Placing a bid
What a bid is made of — an amount, a pitch and a link — how the amount you're quoted is worked out, and why some links are refused.
A bid is your offer for a slot on one Orbit: an amount, a pitch of up to 150 characters, and an optional link. If it ends up in the slots when bidding closes, the creator says your pitch out loud in their content, and you pay your bid. If it doesn't, you pay nothing.
How it works
- Sign in. Bidding needs an account, signed in with an emailed code or with Google. Your bid shows under your ShoutOrbit handle, which is set on your account, not typed into the bid.
- Choose an amount. Whole dollars only. The lowest bid on any Orbit is $1.00, and a creator can set their own minimum higher. The bid box quotes you what takes the last slot: the current cutoff plus $1.00.
- Write your pitch. Up to 150 characters. A plug, a question for the creator, or both. This is what the creator reads out, so write it to be said.
- Add a link if you want one. It goes in the link box, never in the pitch.
- Choose how you'll pay, if you win. A card covers bids up to $300. Above that you pay from a US bank account, up to $2,000.
- Tick the box. It says, in one sentence, what you'll be charged if you win, to which card or account, and until when you can cancel. That tick is your whole approval. There is no second "confirm to pay".
Every bid gets a quick automated check before it shows on the Orbit. A bid it turns down never appears and is never charged.
Writing a pitch that works
The creator reads your pitch out loud to people who came to watch them, not to hear an ad. The pitches that land say who you are, what you made and who it's for, in words a person would actually say. Add one reason to act now, if you have one.
Some made-up examples:
A founder:
I built Tallybook, a one-tap expense log for freelancers who hate spreadsheets. Your first 100 invoices are free.
A local shop:
Rosa's Bakery on 5th St: the cardamom buns from Marcus's last video are back every Saturday. Say "orbit" for a free coffee.
A fan:
Tomás here. I built my first app from your React series, and it has 40 users now. Thank you for making it make sense.
And one that doesn't:
AI-powered all-in-one productivity suite with 40+ integrations, SOC 2, real-time analytics, dashboards and more! Visit us today!
It's a list of features nobody can picture, and it sounds like an ad. The creator has to read it in their own voice, so it's also the kind of pitch they turn down.
Why it works this way
Why you're quoted the cutoff plus $1.00, not the cutoff. Ties go to whoever bid first. If you bid exactly the cutoff, you tie the last slot and lose it.
Why you only have to beat the cutoff, not the leader. The only entry rule is the Orbit's minimum. Bid above the cutoff and you take a slot; bid below it and you pay nothing. If you had to beat the top bid, only the last few people to bid could ever win.
Why your rank depends only on amount and time. One ranked list, the same for a company and a fan. When bidding ends, the winners are worked out by the same ranking the page was showing you, so the people you saw in the slots are the people who get charged.
Why the link has its own box. The creator reviews every link before they say it out loud. A link hidden in the pitch would skip that.
Links: what's allowed
A link has to:
- start with
https:// - be a single link, with no spaces
- go to a public website, not an IP address or a local host
- go straight to the page. Shorteners aren't allowed, and neither is a link that redirects to a different site.
Why: the creator sees the full destination of your link before they promise to send
their audience there. A bit.ly link is a destination they can't see.
What can go wrong
- "Someone's already at that amount." Where an amount would take a slot, it can only be bid once, so pick a higher one. Below the cutoff the same amount is allowed, and the earlier bid ranks first.
- "That link redirects to …" Use the address it lands on instead.
- Your card is refused for a bigger bid. A card can cover up to $1,000 of your bids at once until a creator has been paid from one of its wins and that win is 60 days old. A bank account that hasn't paid on ShoutOrbit yet covers up to $500 of open bids, until its first payment goes through.
- You change your mind. You can cancel until 12 hours before bidding ends. After that your bid is final, though you can still raise it.
- The creator turns you down. You are not charged. A creator can turn down any bid, including the top one.