How it works
One rule runs the whole board: your rank is the money you have paid, and that money loses 10% of its value every day.
The four steps
- Pick what you are ranking: a product URL or an X handle. No signup, no email.
- Check the current top bid on the board. Beating it by one cent is enough to take the lead right now.
- Pay by card. Your bid appears on the board as soon as the payment clears.
- Come back and top up. Because your bid decays 10% a day, holding #1 costs a little every day instead of a lot once.
How the decay is calculated
The effective value of a bid is the amount paid multiplied by 0.9 for every day elapsed since the payment cleared: effective = paid × 0.9^days. Days are continuous, not rounded — the number falls every second, which is why the figure on each row keeps ticking down while you watch it. Rankings are sorted on this effective value, so positions can swap without anybody paying anything.
What $100 is worth over a month
| Day | Effective value | Share of the original |
|---|---|---|
| Paid | $100 | 100% |
| Day 1 | $90 | 90% |
| Day 2 | $81 | 81% |
| Day 3 | $72.90 | 73% |
| Day 5 | $59.05 | 59% |
| Day 7 | $47.83 | 48% |
| Day 10 | $34.87 | 35% |
| Day 14 | $22.88 | 23% |
| Day 21 | $10.94 | 11% |
| Day 30 | $4.24 | 4% |
How long each bid survives
A listing leaves the board once its effective value falls below $1. That gives every amount a predictable lifespan:
| Bid | Days on the board | Cost per day on average |
|---|---|---|
| $5 | ≈ 16 | $0.31 |
| $20 | ≈ 29 | $0.69 |
| $100 | ≈ 44 | $2.27 |
| $500 | ≈ 59 | $8.47 |
What it costs to take #1
Exactly one cent more than the current leader's decayed value. Because that value falls continuously, the price of the top spot is lower every hour you wait — and lower still if the leader stops topping up. The minimum bid is $5, and the maximum is $5,000. An unclaimed category can be taken for the minimum, because in an empty category there is nothing to beat.
Cities: where a bid actually lands
Every payment is made on a city. Whoever has the largest live payment on a given city sits at the top of it, and the cities themselves are ranked against one another in a world league by how much is still burning inside them. That means there is not one #1 to win but thousands: an unclaimed city can be taken for the $5 minimum, and a crowded one costs a cent more than its current leader after decay. Pick yours on the globe, or see everything at once on the world board.
Where the traffic goes
Every row links out to the listed site through a counted redirect. Outbound clicks are shown publicly next to each listing, so the board reports what a position is actually worth in visits rather than impressions. The links are nofollow: a listing buys human attention, not search-engine link equity.
Glossary
- Pay-to-rank leaderboard
- A public ranking in which position is determined by money paid rather than by votes, editorial judgement or an algorithm.
- Decay
- The daily reduction — here 10% — applied to every bid's effective value, so a payment behaves like rent rather than a purchase.
- Effective value
- What a bid is worth right now after decay. This is the number the board sorts on, not the amount originally paid.
- Lifetime paid
- The total ever paid into a listing, including top-ups. Shown on hover; it does not affect rank.
- Dropout threshold
- $1 — the effective value below which a listing leaves the board entirely.
- Attention market
- A market where the good being traded is visibility. Decay makes it behave like real attention: it fades unless it is fed.
Compared with a permanent bid board
Permanent bid-for-rank boards die the same way: one deep pocket parks at #1 and everyone else stops playing. Decay removes that ending. Every position is temporary, comebacks are cheap, and the board keeps moving whether or not anyone new arrives. A side-by-side breakdown lives on outbid.love vs outbid.lol, and the FAQ covers the practical questions about payment, moderation and refunds.