Discounts and Deals
Six different things can lower the price of a placement, and they behave differently: some come out of the channel owner's pocket, some come out of the platform's, and only one of them is something you apply yourself. This page explains which is which, so a number in the cart's Summary is never a surprise.
The one rule that explains all of it
Every discount in the marketplace is either owner-authored or a platform lever, and the difference decides everything about how it behaves.
| Owner-authored | Platform lever | |
|---|---|---|
| Which ones | Spotlight, channel sale, owner perk, bulk discount | Volume discount, promo code, bundle offer |
| Who funds it | The channel owner | Onflow Ads, out of its own fee |
| What it moves | Both your charge and the owner's payout | Only your charge |
| Where it appears in the cart | The Owner discounts (spotlight · perks) row | The Volume discount / Volume + promo row |
| Its ceiling | All owner discounts together are capped at 90% | Volume + promo + bundle together are capped at 90%, and floored at the owner's payout |
The cart states the platform half of that out loud: "Platform discounts come out of our fee — an owner's payout never drops below their price."
A platform discount is bounded by the marketplace fee on that line. Once your charge would fall below what the owner is owed, there is no margin left to give away and the discount stops there. On a basket already deep in owner-authored discounts, a promo code or a bundle offer can quote no extra saving at all — and the bundle box simply will not appear. That is the floor working as designed.
Owner-authored discounts
Spotlight — a flash deal on one format
A spotlight is a limited-time deal the owner runs on exactly one placement format.
| Rule | The figure |
|---|---|
| Discount | Between 10% and 80% off that format |
| Duration | From 1 hour to 14 days |
| Scope | One format only — the channel's other rates are unchanged |
| How many | One live spotlight per channel at a time on most plans; the top plans may run more |
You see it as a −N% badge on the catalog card, a "Spotlight −N% · ends <date>" badge in the channel page header, and a Spotlight −N% line in the composer's price ledger. It is applied automatically — there is nothing to claim. Freshly launched spotlights are also collected in the Spotlight deals rail on your advertiser home, and the Deals collection in the marketplace.
Channel sale — a live sale across the whole channel
Separate from a spotlight: a scheduled, channel-wide sale event on the listing itself, with its own start and end. A channel can have a sale, a spotlight, both, or neither. The On sale filter in the Filters panel finds channels with a sale running right now.
Owner perks — a standing discount aimed at a kind of buyer
A perk is a standing discount an owner offers to a category of buyer, resolved per buyer at the moment the price is computed. You see it as a green chip on the channel page's rate card and as a line in the composer's ledger.
| Perk kind | You qualify when |
|---|---|
| Returning buyer | You have a prior booking on that same listing that reached active or completed |
| First booking | You have no prior booking on that listing |
Three rules govern them:
- A single perk cap of 50%. No one perk can exceed it.
- Perks never stack with each other. If a listing somehow offers two you qualify for, the larger one wins and the other is ignored.
- Perks do stack with a live sale event, up to the shared 90% owner-discount cap.
An owner can cap how many times a perk is redeemed in a calendar month. The check when you were quoted is a plain read, so two buyers can both see the last redemption available. Exactly one wins; the other's checkout is rolled back entirely with "A limited-quantity discount on this order was just claimed by another buyer." Nothing is charged. Reload the cart to see the honest price and pay again.
Bulk discount — cheaper when you book more of the same line
The Bulk discount filter finds channels whose rate card carries a standing discount for booking more of the same line. It keys off quantity, not off you having bought before — the returning-buyer discount is the perk above, and they are different mechanisms with the same instinct behind them.
Bulk discount means the owner offers a quantity discount, not that you are getting one — read it as a signal about how that owner prices, not as a saving already in your total. And an owner perk has no filter of its own: it is resolved for you personally, so it can never be a facet count.
Platform levers
The volume discount
Earned from the money you have ever put into your wallet, applied to every Paid Promotion checkout:
| Lifetime wallet funding | Volume discount |
|---|---|
| $50 or more | 3% |
| $200 or more | 6% |
| $500 or more | 10% |
It reads lifetime deposits, which only ever increase, so a rung you reach is a rung you keep. The highest one you have passed applies. The cart draws the rate you have earned and the amount it saves; it does not draw the ladder, which is why it is printed here.
Promo codes
Applied by hand in the cart's Promo code field. A code is resolved against the at-list total, so a minimum-order rule is judged on a real number rather than on a post-discount one. Codes can carry expiry dates, usage caps, minimum order values, first-order-only and once-per-user rules; an invalid one explains itself.
Two codes racing on the same last redemption cannot both win: the loser's checkout is rolled back entirely and they are asked to re-price, which is honest — they were quoted a total that no longer applies to them.
The cart's bundle offer
With two or more distinct channels in the cart, the platform offers a fixed 10% off the whole basket. The rate is server-fixed and never named by the page. See Cart and checkout.
Curated bundles
A different product: a package Onflow Ads assembled, at whatever discount the operator set on it, booked as a unit. See Curated bundles.
How they combine, in order
For one line:
- Start from the owner's list price for the format, with the marketplace fee already inside it.
- Add up the owner-authored discounts that apply — spotlight, sale event, the winning perk — and cap the total at 90%. This reduces your charge and the owner's payout together.
- Add up the platform levers — volume, promo, bundle — and cap the total at 90%. Apply it to your charge only, and stop at the owner's payout.
The cart's ledger separates these deliberately. Owner discounts (spotlight · perks) is step 2. Volume discount or Volume + promo is step 3. If a number surprises you, work down those rows — one of them accounts for the whole difference.
What each price on the site includes
| Where | The number shown |
|---|---|
| Catalog card, channel page rates, composer, cart, Channel finder, watchlist card, 90-day price chart, price-drop notification | Your all-in price — the owner's list price plus the marketplace fee at your rate |
| Every auction figure | The bid itself, with nothing added |
The fee rate is the same on every plan: the standard rate is 9%, and the veteran rate is 7% once you have completed 100 clean placements — counted from your most recent reliability penalty, so a penalty restarts the count and one overturned on appeal restores it. A channel listed at $100 therefore reads $109 wherever you see its price. See Escrow and buyer protection.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A −N% badge on the card but no discount row in the cart | The spotlight is on a format you did not book | A spotlight covers one format only. Book that format, or accept the standard rate |
| The bundle offer never appears | Fewer than two distinct channels, or the saving quoted is zero | Add a second channel. If you already have two, the basket is likely at the owner-payout floor already |
| "A limited-quantity discount on this order was just claimed by another buyer." | An owner perk's monthly quota ran out during your checkout | Nothing was charged. Reload the cart and pay at the honest price |
| "That code isn't live." | The code is invalid, expired, exhausted, or does not apply to this order | Check the code, or pay at the un-coded total |
| The promo saved less than the code advertises | The platform lever hit the owner-payout floor | Nothing is wrong. The remainder of the code had nowhere to come from that was ours to give |
| A perk chip on the channel page but no perk in your ledger | You do not match its kind — a returning-buyer perk on a channel you have never booked, or a first-booking perk on one you have | Perks are resolved per buyer. Nothing to fix |
Related
- Cart and checkout — the Summary ledger these discounts render into.
- Browsing the marketplace — the Spotlight, On sale and Bulk discount filters that find deals.
- Curated bundles — the pre-packaged discount, open to every plan.
- What each plan includes — monthly placements and cart sync by plan; the fee every price is built from is the same on every plan.