PaidRank — Rules

Frozen for the season. Published before anyone buys.

What this is

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.

Season 1 constants

Slots25
Season length30 days
Launch phaseDays 1–10 (seed pricing)
Mechanic liveDay 11
Seed priceSlots 1–5: $99 · 6–15: $49 · 16–25: $19
Buyout pricemax(last paid × 1.2, last paid + $5)
Floor price$19
Hold confirmationEvery 21 days, 7-day grace
Quiet decayBuyout price falls 5%/day after 3 days unchallenged, floored at last paid + $5
Empty-slot decay5% per day, starting 72 hours after the slot empties
Credit on being taken25% of what you paid
Credit expiry30 days
Spotlight$15 for 4 hours

How a slot works

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

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

Simultaneous purchases

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.

Taking your slot back

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.

Holding a slot

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.

Quiet decay

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.

Empty-slot decay

An empty slot holds its price for 72 hours, then falls 5% per day until it reaches the $19 floor or someone buys it.

Seasons

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.

Launch phase

The launch phase runs for exactly 10 days from a start time published on this page before the board opens. Both the start and end instants are stated in IST and UTC, so there is no ambiguity about which side of a boundary a purchase falls on.

Launch phase begins: [not yet set]

Launch phase ends: [not yet set]

During those 10 days slots sell at the published seed prices. No buyouts, no decay, no price movement of any kind.

The full 10 days always run, even if the threshold is met on day 2. Everyone gets the same window at the same seed prices, and nobody is rewarded for refreshing the page at the right moment.

The board goes live at the end of the launch phase, but only if at least 10 slots have sold by then. If fewer than 10 slots sell within the 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.

When the mechanic starts

At the instant the launch phase ends, and not before:

There is no gap and no frozen period. The launch phase ends and the mechanic is live in the same instant.

This is the only circumstance in which money is returned. Once the mechanic is live there are no refunds.

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.

Chargebacks

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.

Content

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 slot link carries rel="nofollow sponsored". It conveys no search-engine value, and no search-engine value is ever sold, implied, or transferred.

Slots are a visible position on this page and nothing more. If you are buying this for search ranking, it does not do that, and it is not intended to.

Links are checked before a slot goes live.

Public ledger

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.

Repeat trading between accounts

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.

Automation

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

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.

Operator

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.

Operator and jurisdiction

This board is operated by Arindam Sarkar, a sole proprietor based in Kishanganj, Bihar, India.

These rules are governed by the laws of India. Any dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Kishanganj, Bihar.

Prices are in USD and exclude applicable taxes. Indian buyers are charged GST at the applicable rate; the invoice shows it separately.

Grievance officer: Arindam Sarkar, [email protected]. Complaints are acknowledged within 48 hours and resolved within 30 days.

Changelog

Every change to this page is dated and listed below. Nothing is edited silently.

Every change so far was made before the board opened, while no slots had been sold and no money had been taken. Once the board is live, the constants are frozen for the season and changes only happen at a season boundary with 7 days notice, as described above.

2026-08-22

2026-08-21