Why open an Orbit

You're about to publish a video, a stream or a post anyway. An Orbit lets sponsors bid to be named in it. You keep most of every winning bid, and all it asks of you is a few names said out loud and a link pasted once the content is up. You decide how many sponsors, the lowest bid you'll take, and who you'll mention at all.

How it works

1. Open an Orbit for one upcoming piece of content: a title, your promise in your own words ("I'll name the top three on Friday"), how many slots, and a minimum bid.
2. Share it with your audience. Your followers on ShoutOrbit are emailed when bidding opens.
3. Sponsors bid. Bidding is free for them, and only the winners pay.
4. Check your winners when bidding ends. Say yes, say no, or pick extra bids you like.
5. Make the content you were going to make, and say the winners' names in it.
6. Paste the link. You're paid 7 days later.

The life of an Orbit walks through every step with dates.

What you keep

You keep 77% of every winning bid. Our cut is 23%, or 30% on a bid under $5.00, because a small charge costs more to process. Card and bank fees are inside that cut, so nothing else comes off your side. (If your bank is outside the US, Stripe converts the dollars to your currency at its own rate.) Two examples:

Three winners at $25.00 each would mean three times that. There is no fee to open an Orbit and no monthly charge. If nobody bids, it costs you nothing.

Who it suits

A small creator no brand has noticed yet. Brands go looking for big numbers, so a channel with a few thousand loyal viewers rarely gets asked. On an Orbit, a sponsor who wants exactly your audience can find you and bid, with no media kit and no negotiation.

A local creator. A city food account or a neighbourhood vlog has an audience a local shop wants and a national ad can't reach. Shops near you can bid for a mention the way anyone else does.

A creator whose fans want to be named. Fans can bid too, under the same rules, and on a small Orbit they can fill the first slots before a company finds you.

When it isn't right

• You can't say the names out loud. The whole promise is that winners are named in the content. If your format can't fit that, an Orbit will end in refunds.
• You can't publish by a date you set. If there's no link by your publish date plus 7 days, every sponsor is refunded in full and you're paid nothing.
• Your bank isn't somewhere we can pay yet. Payouts reach banks in the US, the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein or the EU. See Get paid: setup.

Why it works this way

Why you're paid after you publish, not when sponsors are charged. Sponsors pay for a mention that hasn't happened yet. Holding the money until the link is in is what lets them bid at all, and it means a sponsor never has a reason to fight you over it.

Why you can turn down anyone. You are the one saying the name. You can reject any bid, including the top one, for any reason, and that sponsor is never charged. A sponsor you refuse costs you nothing but their bid.

Why a pick never pushes out a winner. You can pick bids you like into the shout-out, up to 5 per Orbit, whatever they bid. A pick adds a place. The sponsors who paid for the slots keep them, which is why they trust the ranking enough to bid.

Questions creators ask

Will anyone bid?

We can't promise that, and we won't. Most bids come from your own audience and from the people they tell, so the Orbit does best when you mention it in your content or your posts. Sponsors lose nothing by bidding and not winning, which makes a first bid an easy yes. Once a channel of yours is verified, your Orbits are also listed where sponsors browse.

Does an open page look cheap?

While bidding is open, the page shows the pitches and the amounts in the slots. The bids below the slots show with no amount. Once bidding ends, the page shows only the sponsors in your shout-out, and no amounts at all. You also set the minimum, so nobody gets in for less than you'll accept.

What if I don't want to promote someone?

Turn them down. You can reject a bid while bidding is open, or say no during your creator check after it ends. They aren't charged, and the next sponsor in line moves up. You also see every link's full destination before you agree to it, because shortened links aren't allowed.

What's the catch? What do you take?

Our cut is the percentage above, taken from each winning bid. That's the whole price. The one way to lose an Orbit's money is not publishing: no link by your publish date plus 7 days, and every sponsor gets their money back.

What can go wrong

• Nobody bids. The Orbit closes with no winners. Nothing is charged, and you owe nothing.
• Fewer bids than slots. Everyone who bid is a winner, at their own bid. You name them all.
• A winner's payment fails. They get 1 day to fix it. If they don't, the next in line takes their place while the line is still open.
• A sponsor says they weren't in it. Your payout on that Orbit waits until a person has watched the content.

Next step