Raising or cancelling a bid

While bidding is open you can change your mind in two ways: cancel your bid, or raise it. Cancelling is open until 12 hours before the deadline. Raising is open right up to the deadline.

Cancelling

1. Open your bid from the Orbit page or your receipt email.
2. Press cancel. Your bid comes off the Orbit and you're never charged for it.

You can do this until 12 hours before bidding ends. The exact time is in the sentence you ticked when you bid ("I can cancel until …") and on your receipt. After it your bid shows "Final — can't be cancelled", and the cancel button is gone rather than failing when you press it.

Once bidding has ended there's no cancelling at all. If you're next in line, you can still step out for free: see After bidding ends.

Raising

1. Open your bid and enter a higher amount. It has to be at least $1.00 more than what you bid before, in whole dollars.
2. Tick the box again. The sentence now names your new amount, and that replaces what you agreed to before.
3. That's it. It is still one bid, and it's charged once at most, for the new amount if it wins.

A raise doesn't make a second bid, and your bid keeps the time you first placed it. Below the cutoff it keeps its place in the order bids arrived. Above the cutoff it ranks by its new amount like everyone else's, and if it ties another bid, the one placed first wins, judged by when each bid was first placed.

Raising past the card limit

A card covers a bid up to $300. If you raise past that, the bid moves to a US bank account: you pick or add one, and tick the box for the new amount on it. This works in the last 12 hours too.

Raising a final bid

In the last 12 hours you can still raise, but on the same card. You can change cards until cancelling closes; after that you're told "You can change your card until …. You can still raise on the same card." The one exception is a raise past $300, which moves to a bank account as above.

Because a final bid keeps its card, a raise can be limited by how much that card already covers. A card covers up to $1,000 of your bids at once until it's trusted (see Limits). If a raise would pass that, you're told how high this bid can still go on this card, or that it can't go higher on it. You won't be told to use another card, because a final bid can't switch.

Why it works this way

Why cancelling closes early. The creator plans their video around the bids in the last hours. If the top bids could disappear in the final minutes, the shout-out could empty out when it was too late for anyone to replace them.

Why you can still raise. A raise only adds to what the creator can count on, so there's no reason to stop it before the deadline.

Why a raise is the same bid. You're charged once at most, for the amount you last agreed to. Two bids from one sponsor would mean two charges and two places to keep track of.

Why you re-tick the box. The tick is your approval of a specific amount. A new amount needs a new approval, in your own words, from you.

What can go wrong

• You're told your bid changed and asked to tick the box again. The amount or the terms moved while you were on the page, for example because cancelling closed. Check the sentence and tick it again.
• "Someone's already at that amount." Where an amount would take a slot, it can only be bid once. Pick a higher one.
• "A raise has to reach at least $X." The bid you're raising changed, or someone else bid in the meantime. Raise to the amount shown or more.
• The deadline passes mid-raise. "Bidding closed before that raise landed." Your bid stays at its old amount.
• You want out after cancelling closes. You can't cancel a final bid. If it doesn't win, it costs you nothing; if you win and something is wrong, see Refunds.

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