What money buys here.

1. Paid and organic are separate surfaces

Spotlight is a labelled board of paid placements. The Talent board and search results are ordered by relevance and freshness. Payment has no effect on the second, before, during or after. Every paid position says it is paid, in words, not only in colour.

2. How position is decided

Everyone who pays appears on the board. It is ordered by the total settled amount behind each person, highest first, and the top 3 positions are highlighted. If two people are level, the one who got there first is placed higher. Several people can back the same candidate; their amounts add up into one position.

3. What it costs

The minimum is $5 USD. Bids move in $1 steps, and taking first place needs at least $1 more than the current leader. The most that can go in at once is $999,999. If you already hold a position, you pay only the difference needed to move up — not the whole amount again.

These are the figures in force right now (rules version 1). They are operator settings and can change; a board already running keeps the rules it opened under.

4. A position starts when the payment settles

Nothing changes on the board when you reach the payment page, or when your browser returns from it. The position moves when the payment provider confirms the money to our server. If a payment fails, is abandoned or is reversed, no position is granted or kept.

5. Boards reset, and positions end

Each board runs for a fixed period — currently weekly, ending every Monday at 00:00 UTC — and then resets. When it resets, every paid position on it ends. Nothing carries over to the next board. Previous boards stay published so anyone can see what positions went for.

6. Being outbid is normal, and is not refunded

You are buying visibility for as long as you hold a position, not ownership of that position for the whole period. Someone else can put in more and move ahead of you. When that happens your money stays where it is and keeps working at the lower position, and you are told it happened.

Being outbid is not refunded, because the exposure you paid for began immediately.

7. When money does come back

We refund when we did not deliver what was sold: if a board is frozen or taken down during the period you paid for, if a placement is removed by us for a reason that is not the buyer's doing, or if a payment was taken in error. Refunds are recorded as their own entry — the original payment and its amount are never rewritten, and the public record of what a board went for stays accurate.

8. Who can pay, and whose name shows

You can back yourself, back someone else, or back a candidate as a company. Whichever it is, it is stated: a supporter is named as a supporter, and money someone put behind themselves is never displayed as though a third party vouched for them. A supporter can choose to stay anonymous.

The candidate has the final say over being publicly associated with a supporter. They can hide any supporter's name and message, and doing so does not remove the backing or change the position it bought.

9. The profile has to stay eligible

A profile can only be promoted while it is published, available and within our policies. If someone pauses, is hired, lets their availability lapse or is removed by moderation, the paid position stops showing. Where that was not the buyer's doing, section 7 applies.

10. Disputes

If you dispute a charge with your bank, the placement stops showing while it is reviewed. Both the dispute and its outcome are recorded against the original payment rather than replacing it. If you think something is wrong, contact us first — it is faster, and we can see exactly what happened.

11. Incidents and changes

We can pause a board during an incident. Paid time lost that way is handled under section 7. There is no automated or proxy bidding; every bid is one deliberate payment.