PaidRank — Rules
Frozen for the season. Published before anyone buys.
A public ranked board of 25 slots. Buy a slot, hold it as long as you like, lose it whenever someone pays the published buyout price.
Rank reflects what the holder paid. It is not an evaluation, a review, or a ranking of quality.
Slots are not restricted to any category. Anyone can hold any slot — a company, an open-source project, an agency, a newsletter, an individual, a link. There is no application, no approval, and no membership criteria. If your payment clears, the slot is yours.
Everything below is fixed for the full season. Nothing changes mid-season — not the prices, not the percentages, not the timing. Rule changes are announced 7 days before a new season begins and never apply retroactively.
| Slots | 25 |
| Season length | 30 days |
| Launch phase | Days 1–10 (seed pricing) |
| Mechanic live | Day 11 |
| Seed price | Slots 1–5: $99 · 6–15: $49 · 16–25: $19 |
| Buyout price | max(last paid × 1.2, last paid + $5) |
| Floor price | $19 |
| Hold confirmation | Every 21 days, 7-day grace |
| Quiet decay | Buyout price falls 5%/day after 3 days unchallenged, floored at last paid + $5 |
| Empty-slot decay | 5% per day, starting 72 hours after the slot empties |
| Credit on being taken | 25% of what you paid |
| Credit expiry | 30 days |
| Spotlight | $15 for 4 hours |
Buy a slot, you hold it indefinitely. There is no timer and no expiry.
Anyone can take it from you at any moment by paying the buyout price, which is published on the slot at all times. There is no auction, no deadline, and no bidding window. The price is the price, and whoever pays it first gets the slot.
When your slot is taken, you receive 25% of what you paid as site credit.
The buyout price is always max(last paid × 1.2, last paid + $5).
Below $25 the flat $5 applies. Above it, the 20% applies. Example ladder from the floor:
$19 → $24 → $29 → $34 → $39 → $44 → $49 → $59 → $71 → $85 → $102
If two people pay for the same slot at the same price, the first payment recorded takes the slot. The second receives the full amount paid as site credit, valid for 30 days.
No slot is ever granted at a stale price, and no purchase is ever silently discarded.
The 25% credit exists so that reclaiming a slot does not cost more each time.
At $99: someone takes it for $118.80. You get $24.75 credit. Reclaiming costs you $118.80 − $24.75 = $94.05. That is exactly 0.95× your original outlay.
At $19: someone takes it for $24. You get $4.75 credit. Reclaiming costs you $24 − $4.75 = $19.25. That is 1.01× your original outlay.
Reclaiming your slot costs approximately what you paid the first time, at every price level. It does not escalate. Every figure above is verifiable in the public ledger.
Credit applies to slot purchases and Spotlight.
There is no rent and no recurring charge. You pay once and hold the slot indefinitely.
Every 21 days you receive an email asking you to confirm you still want the slot. One click. If you do not confirm within 7 days, the slot is vacated and begins decaying, and it becomes available to anyone.
This exists so that abandoned slots return to the board. It is not a payment.
If nobody takes your slot for 3 days, its buyout price begins falling 5% per day.
It never falls below what you paid plus $5. Nobody can ever take your slot for less than you paid for it. What erodes is the premium on top of your price, not your price.
The 3-day clock resets every time a slot changes hands.
This exists so the board cannot stall. A slot nobody is contesting becomes progressively easier to contest, until someone does.
An empty slot holds its price for 72 hours, then falls 5% per day until it reaches the $19 floor or someone buys it.
At the end of each 30-day season the board's final standings are archived permanently, and a new season begins.
Ownership carries over. Your slot, your price, and your reign continue uninterrupted across a season boundary. A season boundary changes rules, not holdings.
Rule changes for the next season are published 7 days before it starts.
Days 1–10: slots sell at the published seed prices. No buyouts, no decay.
The board goes live on day 11 only if at least 10 slots have sold. If fewer than 10 slots sell within 10 days, every payment taken during the launch phase is refunded in full and the board does not launch. The result will be published either way.
This is the only circumstance in which money is returned. Once the mechanic is live there are no refunds.
Once the board is live, all payments are final. Losing a slot is the mechanic working as designed, not a fault.
If you are taken, you receive credit. Credit is site credit only. It is never withdrawable and never converted to money.
A chargeback vacates the slot immediately, voids the reign in the record, forfeits any outstanding credit, and closes the account. This is automatic and not appealed.
If you cannot identify a charge, the transaction appears on your account page with a receipt and a timestamp.
Each slot displays a name, a link, and one line of text.
There is no restriction on what kind of holder occupies a slot. Slots are not reserved for any industry, product type, or category, and holders are never vetted for relevance.
Not permitted: anything illegal in the operator's jurisdiction; impersonation of a person or company you do not represent; malware, phishing, or deceptive redirects; content attacking a specific individual.
That list is exhaustive. Content is not removed for being tasteless, aggressive, off-topic, or competitive with another slot.
If content is removed, the full amount paid is returned as site credit and the slot is vacated. No cash is returned in either direction, so removal is never profitable for the operator.
Every event on the board is public: purchases, buyouts, prices, decay steps, credit issued, credit redeemed. Each entry is timestamped and attributed. The full ledger is downloadable as CSV.
Every claim on this page is checkable against it.
Two accounts can trade a slot back and forth to drive its price up. This is visible in the ledger, since it shows both accounts and every timestamp.
It is not blocked. Blocking it would require judgment calls about intent, and this board does not make judgment calls. It is also expensive for anyone doing it, since every buyout is paid in full and none of it is returned.
Read the ledger before drawing conclusions from a price.
The buyout endpoint is documented and public. Rate limits are identical for every account. There is no private or privileged access.
There is no auction deadline on this board, so there is nothing to snipe. The price is published continuously and anyone can pay it at any moment.
Spotlight is a separate placement below the board: $15 for 4 hours, first come. It has no rank, no buyout, no credit, and no relationship to the ranked slots. It cannot be taken during its window.
The operator holds no slots, takes no rank, and buys no Spotlight, in this or any future season. No slot is ever comped, gifted, or discounted outside the published seed prices.
This board is operated by [entity name], [city], India.
These rules are governed by the laws of India. Any dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of [city].
Prices are in USD and exclude applicable taxes. Indian buyers are charged GST at the applicable rate; the invoice shows it separately.
Grievance officer: [name], [email]. Complaints are acknowledged within 48 hours and resolved within 30 days.
Every change to this page is dated and listed below. Nothing is edited silently.