bid goes from the advertiser's card to your Stripe balance, and Stripe pays it out to your bank on its schedule. We cannot pause your payouts or move your money anywhere. With your authority under the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms), we create each checkout on your account, capture or release a card hold, submit dispute evidence, and make the refunds the [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) sets out, which Stripe pays from your balance. See [Getting paid](https://onthelist.live/faq/getting-paid). ## Will you find advertisers for me? We do not promise traffic, advertisers or revenue; the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) say so plainly. What the product gives you is the ways in: the QR code at the top of your screen that takes a business straight to buying a spot, your board's link and share card, and the public list of boards at [/discover](https://onthelist.live/discover). ## Can I stop at any time? Yes. You can stop taking new bids on a board whenever you like. Its page stays up, the spots already paid for keep showing until the cycle ends, and nothing is refunded because you stopped. You can start taking bids again later. Closing your host account altogether is done by writing to us; the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) explain how. --- # Setting up your screen URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/setting-up-your-screen For: screen owners From paying for host access to your board on your screen, step by step: the setup link, your account, Stripe, your board and publishing. Setting up takes six steps: buy host access, open the setup link we email you, create your host account, connect your Stripe account, create and publish your board, and open the board's screen address on your screen. Here is each one, with what every form asks for. ## What are the steps, from paying to a board on my screen? In words: you pay $49.99 once on the front page; we email a setup link to the address you paid with; the link opens a form where you create your host account; you connect your own Stripe account, where businesses' payments land; you create your board, choosing its price, how long a spot runs and whether you approve each business first, and publish it; and you open the board's screen address in your screen's web browser. From then on, businesses buy spots themselves, for example from the code at the top of your screen while the board takes bids. The list below is the same thing, step by step. 1. **Buy host access** on the [front page](https://onthelist.live/#join): $49.99, once. 2. **Open the setup link** we email you once the payment clears. 3. **Create your host account**: your name, a password and the name businesses will see. 4. **Connect your Stripe account**, on Stripe's own pages. 5. **Create your board**, fill in what you want people to see, and publish it. 6. **Open the screen address** on your screen and make it full screen. ## How do I buy host access? On the [front page](https://onthelist.live/#join), enter your email address, tick the box that says you are 18 or older and agree to the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) and the [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy), and press Continue. You pay $49.99 on Stripe's secure checkout page. Nothing is added at checkout, and nothing is charged again later. The address you enter is where your setup link goes, and your host account is created under that address. ## What happens after I pay? When the payment clears, we email your setup link, usually within a few minutes. The email's subject is "Payment received — set up your board on OnTheList.Live", and its button is "Set up my board". The link works once, only for the address it was sent to, and expires seven days after it was sent. If your address already has a host account, no link is sent and the payment is refunded automatically. ## My setup link did not arrive. What should I do? 1. Look in your spam or promotions folder for a message from OnTheList.Live. 2. Please do not pay again. A second payment buys nothing, and it is refunded automatically. 3. Ask for the link again on the page you reached after paying, with the address you paid with. A new link replaces any earlier one. The sign-in page has the same option: "Paid for host access but never got your setup link?" 4. If that does not work either, write to us at [hi@moretime.ai](mailto:hi@moretime.ai) from the address you used. ## My setup link has expired. Do I have to pay again? No. Ask for a new link on the page you reached after paying, or write to us, and we send a fresh one. A new link replaces the old one, and there is no need to pay again. ## Can I get the $49.99 back? Yes, in full, if you ask before you use the setup link to create your host account: write to [hi@moretime.ai](mailto:hi@moretime.ai) from the address you paid with. Once your host account exists, the fee is not refundable, except a duplicate payment or one made after your account was already set up, which are refunded automatically, and wherever the law requires a refund. The [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) has the whole rule. ## What does the account form ask for? - **Your name.** - **Email**: already filled in with the address the link was sent to. It cannot be changed here. - **Password**: at least 8 characters. - **Host name**: what businesses and visitors see on your board, for example your venue's name. - **What kind of host are you?** Optional, up to 40 characters: a bar, a gym, a podcast. Every kind of host gets the same board and the same settings. - A box to accept the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms). Press "Create host account". The person who creates the account is its Owner. ## How do I connect Stripe, and why? Businesses pay you through Stripe, on your own Stripe account, so the money never passes through ours. On the "Connect your Stripe account" step, press the button and finish Stripe's own sign-up. Stripe asks for your business details, a tax ID and the bank account your money goes to, and checks them itself; we do not collect your bank details or identity documents. You can set your board up before Stripe has finished, but a board can only be published, and take payments, once Stripe says your account can accept card payments. If Stripe still needs something, the step says "Stripe still needs some details" and its button takes you back to Stripe to finish. Only the Owner can connect or change the Stripe account. ## How do I create my board? In your dashboard, open "Create a board" and fill in: - **Board name**, up to 80 characters. It becomes the board's public address, and it cannot be changed later, so pick something you are happy for everyone to see. - **Does the board start over?** Every day, every week, every month, or never. Whether it starts over is fixed when you create it; how often can be changed later. - **When does a paid listing go live?** "Only after I approve it" is chosen for you. See [Approving advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/approving-advertisers). - **Starting price (whole dollars)**: 50 is filled in, and you can set anything from $5 up. - **Time zone**: your browser's, filled in for you. It decides when each cycle starts and ends. To change it later, ask us. Press "Create board". A host account holds one board unless we raise that limit for you, and every board you create counts towards it, published or not. ## What should I fill in before I publish? All of it is optional, and all of it is in the board editor: - **Board logo**: a square PNG or JPEG, at least 80 pixels on each side, up to 4096 × 4096 pixels and 512 KB. It is checked before it appears anywhere, and we review it afterwards. We keep a copy we make, fitted within 512 pixels a side and stripped of anything embedded in it; a logo with a see-through background sits on a white or near-black plate, whichever it reads best on. - **Host profile**: your host name, a short bio of up to 280 characters, and your X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok accounts. - **Search & discovery**: a one-line introduction, a topic, your website, who visits, where you are, and, for a venue, its kind and its business hours, which give your board an estimate of its busy hours. - **Featured slots**: up to three free entries of your own, so the board is never empty. - **Blocked websites**: businesses you never want on your board. - **Settings**: your minimum bid (the starting price), your minimum raise, a colour theme, whether last cycle's spots are carried into the next at $0, and whether rounded click counts show publicly. More on each in [Your board page](https://onthelist.live/faq/your-board-page). ## How do I publish my board? At the top of the board editor, under "Publication", press "Publish this board". That opens its public page and starts its first cycle, so businesses can buy spots from that moment. If the button is not there, Stripe cannot yet charge cards on your account; the page says so and links to the Stripe step. ## How do I get the board onto my screen? In the board editor, "Show on your screen" gives your screen's address and four steps: 1. Open this link in the screen's web browser. 2. Make it full screen. 3. Leave it on. It updates by itself. 4. If the edges are cut off, set your screen's picture size to Fit (sometimes called Just Scan or Screen Fit). Until the board is published, the link shows nothing. Everything else about the screen is in [The screen](https://onthelist.live/faq/the-screen). ## Can I run more than one board? A host account holds one board to start with. If you need more, write to us at [hi@moretime.ai](mailto:hi@moretime.ai); we can raise the limit for your account. Every board you create counts towards it, including drafts. --- # Prices and cycles URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-cycles For: screen owners Your starting price and minimum raise, how prices rise when businesses compete for the top spots, and what happens when a cycle ends. You set two prices and one rhythm: the **starting price** a spot costs, the **minimum raise** between one total and the next, and how often the board **starts over**. Past that, the businesses set the prices themselves, by what they are willing to pay to be higher up. ## What is the starting price? The starting price is your board's minimum bid: the smallest amount a business can pay for a new spot. It is in whole dollars and at least $5, the platform's floor. When you create a board, $50 a week is filled in for you, and you can change both. You can change it at any time in the board editor's settings ("Minimum bid (whole dollars)"). The change applies to new spots straight away. A spot already on the board below a newly raised starting price keeps its place and can still be raised. ## What does the advertiser pay on top of the price? A service fee, shown to them before they pay. Advertisers pay the service fee on top of the spot’s price. It is not taken from your price: the price is the bid, and the bid is yours. What the advertiser sees is set out in [Prices and fees for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-fees-for-advertisers). ## How do prices go up? When businesses compete for the top spots. Spots are ranked by what each business has paid in the current cycle, so a business that wants to pass another has to pay more than that one's total. If the top spot holds $50 and your minimum raise is the standard $1, the next business needs a total of $51 to take it. A business already on the board pays only the difference: its next payment adds to the total it already has. Nothing moves prices but those payments. On your board's page, every spot has a button showing the total that would take its place, so businesses can see what it costs to move up. ## How does ranking work? In words: each business's spot has a total, the sum of everything it has paid in this cycle. The spots are listed from the highest total down. A payment adds to its spot's total and the order is worked out again at that moment. Two spots with the same total stay in the order they reached it. Nothing else counts: not how long a spot has been listed, not what you think of it, and not the service fee. The advertisers' side of this, with what they see when they are passed, is in [Ranking and outbids](https://onthelist.live/faq/ranking-and-outbids). ## What is the minimum raise? The minimum raise is the step every total on your board moves in. It is $1 unless you set it ("Minimum raise (whole dollars)" in the board's settings). With a $5 step, every total on the board is a multiple of $5, so passing a $50 spot takes $55. Your starting price has to be a multiple of your minimum raise too. A coarser step means bigger jumps between places. Changing it mid-cycle can leave a total that is not on the new step; that spot keeps its place. ## What are the cycle lengths? When you create a board you choose whether it starts over, and how often: | Choice | What it means | | ----------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Every day | Each day's order is archived and the board opens again. You can give it opening hours. | | Every week | A week-long cycle, archived when it ends. | | Every month | A month-long cycle, archived when it ends. | | Never | One all-time board. Spots hold their place until somebody pays past them. | Whether the board starts over is fixed when you create it. How often it starts over can be changed later, and the change applies from the next cycle, never the one running. Cycles start and end at midnight in your board's time zone, or at the opening hours of a daily board that has them. ## How do I choose a cycle length? Think about how often the same people see your screen. A café, a gym or a bar, with regulars every week, may suit weekly spots; a barbershop, a salon or a shop people visit less often may suit monthly ones. A daily board suits a place where each day is its own audience. There is no right answer, and the cycle's frequency can be changed later. ## What are opening hours on a daily board? A daily board can take bids only inside a window you set, from one hour to 22 hours long, and the window may run past midnight. Outside it the board takes no bids. Leave both times blank and it runs all day. These are the board's hours, not your venue's: your venue's business hours are set separately and only feed the busy-hours estimate. ## What happens when a cycle ends? - New bids close for the final minutes of the cycle (currently 10), so that no payment lands after the cycle it was meant for. A payment that still completes after the end is refunded to the business automatically, everything but the card processing. - The final order is recorded in your board's **Round Archive**, a permanent public record. A settled cycle's order never changes afterwards. - Every total goes back to $0 and the next cycle starts from nothing. - Each business that paid in the cycle is emailed a record of its placement. - A spot still held for your approval is released, and the business's card is not charged. Spots do not renew on their own. A business that wants to be on the next cycle pays again. ## What is a carried row? Unless you turn it off, every paid spot live at the end of a cycle is copied into the next one as a **carried row**: listed at $0, marked "Carried", below every spot that has money on it. It is a courtesy, not a paid spot: it holds no money, cannot pass anybody and cannot be passed, and its previous business has no claim on it. The first business to pay your starting price for that website takes it. A carried row nobody pays for lapses when the cycle ends. Carried rows never appear on your screen, which shows paid spots only. To stop carrying them, untick "Carry listings into the next round at $0" in the board's settings. ## How does a board that never starts over work? It has one cycle that never ends. Totals add up for as long as the board exists, there is no reset, no archive and no closing minutes, and a spot lasts as long as its total keeps its place. This is fixed when the board is created: a board that never starts over cannot be changed into one that does. ## Can I change my prices in the middle of a cycle? Yes. A new starting price or minimum raise applies straight away. A new cycle length or new opening hours apply from the next cycle, so the one running finishes on the schedule it started with. --- # Approving advertisers URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/approving-advertisers For: screen owners 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. You decide who appears on your board. A new board starts with approval on: a business that buys a spot has its card held, not charged, and nothing shows until you say yes. This page covers the review queue, the three review settings, blocked websites, and what each of your decisions does to the money. ## How does approval work? In words: a business picks your board, fills in its spot and pays on Stripe's page, but its card is only held. The spot appears in your "Listings to review" with a date to approve by. If you approve it, the card is charged at that moment and the spot goes on your board and your screen. If you reject it, or the business cancels with the link we email it, or time runs out (the cycle ends or the hold lapses before you decide), the hold is released and nothing is charged. ## What are the three review settings? You pick one for each board under "When does a paid listing go live?", in the board's settings: - **Straight away**: the listing is on the board as soon as it is paid for. - **Straight away, and tell me to review it**: the listing goes live immediately and also appears in "Listings to review", so you can look at it afterwards. - **Only after I approve it**: the business's card is held, not charged, until you approve. Approving charges it and puts the listing on the board. A board you create starts on "Only after I approve it". You can change the setting whenever you like. ## Where do I see what needs reviewing? In your dashboard, under "Listings to review". It lists everything on your boards with something outstanding: new spots held for approval, new businesses on a spot, a business's new name or message, and reports from the public. Each item shows the business's name, its website, the amount (marked "on hold" while the card is only held), its message and tags, and why it is in the list. The most urgent items come first. We email the board's Owner and Admins about every payment and every card hold still waiting for you, with a link to "Listings to review" when the board reviews its listings. On a board saved on "Straight away" you can turn these emails off in the board's settings ("Email the Owner and Admins about every payment and card hold"); on the two settings that review listings they are always sent. While a board with approval on is published, still look at "Listings to review" at least once a day. ## How long do I have to approve a spot? Each held spot shows "Approve by" with a date and time. A card hold lasts about seven days from the business's checkout, and a spot can only be approved while its cycle is still running, so the date is whichever comes first, with a few minutes to spare. After that date the spot can no longer be approved, and nothing is charged; the business is told. On a board whose cycles are longer than a week, that means reviewing within the week. ## What happens when I approve a spot? The business's card is charged the amount it agreed to at checkout, the money goes to your Stripe balance, and the spot goes on your board at its total, ranked from that moment. The business is emailed that its listing is live. If the business also gave a name or a message, those show too. ## What happens when I reject a spot? The hold on the business's card is released and nothing is charged, so there is nothing to refund. The business is told it was not charged. Nobody can list that website on your board again until the next cycle. If a spot's payment was already taken (on a board that does not hold cards, for example), rejecting is not available once it is live; you suspend or remove it instead, as below. ## Can the business cancel before I decide? Yes. Until you approve, the business can cancel from the email we send it when the hold is placed, or from its listing's page. The spot leaves your queue, nothing is charged, and the website is open to a new purchase. ## Can I edit what a business wrote? No. A listing is the business's own: you cannot change its website, business name, message, image or tags, and we do not edit them either (we store a fitted copy of the image). On a board with approval on, a business name or message given or changed after the spot went live is held for your approval before it shows, while the spot itself stays up. The tags a business picks from our lists need no approval of their own. Your five actions are approve, reject, suspend, reinstate and remove. ## What do suspend, reinstate and remove do? - **Suspend** takes a live listing off the board and the screen. It can be undone. - **Reinstate** puts a suspended listing back. - **Remove** takes a listing off for good, and nobody can list that website on your board until the next cycle. Removing a listing does not decide the money by itself. If the business broke our rules, its payment is not refunded. If you remove a listing that was already showing for a rule of your own (a competitor, a topic you would rather not carry), the business is refunded at your cost, in full or for the part of the cycle it did not get, never the card processing; a person on our staff issues that refund when you or the business write to us. The [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) set this out. ## Can a spot go live without my approval, even with approval on? Yes, in one case. When a business pays for a website that is already on your board without money on it (one of your own featured entries, a carried row from the last cycle, or a spot that refunds took off the board), the payment is charged at once, the spot goes live straight away, and it appears in your queue so you can review the new business. You approved that website before; the business paying for it is new. ## How do I keep certain businesses off my board? Add their websites under "Blocked websites" in the board editor: up to 200 per board. Blocking a website also blocks every address under it. A business that tries to buy a spot for a blocked website is told, before it pays, that this board's host does not accept sponsorship from this website. A listing already on the board stays until you remove it. Only you, your team and we can see the list. Under "Refused in the last 30 days" you can see, for each blocked entry, the last website it refused, when, and how many times. Anyone can type any website, so a refusal is not proof that its owner tried. ## What can never be advertised on any board? Whatever our [Prohibited Content Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/prohibited-content) and [Acceptable Use Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/acceptable-use) refuse, on every board, whatever your own settings. Stripe's own list of restricted businesses binds your Stripe account too. A website with a term on our refused list is turned away before payment, and we check listed websites again at least once a day. The advertisers' version of these rules is [Rules for ads](https://onthelist.live/faq/rules-for-ads). ## Someone reported a listing. What happens now? Anyone can use "Report a listing" at the bottom of your board. A report is recorded and appears in your "Listings to review"; it never takes a listing down by itself. A person reviews it, and you can act on it with the five actions above. ## Can OnTheList.Live act on a listing on my board? Yes. We may approve, reject, suspend, reinstate or remove any listing on any board under our policies, and our decision stands over yours. We never write or edit a business's listing, and we never decide its rank. --- # The screen URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/the-screen For: screen owners 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. Every board has a **screen view**: a full-screen page made for the screen in your venue. It shows your top five paid spots, large enough to read across a room, and a code any business watching can scan to buy a spot of its own. You open it once in the screen's web browser and leave it on. ## What is the screen view? A page at your board's address with `/screen` on the end, for example `onthelist.live/your-board/screen`. You find the exact address in the board editor, under "Show on your screen". It is drawn as one widescreen picture that fits whatever window it is in, so it never scrolls: on a screen of another shape, the spare space is left empty around it. ## What does the screen show? - **Across the top**: your board's name; the line "Sponsored Board · Paid ads", set in capitals; today's estimated busy hours, if you have described your venue; and, while the board takes bids, a QR code with "Scan to put your business here", which opens your board's page for buying a spot. - **The tiles**: your top five paid spots, the first the largest and each one smaller than the one above it. Each tile shows its place, the business's icon, its name, its total, and its message (or, if it gave none, the description from its website). The first spot has a QR code that opens its website; spots two to five show their website's address written out. - **Along the bottom**: "Powered by OnTheList.Live — start your own board" and the name of the company that runs OnTheList.Live. ## Which spots appear on the screen? Only paid spots ranked one to five. Your own featured entries and the carried rows from the last cycle never appear on the screen, and neither do spots ranked six and below; every spot is still listed on your board's page. With fewer than five paid spots, the screen shows fewer, bigger tiles. ## Why does only the first spot have a QR code? That is how the screen is laid out: the top spot gets a one-scan route to its website, and the other four print their website's address, so a customer can type it. A scan of the first spot's code goes through our click link, so it is counted like a click on your board's page; a typed address is not counted. ## What do I need to show it? A screen with a web browser: a screen with one built in, or a computer connected to the screen. Screens' built-in browsers differ from model to model and we do not certify any particular one; if yours struggles with the page, a computer connected to the screen is another way to show it. Nothing needs to be installed, and the screen does not sign in to anything. ## How do I put it on my screen? From "Show on your screen" in the board editor: 1. Open this link in the screen's web browser. 2. Make it full screen. 3. Leave it on. It updates by itself. 4. If the edges are cut off, set your screen's picture size to Fit (sometimes called Just Scan or Screen Fit). The link shows nothing until the board is published. ## The edges are cut off. What do I change? Many screens zoom the picture slightly, which cuts off its edges. In your screen's picture settings, set the picture size or aspect ratio to Fit; some makers call it Just Scan or Screen Fit. The whole page must be visible: the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) ask you to show the screen view whole, never cropped, covered or zoomed so that the disclosure line, a spot or the bottom line is hidden. ## Does it update by itself? Yes. When a business pays, the screen shows the new spot and the new order without anyone touching it: tiles slide to their new places. Once a day, at 4:00 in your board's time zone, the page reloads itself to stay fresh. ## What does it show before anyone has bought a spot? One large tile across the whole board area: "Your business could be here", with "Scan to put your business here" and a QR code that opens your board's page for buying a spot. It shows no price. ## What does it show when bids are closed? The spots that stand stay on the screen, and the header shows why bids are closed instead of the code, for example in the final minutes of a cycle, outside a daily board's opening hours, or after you stop taking new bids. On an empty board, the invitation tile shows the reason too. A paused board's screen keeps showing; a draft or suspended board's screen shows nothing. ## What are the busy hours on the screen? If you have told us your venue's kind and its business hours (in the board editor, under "Search & discovery"), the header shows a small strip, "Busy hours today, est.", with the caption "Estimated from this venue's business hours and type, not from counted visits. Times are the venue's local time." It is an estimate drawn from those two facts, not a count of anyone, and the same estimate appears on your board's page. ## Does anyone need to sign in to see the screen? No. The screen view is a public page with no sign-in, so anyone with its address can open it, and it shows nothing your public board does not. Search engines are asked not to list it. ## Can I change how the screen looks? It is drawn in your board's colour theme, from the board's settings. Its layout, the disclosure line and the bottom line are fixed, so every screen reads as a page of paid ads, and nothing else can be added to it. --- # Your board page URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/your-board-page For: screen owners 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. Your board's page is where businesses buy their spots and where everyone else can see the whole list. It lives at `onthelist.live/your-board`, works on any phone or computer, and holds everything the screen shows and more: every paid spot, your own featured entries, your profile and the board's history. ## What does a visitor see on my board page? From the top: 1. A banner, before anything else: "Sponsored Board — paid ads. Unpaid entries are labeled.", with a link to "How ranking works", the board's own rules page. 2. The title line: your board's name, your host name, and the time left in the current cycle. 3. The top five places as tiles, the first the largest; then every other place as a row. An empty place among the five invites a business to put itself there. 4. Your featured entries, under "Featured by host · not a paid rank". 5. On a board that starts over, a strip of past cycles leading to the Round Archive. 6. At the bottom, "Powered by OnTheList.Live — start your own board", "How ranking works", "Report a listing" and our legal links. An "About" tab opens a drawer with your profile and the board's details. ## What does each spot show? Its place, the business's name (the name it gave, or its website's title or address), its icon, its message, the total it has paid this cycle, and a button showing the total that would take that place ("Take the top spot" on the first, "Outrank" on the others). The first spot also shows since when it has held the top place. On wider screens each spot has a QR code to its website, and the top ten spots show the tags the business picked, such as an offer or a way to book. The business's name is a link to its website, marked as a paid link for search engines. Each visit through that link is counted as a click. ## What is in the About drawer? Your host name and kind, how many people have viewed the board, your bio, a "Sponsor this board" button, a link to the Round Archive, a share button, a QR code to the board's buying page (on larger screens), your social accounts, and what you filled in under "Search & discovery": topic, who visits, location, kind of venue, whether the board is shown on screens there, your website, the estimated busy hours, your description and up to five questions with your answers. ## What can I change, and what is fixed? Fixed when the board is created: its name and its address, and whether it starts over. Its time zone can be changed only by us, on request. In the board editor you can change, whenever you like: - the **logo**: a square PNG or JPEG, at least 80 pixels a side, up to 4096 × 4096 pixels and 512 KB, checked before it shows and reviewed by us afterwards, and drawn on a white or near-black plate when its background is see-through; - the **host profile**: your host name, kind, bio and social accounts (these are yours, so a change shows on every board you run); - **Search & discovery**: the introduction, topic, website, who visits, location, venue, business hours, description and questions; - the **settings**: colour theme and your own accent colour, prices, review setting, carried rows and click counts; - your **featured slots** and **blocked websites**. The banner and the "Powered by" line cannot be removed or covered, on the page or on the screen. ## What are featured slots? Up to three entries of your own, free, so the board is never empty when a cycle opens: your own website, a partner, a cause. They sit in their own section below every paid spot, labelled "Featured by host · not a paid rank", with no place number and no amount. They are carried into every new cycle. A business that pays your starting price for the same website takes the entry over: it becomes a paid spot, ranked with the others, and the slot is yours again for something else. That payment is charged at once, even with approval on, and shows in your queue for review. Featured entries never appear on the screen. ## How do the follower counts work? Name your X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok accounts in your host profile, and your board lists each one as a link to its profile with its follower count: "as shown on" the platform, with the date it was read. The counts are read for us about once a day by a third party, from each account's public profile; we do not check them. The accounts must be your own, and must not be ones whose followers you bought. The @ is optional when you type a handle. ## What are the estimated busy hours? If your board belongs to a venue, tick "This board belongs to a brick-and-mortar venue" under "Search & discovery", pick its kind (bar or pub, restaurant, café or coffee shop, gym or fitness studio, shop, salon or barber, entertainment venue, or another kind) and enter its business hours for each day. Your board then shows "Estimated busy hours", captioned "Estimated from this venue's business hours and type, not from counted visits. Times are the venue's local time." It is an estimate from those two facts, nothing more: no one is counted. The business hours are your venue's, not the board's: they do not decide when businesses can buy spots. ## Who can see how many clicks each spot gets? The exact counts are yours alone: the board editor's "Clicks" section shows each spot's total since it went up. If you tick "Show click counts on the public board", visitors see a rounded range on the top ten spots instead (50+, 100+, 250+ and so on), and nothing at all for a spot under 50. Exact counts are never public. ## What figures do I get about my board? - **In the board editor, "Last 30 days"**: bids, bid volume and clicks, day by day. They are gathered once a day, after midnight UTC, so a board that went live today shows tomorrow. - **On your dashboard's overview**: what sponsors bid, what was returned to them in refunds, and what card networks took back in disputes, with the total that is yours after both. - **On the board page itself**: how many people have viewed it. ## What is the Round Archive? On a board that starts over, every cycle's final order is kept in the board's Round Archive: a permanent, public record of who held which place. Standings are final and never re-ranked; a later refund or dispute is noted against the record, never applied to it. A board that never starts over has no archive, because nothing ever closes. ## How do I share my board? "Share this board" in the board editor gives you a card image in two sizes (square and vertical), a caption and the link, ready for a post, a story or a message. Visitors have a share button on the page too. When you promote your board, say in the same post that the spots on it are paid. ## Will people find my board? Every published board is listed in our public list of boards at [/discover](https://onthelist.live/discover), and its page can be found by search engines. Filling in "Search & discovery" makes the board easier to understand; it promises no position in anybody's search results, and we do not promise visitors. ## Is there anything I must not do with my board? Yes, because a board is a page of paid ads. You must not present it as your personal recommendation or as a ranking of quality, add reviews or scores of your own to it, hide or explain away the banner, show the screen cropped or covered, or promise a business traffic or sales. You must never buy spots on your own board, or arrange bids, to move a place. The [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) set out each rule. --- # Getting paid URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/getting-paid For: screen owners Where an advertiser's payment goes, what reaches your bank and when, what Stripe shows you, your Payouts page, and sales tax. Every payment for a spot on your board is made on your own Stripe account, with you as the seller. We never hold your money: the price of the spot goes from the advertiser's card to your Stripe balance, and Stripe pays it out to your bank. This page follows the money, and says what you see at each step. ## Where does an advertiser's payment go? In words: the advertiser pays the spot's price plus the service fee, with the full total shown before they pay, on Stripe's checkout page. The payment is made on your Stripe account. The service fee is split two ways: our fee goes to OnTheList.Live, and the card processing pays Stripe for handling the card. The spot's price is what is left in your Stripe balance, and Stripe pays your balance out to your bank. On a US card, that is the whole price. ## How much of each payment do I keep? **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. The spot's price is the bid, and the bid is yours: we take no share of it. The service fee on top carries our fee and the card processing, so on a card issued in the United States, at Stripe's standard rate, the bid reaches your Stripe balance whole. Advertisers pay the service fee on top of the spot’s price. Refunds and card disputes reduce what you keep; see [Refunds and disputes](https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-and-disputes-for-screen-owners). ## What if an advertiser pays with a card from outside the United States? Stripe charges more to process a card issued abroad, and the card processing in the service fee is worked out at the standard US rate before anyone knows which card will be used. So on an international card, Stripe's extra charge comes out of the bid. The same goes for custom or non-US Stripe pricing on your account, Stripe's fee on any sales tax you collect, and the fee for Stripe Tax itself. Where Stripe charges your account less, the difference is yours. The [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) set this out. ## When does the money reach my bank? Payments go straight into your own payout account. A payment lands in your Stripe balance when it completes; on a board with approval on, that is when you approve the spot. From there, Stripe pays your balance out to your bank on its own schedule. Stripe says a new account's first payout typically takes 7 to 14 days after its first payment, and that after that its standard schedule for US accounts is two business days. It can be longer while Stripe is holding or checking your account. Your Stripe Dashboard shows every payout date. ## Who is the seller when a business buys a spot? You are. Every payment is made on your own Stripe account, so you are the merchant of record. Your Stripe business name is on the payment page and on the advertiser's card statement: your Stripe statement descriptor, followed by a short form of your board's name so the charge is recognisable. Keep your business name and support contact up to date in your Stripe Dashboard. ## What will I see in my Stripe Dashboard? Each payment, at the whole amount the advertiser paid. Its service fee shows as two items: our fee, which Stripe labels an application fee, and Stripe's own processing fee. What stays in your balance is the spot's price, on a US card at Stripe's standard rate. If you collect sales tax, the tax sits in your balance on top, for you to pay over. Your Stripe Dashboard is the record of what was deposited, and of every balance and payout date; we keep no second copy of those figures. ## What does the Payouts page in my dashboard show? Whether your Stripe account is connected, whether it is accepting card payments, whether it is paying out to your bank, and when we last checked with Stripe. If Stripe is asking you for anything, the page lists it. It links to your Stripe Dashboard; only the Owner can change which Stripe account businesses pay into. ## What happens if Stripe pauses my account? While Stripe will not let your account accept card payments, every bid on your boards is refused and no board can be published. Your board's page stays up, and every spot already paid for keeps its place. If Stripe accepts payments but has paused payouts to your bank, businesses can still pay you, and Stripe holds the money until you give it what it needs. ## Can OnTheList.Live take money from my Stripe balance? Not for our own account. We cannot pause your payouts or move your money anywhere. With your authority under the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms), we create each checkout on your account, capture or release a card hold when you approve or turn down a spot (or the hold ends), submit evidence when a payment is disputed, and make the refunds the [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) sets out, which Stripe pays from your balance to the advertiser's card; when we refund a payment we also return our fee on it to your balance. ## Do I have to charge sales tax? It depends on the tax law where you and your advertisers are, and working that out is yours, not ours: you are the seller, so tax on the sale of a spot is yours to work out, collect, report and pay. If you turn on Stripe Tax in your own Stripe account, every checkout on your boards asks Stripe to work out sales tax on the spot's price from the advertiser's billing address, at the tax code you set, and adds it on top; the service fee is sent as not taxable. Stripe only collects where you have told it you are registered, and Stripe Tax's own fee is charged to your account. Advertisers on your board then see "plus any sales tax" before they pay, and Stripe's page shows the tax before they confirm. Check your Stripe Tax report against your payments before you file: Stripe Tax records the tax when the advertiser checks out, so a card hold that was later released still shows its tax on the report, and a refund we issue can leave a few cents of tax behind. ## Will I get a tax form? Stripe issues tax forms to connected accounts where its thresholds are met (in the United States, Form 1099-K). That is between you and Stripe; we issue no tax form for the money advertisers pay you. ## Does the $49.99 host access fee come out of my earnings? No. It is a separate, one-time payment you made to us, on our own Stripe account, before your board existed. No part of any spot's price goes towards it, and it does not change the service fee advertisers pay. --- # What screen owners earn URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/what-screen-owners-earn For: screen owners 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. 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](https://onthelist.live/faq/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](https://onthelist.live/legal/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](https://onthelist.live/faq/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. --- # Refunds and disputes URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-and-disputes-for-screen-owners For: screen owners When advertisers are refunded and who pays, refunding from your dashboard or from Stripe, and what happens when a card payment is disputed. Every payment for a spot is made on your Stripe account, so every refund of a spot is paid from your Stripe balance. On a card issued in the United States, at Stripe's standard rate and with no sales tax, a full refund the product makes leaves you, and us, where we were before the payment. This page explains which refunds happen by themselves, which ones you can give, and what happens when a card payment is disputed. The [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) is the full rule, and it governs. ## Can an advertiser get their money back? Not because they changed their mind or were passed by another business: all bids are final, and the business ticks a box saying it understands that before it pays. The only refunds are the ones the [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) lists, plus the ones you choose to give yourself, from your dashboard or from your Stripe Dashboard. On a board with approval on, a business can cancel before you approve, because its card is only held; nothing is charged, so nothing is refunded. ## When is an advertiser refunded automatically? - **A payment that completes after the cycle has ended.** Bids close in the final minutes, but a checkout started just before can still complete late; it is never applied to the next cycle. - **A payment for a website another business had already paid for**, or one that was already declined or removed, or held for your approval in another checkout. - **Every payment behind the running cycle when we suspend a board.** Each of these is refunded everything but the card processing, and the business is emailed what was returned. ## Who pays for a refund? On every full refund we make, the business gets back everything it paid except the card processing. The bid (and any sales tax) goes back out of your Stripe balance, and we return our whole fee into your balance right after, as a second movement on your Stripe account. So on a card issued in the United States, at Stripe's standard rate and with no sales tax, a full refund leaves you, and us, exactly where we were before the payment. Stripe does not give back its own processing fee on a refund; the card processing the business paid stays with you to cover it. Where Stripe charged your account more than that covered (on a card issued abroad, for example), the difference stays yours. ## How do I refund a payment from my dashboard? Only the account's Owner can. Open "Payments and refunds", find the payment under its board and spot, and press "Refund…". Before anything is sent, the page shows every amount: what goes back to the business's card, what leaves your Stripe balance, our fee coming back into your balance, how much your balance goes down by, and the card processing, which is not refunded and pays Stripe's fee. Refunding here returns our fee to you. A refund from your Stripe Dashboard does not. The refund returns everything left on the payment except the card processing, in one go: there is no partial form, and only one such refund per payment. The page lists each board's most recent payments; one it does not show is refunded from your Stripe Dashboard. ## When can I not refund from my dashboard? - When we have already refunded the payment, or you already refunded it from your dashboard. - When the spot was removed because the business broke our rules; that decision keeps the payment. A goodwill refund from your Stripe Dashboard is still possible. - While the payment is disputed, or while a card network's inquiry about it is open. Once the inquiry closes, you can press it again. - When refunds you made from your Stripe Dashboard have already returned more than the bid. ## Can I refund from my Stripe Dashboard instead? Yes, in whole or in part, as a goodwill gesture. Stripe tells us, and we apply it: the refund counts against our fee first, and only the part that reaches the bid comes off the spot's total, in whole dollars, rounded up, so a part refund can move the spot's place. A refund from your Stripe Dashboard cannot reach our fee, because only we can return it. If you refund the whole payment there, you pay our fee and the card processing back out of your own balance (Stripe keeps its processing fee). To have our fee returned with the refund, refund from your dashboard on OnTheList.Live instead, or, for a payment it does not list, ask us. ## What happens to the spot after a refund? It stays on the board while its total is above $0, at the lower total. Once refunds bring its total to $0 it leaves the board, and the website is open again to whoever pays for it first. A finished cycle's record in the Round Archive is never rewritten: a later refund is noted against it. We do not email the business about a refund you make from your dashboard; Stripe's receipt, if your Stripe account sends one, is its notice. ## What is a card dispute? A dispute, or chargeback, is the advertiser asking their card issuer to reverse a payment. It is between the card issuer and you, as the seller. When a dispute is opened, Stripe takes the disputed amount and its own dispute fee from your Stripe balance, and the card network decides the outcome. ## What does OnTheList.Live do when a payment is disputed? - We take that payment, and only that payment, off the spot's total at once. - The spot is suspended automatically only if the payment was the spot owner's own, the card network gives a fraud reason, or what is left falls below the board's starting price. Otherwise a person reviews it. - We put together the evidence and send it to Stripe: what was bought, the two statements the business ticked before paying (with when, from where and on what device), how long the spot held each place, and how often it was clicked. We cannot promise the outcome. ## What happens when a dispute is decided? **In your favour**: the disputed amount comes back to your balance (Stripe's own terms decide its dispute fee), the payment counts towards the spot again, and the spot returns to the state the dispute took it from (or, once its cycle has ended, to where the cycle's end would have put it). A finished cycle is noted, never re-ranked. **For the cardholder**: the money is gone from your balance. We return what remains of our fee on that payment to you; that is our current practice, which we may end for future disputes with notice. ## What is a card network inquiry? A card issuer's request for information before any chargeback. It takes nothing from your balance and we deduct nothing for it; we record it and send the same evidence. While it is open, the refunds we make (including the one in your dashboard) are held back, because Stripe reverses a partial refund if the inquiry becomes a chargeback. Once it closes, a refund that was owed is issued. If it becomes a chargeback, it is handled as a dispute. ## What happens to the money if you suspend my board? Every payment behind the board's running cycle is refunded to its business, everything but the card processing, and its spots are removed. Each refund comes out of your balance with our fee returned to it. If the suspension was our error, we owe you the bid part of every refund it caused, and pay it to you by hand. If we lift a suspension, the board comes back with bids stopped, and you start it again yourself. ## Can I promise an advertiser a refund? Only one you will give yourself, from your dashboard or your Stripe Dashboard. You may not offer refunds outside the [Refund Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) on the platform's behalf. --- # Your team and your account URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/your-team For: screen owners 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. Your host account is the account that owns your boards and the Stripe account businesses pay into. This page covers who can use it, how signing in works, what is recorded, and how to leave. ## Can I add staff or a co-owner to my host account? Not today. A host account has one member: its Owner, the person who created it. The product is built around five roles, and every action in it is checked against the role of whoever takes it, but there is no page yet for adding members. Please do not share your password instead. Everything done through your account is treated as done by you, until you tell us it has been compromised. ## What are the five roles? They are built into the product, and each one is a set of things a person may do: | Role | What the role may do | | ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Owner | Everything, including the Stripe account, the payments list and refunds | | Admin | Create boards, change their settings and the host profile, keep the blocked websites list, review listings, see revenue and figures | | Billboard Manager | Change board settings, review listings, see figures but not revenue | | Moderator | Review listings | | Analyst | See revenue and figures | Today every host account has only the Owner. ## What can only the Owner do? Connect or change the Stripe account businesses pay into, see the "Payments and refunds" page, and refund a payment from it. Notices about your account, such as a change to the [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms), go to the Owner's email address. ## How do I sign in? With your email address and password, at `hosts.onthelist.live`. Your boards, your review queue, your payments and your payouts are all there. Your public board stays at `onthelist.live/your-board`. ## I have forgotten my password. What do I do? On the sign-in page, choose "Forgotten your password?" and enter your email address. We send a link that lets you choose a new password; it works once and expires in an hour. If the link has stopped working, ask for a new one from the sign-in page. ## Can I turn on two-factor authentication? Not on a host account today; two-factor sign-in is used on our own staff's accounts. Use a password you do not use anywhere else. ## How many devices can I be signed in on? Up to ten at once. Signing in on an eleventh signs out the session that started first. ## Is what we change recorded? Yes. When a person changes a board's settings, description, logo, featured entries or blocked websites, our audit log records who made the change, what it was before and after, and when. Every decision on a listing (approve, reject, suspend, reinstate or remove) is recorded with who took it and when, and you can add a reason when you take it. ## Can I change the Owner or the account's email address? There is no page for either today. Write to us at [hi@moretime.ai](mailto:hi@moretime.ai) from the Owner's address. ## What happens if I disconnect Stripe? You can disconnect OnTheList.Live from your Stripe Dashboard at any time. From then on no board of yours can take a payment, but money already in your Stripe balance stays yours, and spots already paid for keep showing until their cycle ends. A refund owed on an earlier payment is still yours to fund: once disconnected we can no longer make it on your account, so we ask you to make it from your Stripe Dashboard and return our fee on it ourselves. If you mean to close your account, ask us before you disconnect. ## How do I close my host account? Write to us at [hi@moretime.ai](mailto:hi@moretime.ai); there is no self-service deletion. An account cannot be closed while businesses' paid spots are still running on a live cycle, because that would take away what they paid for. On a board that starts over, stop taking new bids and let the cycle end. A board that never starts over has no end, so closing it means we suspend it and refund every payment behind it, everything but the card processing, at your cost. After that we disable the account and, if you ask, replace your personal details with a placeholder. The Round Archive, our payment records and the audit log are kept, because they record money that moved and what people changed. The [Host Terms](https://onthelist.live/legal/host-terms) and the [Privacy Policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/privacy) set out the details. --- # How advertising works URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/how-advertising-works For: advertisers 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. OnTheList.Live lets a local business put its name on a screen in a place people already visit: a café, a gym, a barbershop, a bar. The screen's owner runs a board, and businesses buy spots on it from their phone. This page is the overview; every section links to a page that goes deeper. ## What is OnTheList.Live? OnTheList.Live is self-serve advertising software. A screen owner (we call them the host) sets up a board for their place and opens its screen link on a screen there. Businesses buy spots on that board by card. The board shows the spots in order of what each business has paid, on the screen and on the board's own web page. You do not deal with an ad agency, sign a contract or book a sales call. You pick an amount, see the full price before you pay, and pay on a secure checkout page. ## What do I get when I buy a spot? A spot is a placement on one board: your business's name, a short line about it if you write one, your website, and the place your total buys on the board. You keep that place for as long as your total holds it, for the rest of the board's cycle. A cycle is a day, a week or a month, set by the screen owner; some boards have no end date. A spot is an ad, and it is labelled as one. The full rules are in [the bid rules](https://onthelist.live/legal/bid-rules). ## Where will people see my ad? In two places: - **On the screen in the venue.** The screen shows the board's top five spots. The #1 spot carries its own code that people can scan to reach your website; spots #2 to #5 show their website's address written out. - **On the board's web page.** Every spot is listed there, the top five as large tiles and every other spot as a row below them. Your business name links to your website. A spot below fifth place is still a spot: it is on the board's page, not on the screen. ## How is the order decided? By money, and nothing else. Spots are ranked by the total each business has paid in the current cycle, highest first. If two totals are equal, the one that reached that total first keeps the higher place. The screen owner cannot move a spot up or down. See [ranking and outbids](https://onthelist.live/faq/ranking-and-outbids). In words: businesses pay, each spot's payments add up to a total for the cycle, spots are ranked by total paid (a tie keeps its place), the top five appear on the screen with #1 carrying its own QR code, and every spot is listed on the board's page. Paying more adds to your total and can move you up; you pay only what you add. On a board that runs in cycles, the totals start again from zero when a cycle ends; a board with no end date never resets. ## How much does it cost? Each board has a minimum price for a first spot, set by its owner and never less than $5. You can pay more to take a higher place. On top of the amount you choose, you pay a service fee, shown before you pay. For example, at the platform's current fee and before any sales tax, a $50 spot costs $62.10 in total: $50 for the spot and a $12.10 service fee. The full breakdown is in [prices and fees for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-fees-for-advertisers). ## Do I need an account to advertise? No. You need a website address, an email address that receives mail, and a card. Your first payment creates a sponsor account for your email address, but you never have to use it: everything you need arrives by email, including a link that opens your spot's own page. See [managing your spot](https://onthelist.live/faq/managing-your-spot). ## Who do I pay? You pay the screen owner. The payment goes through Stripe, a payment processor, straight into the screen owner's own Stripe account, and your card statement shows the screen owner's business name, usually followed by a short form of the board's name. OnTheList.Live never holds the money you pay for a spot. Our share is our fee inside the service fee. In words: your card pays the spot price plus the service fee; Stripe's checkout page shows you the full total first; the payment lands in the screen owner's Stripe account, which pays out to their bank. On a US card the screen owner keeps the whole spot price. The service fee splits in two: our fee goes to OnTheList.Live, and the card processing pays Stripe for processing your card. ## What if the screen owner wants to check each ad first? A new board starts with approval on: the screen owner approves each new website before its spot shows, unless they have turned approval off. On those boards your card is only held when you pay, not charged. It is charged when the owner approves your spot. If the owner turns it down, or the cycle ends before they look at it, the hold is released and nothing is charged. See [approval and card holds](https://onthelist.live/faq/approval-and-card-holds). In words: you pay the price plus the service fee, and on a board without approval the spot shows right away. On a board with approval on, your card is held until the owner decides; approved, it is charged and the spot goes on the board, ranked by total paid; not approved, it is turned down and nothing is charged. If another business pays more, you move down, and you can pay more to move back up. When the cycle ends, nothing renews on its own. ## How long does a spot last? For the rest of the board's current cycle: until the end of the day, week or month the owner chose. On a board with no end date, it lasts for as long as your total holds its place. Nothing renews on its own, and your card is never charged again unless you choose to pay more. ## What if another business pays more than me? You move down a place and stay on the board. While the cycle is open you can pay more at any time to move back up, and you pay only the amount you add, plus the service fee on it. If you tick the box for it when you pay, we email you when someone moves ahead of you. See [ranking and outbids](https://onthelist.live/faq/ranking-and-outbids). ## Can I get my money back? Payments for spots are final: being moved down by another business, or changing your mind, is not a reason for a refund. There are cases where money comes back by itself, such as a payment that completes after the cycle has ended. Those cases, and what is returned, are on [refunds for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-for-advertisers) and in [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy). ## Will people know my spot is an ad? Yes. Every board opens with a line saying it is a sponsored board of paid ads, and the screen carries a shorter version of it under the board's name. The link to your website is marked as a paid link for search engines. A high place tells people you paid more, not that anyone recommends you. See [the sponsorship disclosure](https://onthelist.live/legal/sponsorship-disclosure). ## Does a spot guarantee customers, clicks or sales? No. A spot is a place on a board for the time your total holds it. Nobody can promise how many people will see it, scan it or visit your website, and we do not. ## Can I see the visits my spot sends in my own analytics? Yes. When someone clicks your spot on a board, or scans its code on a board's page or on a screen, they reach your website with three tags added to the address: `utm_source=onthelist.live`, `utm_medium=board` for a click or `utm_medium=qr` for a scan, and `utm_campaign` set to the board's name in its web address (the part after `onthelist.live/`). Google Analytics and most other analytics tools read these tags and show the visit under that source and campaign. If the address you give us already carries your own `utm_` tags, we keep them: those visits arrive with your tags as you wrote them, and we add none of ours. Other tracking codes in the address, such as an ad click's `gclid` or `fbclid`, are left out of the address we store for your spot. The address stored for your spot never changes. ## How do I find a board to advertise on? Three ways: scan the code on a screen that says "Scan to put your business here"; open a board's link that its owner sent you; or browse the boards listed in [the board directory](https://onthelist.live/discover). --- # Buying a spot URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/buying-a-spot For: advertisers 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. Buying a spot takes a few minutes on a phone. You choose the board, enter your website, choose an amount, optionally write what your spot says, confirm two statements, and pay on Stripe's secure checkout page. This page walks through each step and what happens after. ## What do I need before I start? Three things: the address of your business's website, an email address that receives mail, and a card. You must be 18 or older and buying for yourself or for a business you represent. Nothing to install and no account to create first. ## How do I find the board to buy on? The quickest way is the screen itself: its header shows a code that says "Scan to put your business here", and scanning it opens the board's buying page. You can also open a board's link that its owner shared, or browse [the board directory](https://onthelist.live/discover). On a board's page, an empty place among the top five says "Put your business here", and every ranked spot has a button to take its place. ## What are the steps? The buying page shows four numbered steps, then sends you to Stripe to pay: 1. **Destination**: the website your spot links to. 2. **Amount**: what you pay for the spot, with the service fee and the total shown beside it. 3. **Your listing**: optional words for your spot: a business name, a sentence about your business and up to two tags. 4. **Confirm**: your email address, two statements you tick, and an optional box for outbid emails. Then Stripe's checkout page takes your card. You see the full total on our page before you leave it, and again on Stripe's page before you pay. ## Which website can I use? A website you own or are allowed to advertise. The address you type is tidied up so that `http://` and `https://`, a leading `www.` and a trailing slash all count as the same website. You can type it with or without `https://`. One website is one spot per cycle on a board. If the website already has a spot there, the page says so, and if the spot is yours it lets you ask for a new link to manage it: type the email address that holds the spot, and a link is mailed only if it matches. Some websites are refused before you pay: a website containing a term on our prohibited list, and a website the board's owner has blocked on their board. A refusal from a board's block list says only that the owner does not accept ads from that website. ## How do I choose an amount? The amount step starts at the board's minimum and moves in whole dollars. Some boards use a bigger step, such as $5, and then every total must be a multiple of it. A button prices the amount that would take the #1 place right now. The page also shows the place your amount would buy at this moment, marked as able to change, because other businesses can pay while you are paying. Below the amount you see the service fee and the total. On a board where the owner approves each new website first, the total is labelled "Held on your card" instead of "Total today", because your card is only held until the owner approves. See [prices and fees for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-fees-for-advertisers) and [approval and card holds](https://onthelist.live/faq/approval-and-card-holds). ## What can I add to my spot? The "Your listing" step is optional. You can give: - **A business name**, up to 60 characters. Your spot shows it instead of your website's own title. Leave it empty to use your website's title, or its address when we have not read one. - **Your logo**, a PNG, JPEG or WebP at least 80 pixels on each side, up to 5 MB and 1280 × 1280 pixels: a larger file is fitted to size in your browser before it is sent. A phone's photo is usually larger than 1280 pixels, so export your logo at that size or smaller first. Its see-through edges are trimmed and it is shown in a circle, so leave room at its corners in its own background colour; a logo whose background stays see-through is then shown on a white or near-black plate, whichever it reads best on, in both the light and dark looks. The preview shows it as the board will. It travels with your checkout and is held, unchecked and shown to no one, until your payment completes; it is then checked, and if it passes it appears on your spot, usually within moments. If it does not pass, your spot shows your website's own image, or a placeholder, until you upload another from your sponsor account. If we cannot keep your logo at that moment, or cannot check it within a day, it is not used and your payment is unaffected: add it from your sponsor account. - **A sentence about your business**, up to 100 characters. Prices and percentages are fine; put an offer's conditions first. - **Two tags, one of each kind**: an offer tag such as "Offers a discount", "Special offer", "Bundle available" or "New customer offer", and an action tag such as "Book", "Order", "Shop" or "Get a quote". Picking an offer tag asks you to confirm the offer is available now on your website, with its conditions stated there. A board with no end date offers action tags only. If the spot is already yours, a new payment keeps the name, sentence, tags and logo it shows; change them from your sponsor account. None of the words may contain a web or email address, a phone number, wording about the fee, the language of contests or chance, or a claim of stars, scores or being top-rated. On a wider screen (640 pixels and up) the step shows a preview of your spot: your own logo, drawn from the file on your device, and your own words; until you add your own, your website's title, description and icon (or its social image), each image checked by our image scan first; and your spot's QR code, which in the preview opens the board. Once your own logo passes its check and you have written a sentence, your spot shows no title, description or image from your website (this preview still reads them when you open this step); our check of your website still reads its title and description for words our rules prohibit, and keeps none of their text. A phone held upright shows no preview and reads nothing from your website. We keep nothing from that preview. You can change all of it later. See [managing your spot](https://onthelist.live/faq/managing-your-spot) and [rules for ads](https://onthelist.live/faq/rules-for-ads). ## What are the two statements I tick? Before you can pay, you tick two boxes on our page. Neither is ticked for you: - "I understand bids are final and my rank can change as others bid" - "I am 18 or older and bidding on my own behalf or for a business I represent" The page names the Terms of Service, [the bid rules](https://onthelist.live/legal/bid-rules) and [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy), with their versions, and links to each. A third box, for outbid emails, is optional. ## What happens on the payment page? You leave our page for Stripe's hosted checkout, in the screen owner's name: the screen owner is the seller, and their Stripe business name appears on the page and on your card statement. You enter your card there. We never see or store your card number. On a board whose owner collects sales tax, Stripe asks for your billing address and adds the tax before you confirm. ## How long do I have to pay? A checkout stays open for 30 minutes by default. Starting it does not reserve a place: places can change until your payment completes, and when it completes you get the place your total buys at that moment. The amount you are charged is fixed when you start: the amount you asked for plus the service fee shown beside it, and any sales tax Stripe adds from your address. For about a minute after you start paying for a website that has no spot yet, a second checkout for the same website on that board is refused, so two people do not pay for one new spot by accident. ## What if someone else pays for the same website first? Then they hold that spot, and your payment is refunded automatically, everything except the card processing, with an email saying so. The same happens if your payment completes after the cycle has ended. See [refunds for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-for-advertisers). ## What happens after I pay? You get an email receipt with a link to your spot's own page. On a board without approval your spot shows on the board as soon as the payment completes. On a board with approval on, your card is held, and you get an email saying so, with a link to cancel; your spot shows once the owner approves. Shortly after your first payment, we read your website's title, description and image to dress your spot, unless we read them in the day before or your spot already shows your own logo, passed by our check, and your own sentence. We also check your website then, and at least once a day while your spot is live: where it leads, and its title and description for words our rules prohibit. That check shows nothing on your spot and keeps none of your page's text: only when it ran and what it found (a word our rules prohibit, or the domain your website now leads to), for our team to review. Until then, a spot with no business name shows its website's address, and a placeholder stands in for an image that is missing or did not pass our image check. ## Can I buy spots on more than one board? Yes. Each board is separate: you buy, rank and manage a spot on each one on its own. A sponsor account, created with your first payment, lets you see all your spots in one list once you claim it. ## Can I buy a spot for my employer or a client? Yes, if you are allowed to act for that business: the second statement you tick says you are buying on your own behalf or for a business you represent. The email address you pay with owns the spot, and only that address can raise it later, so use one you will keep reading. --- # Prices and fees for advertisers URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-fees-for-advertisers 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. What you pay for a spot has two parts: the spot price, which you choose, and one service fee on top of it. You see both, and the total, before you pay. This page explains each part with worked examples, and says where every dollar goes. ## Who sets the price of a spot? You do, within the board's rules. The screen owner sets the board's minimum price for a first spot, never less than $5, and may set a step that every total must be a multiple of. Above the minimum, the price of a place is whatever it takes to pass the business above it: places are ranked by total paid, so the more other businesses pay, the more a high place costs. The buying page shows the amount that would take #1 right now. ## What is the service fee? One line, shown before you pay, with two parts: - **Our fee**: the larger of 20% of the amount and $0.50. Those are the platform's current settings; some boards have a lower fee, never a higher one. - **The card processing**: the amount that pays Stripe's fee for processing your card at Stripe's standard US card rate (2.9% plus 30 cents), worked out so that the screen owner keeps the whole spot price. They are added together and shown as one "Service fee" line. Nothing else is added by us. ## How much will I pay in total? Worked examples, at the platform's current fee settings, on a board with no sales tax: | Amount you pay for the spot | Service fee | Total charged | | --------------------------- | ----------- | ------------- | | $1 (a raise) | $0.85 | $1.85 | | $5 | $1.49 | $6.49 | | $10 | $2.67 | $12.67 | | $20 | $5.03 | $25.03 | | $25 | $6.20 | $31.20 | | $50 | $12.10 | $62.10 | | $75 | $18.00 | $93.00 | | $100 | $23.89 | $123.89 | | $200 | $47.48 | $247.48 | The figure on the buying page is the one charged. It is worked out by our server for the exact amount you choose, so use the page, not this table, for any other amount. ## Where does my money go? In words: your card pays the spot price plus the service fee; Stripe's checkout page shows the full total first; the whole payment lands in the screen owner's own Stripe account, and Stripe pays it out to the screen owner's bank. The spot price stays with the screen owner, whole on a US card. The service fee splits in two: our fee goes to OnTheList.Live, and the card processing pays Stripe for processing your card. OnTheList.Live never holds the money you pay. Stripe collects our fee from the payment for us, and the rest stays with the screen owner. ## Is there a fee when I pay more to move up? Yes, on the amount you add, not on your whole total. Raising your spot from $20 to $35 is a $15 payment, and the service fee is the fee on $15. Each payment is its own charge, with its own fee shown before you pay. ## Is there sales tax? Only on a board whose owner collects sales tax through their own Stripe account. On such a board the buying page says the total is "plus any sales tax", and Stripe calculates the tax from the billing address you give on its checkout page, showing it and the new total before you confirm. The tax is the screen owner's to collect; OnTheList.Live adds no tax of its own. On every other board, nothing is added for tax. ## Does the service fee count towards my place on the board? No. Places are ranked on the amounts paid for spots alone. The service fee and any tax never count towards your total, never break a tie and are never shown on the board. ## What is the smallest amount I can pay? A first spot costs at least the board's minimum, and no board's minimum is below $5, so the smallest first payment is $6.49 ($5 plus a $1.49 service fee). A raise can be as small as $1 on a board without a bigger step, which is a $1.85 charge, the smallest card charge on the platform. ## Is anything charged every month? No. Every payment is a single charge you choose to make. A spot lasts for the rest of the board's cycle, nothing renews on its own, and your card is not charged again unless you pay again. ## What will my card statement say? The screen owner is the seller, so your statement shows their Stripe business name, usually followed by a short form of the board's name, so you can tell what the charge was for. Your emailed receipt lists the spot price, the service fee, any tax and the total. ## Does a held card cost me anything? On a board where the owner approves each new website first, your card is held, not charged, until the owner approves. If the hold is released, nothing is charged. Your bank may still show the hold as pending for a few days before it disappears. See [approval and card holds](https://onthelist.live/faq/approval-and-card-holds). ## Can the fee change while I am paying? No. The service fee quoted when you start a checkout is the fee charged, whatever changes while you pay. The platform can lower the fee on a host's boards, and a lower fee applies to payments started after the change. ## Is the service fee refunded? When the platform refunds a payment, you get back the spot price, our fee and any tax, but not the card processing: Stripe does not return its processing fee on a refund. For example, a $50 spot paid at $62.10 and refunded in full returns $60.00. See [refunds for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-for-advertisers). ## Why is the fee a percentage of what I pay? Our fee pays for the software that runs the board, the screen, the checkout and the records behind them. It scales with what you pay, with a $0.50 minimum, and the screen owner keeps the spot price whole. The [Terms of Service](https://onthelist.live/legal/terms) and [the bid rules](https://onthelist.live/legal/bid-rules) state the fee in full. --- # Ranking and outbids URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/ranking-and-outbids For: advertisers 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. Every board ranks its spots the same way: by the total each business has paid in the current cycle, highest first. Nothing else moves a spot. This page explains the rule, what the screen and the board's page show, what happens when another business pays more, and how a cycle ends. ## How is my place on the board decided? By your spot's total: everything paid for that spot in the current cycle, added up. Spots are ordered from the highest total to the lowest. Rank 1 is the top. A later payment adds to your total, so you can move up by paying more. In words: businesses pay, the payments for each spot add up to a total for the cycle, and spots are ranked by total paid, with a tie keeping its place. The top five spots appear on the screen, #1 with its own QR code, and every spot is listed on the board's page. Paying more adds to your total, and you pay only what you add. On a board that runs in cycles, totals start again from zero when a cycle ends; a board with no end date keeps its totals. ## What happens in a tie? The spot that reached the total first keeps the higher place. Paying enough to match another spot's total does not pass it; you must go above it. On a board with a bigger step, such as $5, passing a spot means beating its total by at least one step. ## Does the service fee count towards my total? No. Only the amounts paid for the spot count. The service fee and any sales tax never enter the total, the tie-break or any figure shown on the board. ## Can the screen owner move my spot up or down? No. The owner did not choose the order and cannot change it. The owner's only choices about a spot are to approve, reject, suspend, reinstate or remove it, under [the bid rules](https://onthelist.live/legal/bid-rules) and [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy). A high place is not the owner's recommendation, and it is not a review or a measure of quality. ## Where does each place show? - **On the screen in the venue**: the top five paid spots. The #1 spot has its own code that people can scan to reach your website; spots #2 to #5 show their website's address written out. Each spot on the screen shows its name, its sentence if it has one, and its total. - **On the board's web page**: every spot. Places 1 to 5 are tiles, the #1 tile the largest, and every place below fifth is a row. Each ranked spot has a button that prices taking its place. The screen shows paid spots only. The board's page also lists the owner's own entries, labelled as unpaid, below the ranked spots. ## What does "outbid" mean? You are outbid whenever another business's payment moves your spot down, by any number of places, not only when you lose the #1 place. A tie leaves you where you were and is not an outbid. ## Will I be told when I am outbid? Only if you ask. When you pay, an optional box says "Email me if another sponsor moves ahead of this listing". Tick it and we email you when you are outbid, at most once an hour for each spot. The email never quotes an amount to pay: the price of moving back up is shown on your spot's page, with its fee, when you decide. Every outbid email has an unsubscribe link; once you unsubscribe, the page it opens offers a button to turn alerts back on. ## How do I move back up? Open your spot's page from the link in your latest email about it: your receipt, an outbid email or the approval notice each carries a fresh one. Choose a new total, see the amount you will pay and its service fee, tick the two statements and pay on Stripe's page. You pay only the difference between your current total and the new one, plus the service fee on that difference. The new total must be higher than your current one. See [managing your spot](https://onthelist.live/faq/managing-your-spot). ## When can I pay more? At any time while the cycle is open, up to the cutoff. On a board that runs in cycles, new payments close for the last minutes of every cycle so that a payment does not complete after the cycle ends: 10 minutes at the platform's current setting, and the board says when the cutoff is in effect. A board with no end date has no cutoff. On a board with approval on, a spot whose card is held cannot be raised until the owner approves it. ## Does starting a checkout save my place? No. Places can change at any moment until your payment completes, including while you are on the payment page. When your payment completes, you get the place your total buys at that instant. What is fixed when you start is the amount you will be charged. ## What happens when a cycle ends? At the end of each day, week or month, as the board's owner set it, the order is settled: the final standings are recorded in the board's Round Archive, which is permanent and never changes afterwards. Then every total starts again at zero for the new cycle. We email you a placement receipt with the place you finished at. Nothing renews on its own and your card is not charged again. ## What is a carried spot? When a cycle ends, the owner can have each spot that was on the board copied into the new cycle at $0, marked "Carried", below every paid spot. It is a courtesy, not a placement: it holds no money, cannot pass anyone and cannot be passed, and its previous owner has no priority over it. Whoever pays the board's minimum for that website first takes it, and a carried spot nobody pays for disappears when the new cycle ends. ## What is a spot labelled "Featured by host"? The owner may pin up to three entries of their own. They are not paid, have no rank or amount, and sit in their own labelled section below the ranked spots: "Featured by host · not a paid rank". If you pay the board's minimum for a website the owner has pinned, you take that spot over and it ranks with the paid spots. ## Can I see where I stand at any time? Yes. The board's page updates its standings as payments complete, and your spot's page shows its current place. If you hold a sponsor account, it lists every spot you hold with its status. --- # Approval and card holds URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/approval-and-card-holds For: advertisers 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. A screen owner can choose to see each new ad before it goes on their screen, and every new board starts that way. On those boards, paying for a new spot does not charge your card: it places a hold for the amount, and the card is charged only if the owner approves your spot. If they do not, the hold is released and nothing is charged. This page explains how that works from your side. ## What is approval? A setting the screen owner chooses for their board. With approval on, a new spot is kept off the board until the owner approves it: it is not shown and holds no place while the owner decides. A new board starts with approval on; the owner can turn it off, and then paid spots show as soon as they are paid. Each board has one of three review settings: spots show as soon as they are paid; spots show at once and are flagged for the owner's review; or, with approval on, a new spot shows only after the owner approves it. [The bid rules](https://onthelist.live/legal/bid-rules) describe all three. ## What does "card held" mean? When you pay for a new spot on a board with approval on, Stripe authorises your card for the full total but does not take the money. The buying page says so before you pay: its total reads "Held on your card", with the sentence "Your card is held for this amount, not charged. It is charged only if the host approves your listing." (on a board that collects sales tax it reads "this amount plus any sales tax"). The amount stays reserved on your card until the owner decides, you cancel, or the hold ends. In words, a hold ends one of two ways. You check out and your card is authorised, then held. If the owner approves, your card is charged and your spot shows. If the owner says no, you cancel from the emailed link, or time runs out (the cycle ends or the hold lapses), the hold is released and nothing is charged. ## When is my card charged? When the owner approves your spot. Approval charges the whole amount that was held, puts your spot on the board at the place its total buys at that moment, and we email you that it was approved, with a fresh link to your spot's page. ## What happens if the owner says no? The hold is released and nothing is charged. You get an email saying the hold was released and you were not charged. There is nothing to refund, because nothing was taken. The website stays closed on that board for the rest of the cycle. ## How long can a hold last? Until the owner decides, but never longer than about seven days after you checked out: a card hold lapses then if the owner has not approved it, and we tell you. A hold also ends earlier if the board's cycle ends first. Either way, nothing is charged. On a board whose cycles last longer than a week, the owner has to approve within the week. ## Can I cancel before the owner decides? Yes, until the owner approves. When the hold is placed, we email you with the board, your website, the time the hold lapses and a link to cancel. The same choice is on your spot's page. Opening the link asks you to confirm; confirming releases the hold, nothing is charged, and your spot leaves the owner's review. The cancel link stops working once the owner has decided. ## Why does my bank show a charge I was not charged for? A hold appears on many cards as a pending payment. When the hold is released, your bank removes it, but some banks keep showing a released hold as pending for a few days. If the owner approved your spot, the pending hold becomes the real charge. ## Can I pay more while my card is held? No. While your spot is held for approval, nobody can pay for that website on that board, you included: a second payment is refused with a message saying the website is held for the owner's approval. Once your spot is approved and showing, you can pay more to move up. ## Is every payment held on a board with approval on? No, only a payment that would create a new spot. A payment that takes over an existing unpaid entry (a carried spot or one of the owner's own pinned entries), or a spot whose payments were all refunded, is charged at once and shows at once: the owner has already approved that website. It is flagged for the owner's review, and the new business name and sentence it carries are held for the owner before they show. A payment to raise a spot that is already showing is charged at once too. ## Do my words need approval too? On a board with approval on, a business name or sentence you give or change on a spot that is already showing is held for the owner before it shows; the spot itself stays on the board meanwhile. Tags need no approval of their own. ## What if the owner charges my card from their own Stripe account? An owner can, in their own Stripe account, take a held payment before approving it in the product. If they do and then turn the spot down, the payment is refunded under [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) (its row 3). If you ever see only part of a held amount taken, write to us at hi@moretime.ai. ## What emails will I get? Three kinds, none naming an amount to pay: a notice when the hold is placed, with the time it lapses and the link to cancel; an approval notice with a link to your spot's page; and a notice when the hold is released, saying nothing was charged. Your receipt follows the charge when the owner approves. ## Does a held card cost me anything if it is released? No. Nothing is charged, no service fee and no card processing. See [prices and fees for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-fees-for-advertisers). --- # Managing your spot URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/managing-your-spot For: advertisers 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. After you pay, everything about your spot is managed from its own page, opened by a link we email to the address you paid with. There is no password to remember unless you choose to use a sponsor account. This page covers the link, what you can change, how to pay more, and what each status means. ## How do I get to my spot's page? From the link in your latest email about the spot. Your receipt, every outbid email and the approval notice each carry a fresh link. It opens your spot's page, which shows its current place and lets you change what it says and pay more to move up. ## What is the emailed link, and how long does it work? It is a personal key to one spot, sent only to the email address that owns it. It works for 24 hours. Going on to pay for a raise uses it up, even if you do not finish paying; saving changes to your business name, sentence and tags does not, so you can save more than once and still raise with the same link while it lasts. Anyone you forward the email to can use the link until it expires, so do not forward it. ## My link has expired. How do I get a new one? Open the old link anyway: the page says it will not open and offers to email a new one. Type the email address that holds the spot. The page answers the same way whether or not the address matches, and a link is mailed only when it does. Asking again cancels the link just sent, so ask once and check your inbox. At most five requests an hour are accepted for one address. ## What can I change on my spot? Until the spot's cycle ends, or the spot is turned down or removed, you can change: - **Its business name**, up to 60 characters, shown instead of your website's title. - **Its sentence**, up to 100 characters, about your business. - **Its tags**: one offer tag and one action tag. A board with no end date offers action tags only. The same rules apply as when you bought the spot: no web or email address, no phone number, no wording about the fee, no language of contests or chance, and no claim of stars, scores or being top-rated. On a board with approval on, a new name or sentence is held for the owner before it shows, while the spot stays on the board. A tag change shows at the board's next refresh. See [rules for ads](https://onthelist.live/faq/rules-for-ads). ## How do I change my spot's image or logo? Upload your own icon, a PNG or JPEG of up to 512 KB and 1280 × 1280 pixels, from your spot's page opened through your sponsor account — or add it while you buy the spot, where a WebP or a larger image is fitted to size for you (see [buying a spot](https://onthelist.live/faq/buying-a-spot)). It replaces the image we read from your website. We keep a copy we make, not your file: fitted within 512 pixels a side, its see-through edges trimmed, and stripped of anything embedded in it, such as where a photo was taken. A logo with a see-through background is shown on a white or near-black plate, whichever it reads best on, in both the light and dark looks. Every image is scanned before it is shown; one that fails the scan is not shown, and your website's own image, or a placeholder, stands in. ## How do I pay more to move up? On your spot's page, choose a new total. The page shows what you will pay (the difference between your current total and the new one), the service fee on it and the total charged. Tick the two statements, pay on Stripe's page, and your spot's total rises as soon as the payment completes. You can raise up to the board's cutoff near the end of a cycle. See [ranking and outbids](https://onthelist.live/faq/ranking-and-outbids). ## Do I need a sponsor account? No, but it helps if you hold several spots. Your first payment creates one for your email address. It cannot be used until you claim it, by opening the link we mail to that address. Once claimed, it lists every spot you hold on every board, with each one's status, and lets you save boards, set a display name, change a spot's business name, sentence and icon, and create an API key that reads a board's public standings with your own spots marked. Raising a spot always goes through the emailed link, even when you are signed in. ## What does my spot's status mean? - **Active**: on the board at the place its total buys. - **Pending review**: on a board with approval on, held for the owner's approval; your card is held, not charged. See [approval and card holds](https://onthelist.live/faq/approval-and-card-holds). - **Suspended**: taken off the board for now, by a moderator or by a card dispute on your own payment; it can be put back. - **Removed** or **Rejected**: kept off or taken off the board for good. Whether money comes back depends on why; see [refunds for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-for-advertisers). - **Refunded — off the board**: refunds brought your spot's total to $0, so it is no longer shown or ranked, and its website is open to whoever pays for it first. - **Round ended**: the cycle your spot was in has ended and its results are settled in the board's archive. - **Carried forward at $0**: on a board that runs in cycles, your spot was copied into the new cycle as a courtesy, with no money on it. Anyone, you included, can take it by paying the board's minimum. If your spot is active but its title or image is missing, we are still reading them from your website, or your website did not answer, or its image is in a format we do not show (such as an AVIF or an animated WebP), and a placeholder is shown — or your spot shows your own logo and sentence, so it shows no title, description or image from your website and, without a business name, it shows your website's address (or a title we read before). ## Can I change the website my spot links to? No. A spot is its website: the website is what identifies it on the board. To advertise a different website, buy a spot for it. ## Can I move my spot to another email address? No. The email address that paid owns the spot, and support cannot move a spot to a different address. If you have lost access to the address you paid with, write to hi@moretime.ai with the board, the amount and date of the charge, and the address you used; we will check what we can and tell you what is possible. ## How do I stop outbid emails? Use the unsubscribe link in any outbid email. Opening it asks you to confirm, and confirming switches the alerts off. The unsubscribe page offers a button to turn them back on. ## What happens to my spot when the cycle ends? Its place is settled and recorded in the board's Round Archive, which is permanent, and we email you a placement receipt. The new cycle starts every total at zero. If the owner carries spots forward, yours may appear in the new cycle at $0 as a carried spot, open to whoever pays first. An offer tag ends with its cycle, and on a board that runs in cycles a sentence stating a price or a percentage is not carried into the next one. ## What happens to my words if another business takes my spot over? If a carried spot or a spot whose payments were refunded is taken over by another business, your business name, sentence, tags and icon are removed from it and never shown under the new owner's spot. ## Who can I ask for help? A person reads every message to hi@moretime.ai. Put what it is about in the subject line, and include the board and the email address you paid with. [Contact and support](https://onthelist.live/legal/contact) lists what to send for each kind of question. --- # Refunds for advertisers URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/refunds-for-advertisers 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. Payments for spots are final: you are buying a place on a board, and other businesses can pay more while the cycle runs. There are a few cases where money comes back, most of them without anyone asking. This page explains them in plain words. [The refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) is the binding text and lists all nine cases. ## Are payments for spots final? Yes. Before you pay, you tick a box that says "I understand bids are final and my rank can change as others bid". Being moved down by another business is not a reason for a refund, and neither is changing your mind once your card is charged. Nothing here takes away a right the law gives you that cannot be waived, or your right to dispute a charge with your card issuer. ## When do I get money back without asking? In these cases the platform refunds you automatically and emails you: - **Your payment completed after the cycle had ended.** A checkout started before the cutoff can still complete after the end. It is not applied to any cycle. - **Someone else paid for the same website first**, on a board where you were both paying for a new spot at the same time. The spot stays with them. - **The spot had already been decided when your payment completed**, for example turned down or removed, or another checkout's card hold for it was already held for the owner's approval. - **The platform suspended the board** in the middle of a cycle. Every payment behind that cycle is refunded. - **Your card was charged and the spot was then turned down in review**, or the cycle ended before the owner reviewed it. This happens only when a payment was taken before approval; normally a card on a board with approval on is only held, and nothing is charged. ## What is never refunded? Being outbid, changing your mind once charged, and a spot removed because it broke [the acceptable use policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/acceptable-use) or [the prohibited content policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/prohibited-content). Those two policies are the only rules whose breach forfeits your payment. ## How much comes back on a refund? Everything you paid except the card processing: the spot price, our fee and any sales tax. The card processing is not returned because Stripe does not give back its processing fee when a payment is refunded. For example, a $50 spot is charged $62.10: $50 for the spot and a $12.10 service fee made of $10.00 of our fee and $2.10 of card processing. A full refund returns $60.00. Neither the screen owner nor OnTheList.Live keeps any of it: the owner returns the $50, and we return our $10. ## What if my spot is removed by mistake? If your spot was taken off the board through the owner's or the platform's fault (a wrongful removal, or a removal for a stricter rule of the owner's own, such as a topic or a competitor), write to us. A person on our staff issues the refund: in full, or for the part of the cycle you did not get, never the card processing. On a board with no end date, it is in full. See [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy), row 4. ## What about a card that was only held? There is nothing to refund. On a board with approval on, a card is held, not charged, until the owner approves. If the owner turns the spot down, you cancel, the cycle ends or the hold lapses, the hold is released and nothing is charged. Your bank may show the released hold as pending for a few days. See [approval and card holds](https://onthelist.live/faq/approval-and-card-holds). ## Can the screen owner refund me? Yes. A screen owner can give some or all of your money back, either from their dashboard on OnTheList.Live (everything except the card processing) or from their own Stripe account (any amount they choose). The owner who refunds you tells you; the platform sends no email of its own for these. If refunds bring your spot's total to $0, it leaves the board, and its website is open to whoever pays for it first. ## How long does a refund take to reach my card? Refunds go back to the card you paid with, through Stripe. Stripe's published timing for a card refund is about five to ten business days, depending on your bank. Our email tells you the refund was instructed, not that it has reached your card. ## Who pays my refund? The screen owner, from their Stripe balance, because your payment went to them: they return the spot price and any tax. The platform returns our fee. A refund a balance cannot cover can stay pending with Stripe; if one we told you about has not arrived after Stripe's timing, write to us and we chase it with the owner. ## What if my card was closed or has expired? Stripe may report the refund as failed. We record it and our staff take it up with the screen owner, because Stripe then refuses any further refund of that charge and the money has to reach you another way. ## Can I dispute a charge with my bank? Yes, that right is yours. A dispute is decided by the card network, not by the screen owner or by us. When a chargeback is opened, the disputed payment stops counting towards your spot's total at once, and the spot may be taken off the board until it is decided. [The refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) explains what each outcome does. If a refund is what you are after, writing to us first is usually quicker. ## How do I ask about a refund? Write to hi@moretime.ai with the email address you paid with, the board, the amount and date of the charge (your card statement shows the screen owner's name and the board's short name), and what happened. You do not need to know which case applies; we find it, and a refund you are owed does not depend on your naming it. We aim to answer anything about a payment within one business day. ## Will I get an email when I am refunded? Yes, when the platform refunds you automatically or after a decision: the email names the amount returned to your card. When the screen owner refunds you themselves, the owner tells you. --- # Rules for ads URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/rules-for-ads For: everyone 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. Every spot on a board is an ad, and every ad follows the same rules on every board. A screen owner can add stricter rules for their own board, never looser ones. This page summarises the rules for businesses, screen owners and anyone who sees a board. The binding texts are [the prohibited content policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/prohibited-content) and [the acceptable use policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/acceptable-use). ## What can be advertised? A real business's own website, or one it is allowed to advertise, that is lawful and is not on the prohibited list below. A spot points visitors to that website, and the website is what we check. ## What is never allowed? Some things may not be advertised on any board, whatever the screen owner thinks. In short: - **Illegal and dangerous**: malware, phishing, scams, unwanted downloads, illegal goods or services, weapons and restricted materials, and regulated products sold outside their rules. - **Deception**: impersonating a person, a business, a government body or this platform; lookalike web addresses; redirects that send visitors somewhere other than where the ad says. - **Rights abuse**: counterfeit goods and content that infringes copyright or trademarks. - **Adult and violent content**: sexually explicit content and adult services, gore, hate symbols and violent content. - **Gambling** in any form, and financial products the law or our payment provider restricts. - **Anything aimed at children**: the service is for adults, and no board or ad may target children. - **Anything Stripe's list of restricted businesses forbids**, because every payment goes through a Stripe account connected to this platform. The full list, with examples, is in [the prohibited content policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/prohibited-content). ## Can an ad mention prices and offers? Yes, in the ad's sentence. A business may state its own prices, percentages and offers, such as "20% off" or "Free shipping". They are the business's own statements: each must be true, available on the business's website on the conditions stated there, and lawful. Because a lower place and a phone show only the start of a sentence, or none of it, put an offer's conditions first. A figure in a sentence is never the price of the ad and must not read like one. ## What words are refused in an ad? A business name and a sentence may not contain a web or email address or a phone number (the spot itself links to the business), wording that reads like our fee or the price of a place on the board, the language of contests or chance, or a claim of stars, scores, being top-rated or being number one. A business name also may not contain a price or a percentage, and may not read as a label of the platform or the screen owner, such as saying an ad is unpaid, featured by the owner or not an ad. The buying page and the spot's page refuse a word or shape that breaks these rules before anything is saved, and say why. ## Can a screen owner refuse my website? Yes. Each board keeps its own list of blocked websites, up to 200. A blocked website, and every address under it, is refused before any payment: when you enter it, when you check the price and when you start paying. The refusal says only that the owner does not accept ads from that website. A block never takes down a spot already on the board. On a board with approval on, the owner also decides whether each new website shows. ## Can a screen owner have stricter rules? Yes, but only stricter. An owner may add their own restrictions, such as a topic or a competitor they will not carry, and may approve, reject, suspend, reinstate or remove a spot on their own board. They cannot override the platform's rules or move a spot up or down. If an owner removes a spot after it was shown, under a rule of their own rather than ours, the business is refunded, in full or for the part of the cycle it did not get, never the card processing. ## How are ads checked? A few checks are automatic, and each is a stated rule: - A website whose address contains a term on our prohibited list is refused before payment. - Every click on an ad goes through a link on our site, and a website on our blocked list stops being linked at the click and goes to a person for review. - Every image we would show, whether read from a website or uploaded by a business, is scanned before it is shown. An image that fails is never shown; another image that passed, or a neutral placeholder, stands in. - A new advertiser's website is checked when the payment completes, and live websites at least once a day and whenever an ad is reported: a website that moves somewhere else, or whose title or description carries a word on our prohibited list, is recorded for a person. Everything else is judged by a person: the screen owner on their own board, and our staff on every board. ## Are ads labelled as ads? Yes, always. Every board opens with a banner saying it is a sponsored board of paid ads, and the screen carries a shorter version of it under the board's name. Every link to an advertiser's website is marked as a paid link. The screen owner's own entries are labelled "Featured by host · not a paid rank". Nobody can switch the labels off. See [the sponsorship disclosure](https://onthelist.live/legal/sponsorship-disclosure). ## Does a high place mean an ad is better? No. A place is bought: rank 1 means its business has paid the most this cycle, and it says nothing about the business or its website. No board shows stars, scores or reviews, and no screen owner may present their board as their recommendations. ## What happens to an ad that breaks the rules? It is taken off the board. An ad removed because the business broke the prohibited content or acceptable use policy is not refunded. A removal that was the screen owner's or the platform's fault is refunded. Serious or repeated cases can lead to a website being blocked on every board, a board being suspended, or a business being stopped from buying spots. ## How do I report an ad? Use "Report a listing" in the board's footer. A report is recorded and read by a person. It never takes an ad down by itself, and the form answers the same way whether or not the ad exists. We do not promise a reply. Rights holders have their own routes: [the IP complaint process](https://onthelist.live/legal/ip-complaints) and [the DMCA process](https://onthelist.live/legal/dmca). ## What if I think my ad was removed by mistake? Write to hi@moretime.ai with the board and the website. If we find the removal was the screen owner's or the platform's fault, you are refunded under [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy), and you can buy a spot for that website again in a later cycle. ## Can a screen owner advertise on their own board? Only through their own entries, which are labelled as unpaid and sit below the paid spots. An owner, and anyone acting for them, may not pay for spots on their own board or arrange payments to move a place. --- # Privacy and cookies URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/privacy-and-cookies For: everyone 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. This page answers the privacy questions people ask most, in plain words. The binding texts are [the privacy policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/privacy) and [the cookie policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/cookie-policy); where this page and those differ, they are right. ## What do you keep when I buy an ad spot? What the purchase needs, and what a card dispute could need later. At checkout, before you go to Stripe, we record the website you entered, your email address, whether you asked for outbid emails, that you ticked the two statements (with the time and the version of the terms), your IP address, a one-way hash of your browser's description and language, the time zone your browser reports (so our emails show times in your zone), and the amounts. If you wrote a business name, a sentence or picked tags, we keep those too. On a board with approval on, we also keep the identifier of the hold Stripe placed on your card and when it lapses. ## Do you see my card number? No. You enter your card on Stripe's checkout page, and we never receive the card number or its security code. What comes back from Stripe can include the name, email address and billing address you gave Stripe, the card's brand, its last four digits, its expiry, the country that issued it and an opaque fingerprint of the card, and a phone number if Stripe asked you for one. ## Do you sell or share my data for marketing? No. We do not sell, rent or share your email address for anyone's marketing, and we send no newsletter or marketing email. Google Analytics runs only after you say yes, with Google Signals and advertising personalisation off. The emails we send are about your payments and your spot, plus outbid emails if you asked for them. ## Who else sees my data? Only those who need it, each for its own job: - **The screen owner** whose board you pay on sees your spot and, as the seller, sees your payment in their own Stripe account with the details Stripe collected; the board's Owner and Admins are also emailed your spot's name and website, with its bid and, once it is on the board, its place, each time you pay, or that your card is held for their approval — never your email address. On a board that does not review its spots, its owner can turn these emails off. - **The business whose spot you click or scan** receives your visit, as any website does, with three tags in the address naming OnTheList.Live, the board and whether you clicked or scanned. Nothing in them identifies you. - **Stripe** processes your payment. - **Amazon Web Services** hosts the service in the United States (Northern Virginia), sends our email and scans images before they are shown. - **Upstash** runs the queue that drives emails, receipts and the end of each cycle. - **Cloudflare** runs the human check on the screen owner's sign-up form and the scorecard form. - **Google** runs analytics on some pages, under the rules below, and hosts our mailbox. - **Card networks and banks**, through Stripe, if you dispute a charge. - **scrapecreators.com** reads the public follower counts of the social accounts a screen owner names on their board. [The privacy policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/privacy) lists each one and what it receives. ## How long do you keep it? Payments, refunds and disputes are financial records and are kept. The evidence that you agreed to a charge, your IP address and the hash of your browser's description, is blanked after 540 days, about eighteen months, which covers the time a card dispute can be raised. Operational records are kept for 30 days or less, and request counters for at most an hour. The board's Round Archive is permanent: it keeps each settled spot's name and website, never an email address. ## What about my spot is public? What the board shows: your spot's name (the business name you gave, or your website's title or address), your website's address, your sentence and tags, the image or icon, your total and your place. When a cycle ends, the settled standings, with each spot's name and website, stay in the board's Round Archive for good. Your email address is never public. ## What cookies does the site set? Only a few, each for a stated purpose (and, for our own staff, a ten-minute cookie while a second sign-in code is entered): - **A session cookie**, only once you sign in: one for screen owners and staff, one for advertisers with a sponsor account. They keep you signed in for 7 days at a time. - **otl-consent**, only once you make a choice about analytics. It remembers that choice for 12 months (7 days on Safari). - **otl-theme**, only if you turn on dark mode with the moon button. It remembers that choice for a year (7 days on Safari), and switching back to light removes it. - **Google Analytics' two cookies**, only on the pages and under the rules below. Our own code sets no advertising cookie and no tracking pixel, and keeps nothing in your browser's local storage. Cloudflare's human check keeps one item of its own in its own frame. [The cookie policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/cookie-policy) lists every cookie with its lifetime. ## When does Google Analytics run? Only after you say yes, wherever you are. The front page, the scorecard and a board's own pages ask you first, with "yes" and "no" as equal buttons, and nothing is sent to Google until you say yes. With Global Privacy Control turned on and no choice made, you are not asked and nothing loads; a choice you make under "Cookie settings", or made before you turned it on, is the one followed. Checkout, an advertiser's own pages, the legal pages and the screen owner's dashboard never load analytics. ## How do I change my cookie choice? Use "Cookie settings" in the footer of the front page, the scorecard or a board's page. Saying no stops Google Analytics and clears its two cookies from your browser. You can also delete any cookie in your browser's settings. Declining changes nothing about how the site works. ## What is the check on the sign-up form? The forms on the front page and the scorecard run Cloudflare Turnstile, a check that tells people from automated traffic. It runs as part of the form whatever you choose about analytics. Cloudflare receives your IP address and signals from your browser while the form is shown; we keep nothing from it. ## Can I see or delete what you hold about me? Yes, by writing to hi@moretime.ai with "Privacy" in the subject line. Requests are free and handled by a person; we aim to answer within a month. You can ask for a copy of what we hold, a correction, or erasure. For records we must keep, such as payments, erasure means replacing the details that identify you with a pseudonym rather than deleting the record, and our answer names the records we keep and why. ## Can children use OnTheList.Live? No. The service is for adults: everyone who buys a spot affirms they are 18 or older, and screen owners agree to the same. A board aimed at children is not allowed. If you believe a child has given us information, write to hi@moretime.ai and we will remove it. ## Where is my data stored? On systems we run in the United States, in Amazon Web Services' Northern Virginia region. Stripe, Cloudflare and Google handle what they receive under their own terms; [the privacy policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/privacy) says where each holds it. --- # About OnTheList.Live URL: https://onthelist.live/faq/about-onthelist For: everyone 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. OnTheList.Live is self-serve advertising software for screens in local places. A screen owner sets up a board, opens its screen link on a screen in their venue, and local businesses buy spots on it from their phone. This page answers the questions people ask about the service itself. ## What is OnTheList.Live? Software that turns a screen into ad space. A screen owner (a café, a gym, a barbershop, a bar, any place with a screen) runs a board; local businesses pay to be on it; the board shows their ads ranked by amount paid, on the venue's screen and on the board's web page. Payments go through Stripe straight to the screen owner. ## Who runs it? OnTheList.Live is operated by Moretime.ai Inc., a Texas corporation, at 5900 Balcones Drive, Suite 100, Austin, TX 78731, United States. Every legal document on the site names the same company. ## How do screen owners use it? A screen owner pays a one-time setup fee of $49.99 at [onthelist.live](https://onthelist.live/#join), with nothing monthly. When the payment clears, their setup link comes by email, usually within a few minutes. They create their account and board, connect a Stripe account to receive payments, choose a starting price and how long a spot runs, and open their screen link in the screen's web browser, or on a computer plugged into the screen. Approval is on from the start, so they see each new website before it shows. The pages written for screen owners in [questions and answers](https://onthelist.live/faq) go through each step. ## How do businesses use it? A business finds a board, by scanning the code on a screen, opening a link the owner shared or browsing [the board directory](https://onthelist.live/discover), and buys a spot with a website address, an email address and a card. No account is needed first. See [how advertising works](https://onthelist.live/faq/how-advertising-works). ## How does OnTheList.Live make money? Two ways: the one-time setup fee a screen owner pays, and our fee, which is part of the service fee an advertiser sees before they pay. The screen owner keeps the whole spot price on a US card; the rest of the service fee pays for card processing. There are no plans and no monthly charges. See [prices and fees for advertisers](https://onthelist.live/faq/prices-and-fees-for-advertisers). ## Does OnTheList.Live hold anyone's money? No. A payment for a spot goes from the advertiser's card to the screen owner's own Stripe account, and Stripe pays it out to the owner's bank. We never hold it and cannot pause a screen owner's payouts; the only refunds we can instruct on their account are the ones [the refund policy](https://onthelist.live/legal/refund-policy) names. Stripe collects our fee from each payment for us. The only sale we make ourselves is the screen owner's setup fee. ## Who is the seller when a business buys a spot? The screen owner. Each payment for a spot is a charge on the screen owner's own Stripe account, their business name appears on the checkout page and on the card statement, and the sale is between the screen owner and the business, on the rules we present for them. OnTheList.Live provides the software and takes its fee. ## Is a board a contest or a game of chance? No. Nothing on the service is allocated by chance. A place on a board is bought: spots are ranked by the total each business has paid, and a tie goes to whoever reached the total first. There are no draws, no random features and no countdowns that extend when someone pays. ## Is a board a review site? No. A board is a page of ads, ranked by money. A high place means a business paid more, not that anyone recommends it. Boards show no stars, scores or reviews, and every board says what it is in a banner at the top: "Sponsored Board — paid ads." ## What is the difference between a board's page and its screen? The board's page lives at the board's own web address and lists every spot, the top five as tiles and the rest as rows, with the owner's own entries below, labelled as unpaid. The screen view is a full-screen picture for the venue's screen: it shows the top five paid spots, the #1 spot with its own code, a code that says "Scan to put your business here" while the board takes bids, and, where the owner has set the venue's type and business hours, an estimate of when the venue is busy today. ## Is it only for screens? A board does not need a screen. Its web page works on its own, so anyone with an audience who wants local businesses to pay for a place on their list can run one. The [scorecard](https://onthelist.live/scorecard) helps decide whether an audience is ready for a board. ## How do I reach a person? Write to hi@moretime.ai. A person reads every message, and it is the one mailbox for advertisers, screen owners, visitors and rights holders. Emails the platform sends come from an address nobody reads, so write to the mailbox instead of replying. We aim to answer anything about a payment within one business day and everything else within two. See [contact and support](https://onthelist.live/legal/contact). ## Where are the legal terms? All of them are at [the legal page](https://onthelist.live/legal): the terms of service and the bid rules for advertisers, the host terms for screen owners, the refund policy, the privacy and cookie policies, the rules on what may be advertised, and the sponsorship disclosure.