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FAQ and Troubleshooting

The task pages in this section cover each flow in depth. This page collects the "why did that happen?" moments.

Roles and access​

Can I sell placements from the same account I buy them with?​

No. enlistment_role is chosen once and is permanent — a database rule enforces it, and no support request can move it. That is why the role chooser makes you press the same card twice. Register a separate account for the other side of the marketplace.

I chose "I own channels" by mistake. Can it be undone?​

Not on that account. Register a separate account for the advertiser side. A channel-owner account can still browse the Marketplace and the Auctions floor; it simply cannot book, fill a cart, keep a watchlist or build a Channel finder.

Why does my Paid Promotions navigation bar look different from a screenshot?​

The bar is role-aware. An advertiser gets Overview · Marketplace · Campaigns · Cart · Watchlist · Channel finder · Auctions. A channel owner gets My channels · Bookings · Add channel · Activity, then Marketplace and Auctions. The role label on the left of the bar says which you are.

I get redirected to a "link your account" page before Paid Promotions opens.​

Every dashboard flow sits behind an onboarding gate. An account that signed up by email must link the Telegram bot; an account that signed in with Telegram must claim a real email address and confirm it. See Connect your account.

Booking and paying​

The checkout says my balance can't cover it​

Every purchase is paid from your Onflow Ads wallet. The message names the exact shortfall; top up and check out again. Nothing was charged and your cart is untouched.

"Your reliability is X/10 — Paid Promotions needs at least 4/10"​

Booking and bidding both need a minimum reliability score. Anything already in flight still finishes; you cannot start something new until the score recovers. See Your reliability as a buyer.

The owner never answered. Where is my money?​

Back in your wallet, automatically. An owner has a live 24-hour countdown to accept; if it lapses or they decline, the full amount is refunded from escrow with nothing for you to do. The order reads DECLINED and its timeline carries the reason.

Why is my order DECLINED when the owner said yes?​

DECLINED covers four different failures, because the badge is derived from whether the order carries a decline reason rather than from who acted: the owner declined, the owner never answered within the accept window, the owner accepted and then did not post within the agreed window, or the owner was under review or below the reliability floor and the platform declined the request for them at once ("The channel owner is temporarily unable to accept bookings."). All four refund you in full, and none of them touches your reliability. The reason line in the timeline tells them apart.

The posting window closed and nothing has happened​

A non-delivery refund waits out a 120-minute grace — the tail in which the bot's publish retries can still land — and 10 minutes longer on an exact-time slot. Until then the order is still legitimately live.

Can I change my ad or my schedule after booking?​

No. Both are frozen into the booking, which is exactly what the delivery-proof archive later verifies against. Cancel under the published rules and rebook.

Can I cancel after the owner accepted?​

Yes, until the ad is posted. You are refunded in full, there is no fee and your reliability does not move. The owner can cancel an accepted, unposted booking on the same terms — you are notified and the full refund lands in your wallet at once. A live or delivered placement cannot be cancelled at all.

Checkout refused a date the composer let me pick​

The composer does not know an owner's blackout calendar. Only the start day is checked, and it is checked at the till: "One of these channels isn't taking bookings on that date. Please pick another day." Read the channel's Availability strip before you compose.

One channel in my cart pushed the whole campaign later​

Checkout enforces the strictest lead time across the cart. A same-day channel in a basket with a 48-hour channel is held to 48 hours.

Is the price on my watchlist the price I pay?​

Yes. The catalog, the channel page, the cart, the watchlist card, the 90-day price chart and the price-drop notification all show your all-in price — the owner's list price plus the marketplace fee at your rate; an auction figure is simply the bid, with nothing added. The standard rate is 9%, the veteran rate is 7% once you have earned it, and neither depends on your plan. See Escrow and buyer protection.

Auctions​

I placed a bid and was instantly outbid, with nobody doing anything​

Another bidder left an automatic maximum. The system answered on their behalf with the smallest amount that kept their lead. Your funds were released the same moment and the message names the new price to beat. On Elite and above you can set your own maximum.

Why must I attach an ad post before I can bid?​

A winning bid settles instantly into a real booking, using the creative attached to the bid. Without one, the owner's sold slot would sit empty waiting for the winner to come back and write a post.

The countdown suddenly got longer​

Anti-sniping: a bid inside the last five minutes extends the clock. The extension can never push past a fence set when the auction was created — the winner's go-live minus 30 minutes minus the wider of the channel's own lead time and the 48-hour floor.

I'm the top bid but the card says "Reserve not met". Will I win?​

Not at that price. Some auctions carry a hidden minimum sale price; if the final top bid is below it, the auction ends unsold and every hold is refunded in full. Bid higher until the badge flips to Reserve met. The reserve amount itself is never published — publishing it would just make it the opening price.

Does a bid cost anything if I lose?​

No. The hold is released the moment you are outbid. Only the winner is charged, and never more than their winning bid. The single exception is a bid standing when somebody pays the instant-buy cap: that escrow returns in full 48 hours after the bid was placed.

What the ad looks like in the channel​

What is the "advertisement via onflowads.com" line under my ad?​

It is the platform's own ad disclosure: one clickable line, one blank line below your copy. It replaced the #ad hashtag the product used to ask advertisers to type — which is why the composer's pre-flight now says "Disclosure is added for you" instead of nagging you for one.

The platform appends it when it publishes the ad — and the platform's bot publishes every placement, so the line is applied exactly, every time. See What you are actually buying.

Can I remove it? Does upgrading my plan remove it?​

Not from your side, and no. The line is dropped on Plus and above, but the plan that is read is the channel owner's — never the advertiser's. It is a mark on somebody's feed, so the person who earns its removal is the person whose feed carries it. Your own plan has no effect on it at all.

You can see which channels carry it before you book: a channel's public page has a Labelling row saying either "Onflow Ads adds one line under the ad: “advertisement via onflowads.com”." or "Onflow Ads adds no line of its own to this channel's placements."

Why does the composer count to 991 instead of 1,024?​

Because 33 characters are being held back for that line, on channels that carry it. On a channel whose owner is Plus or above the counter reads 1,024. The ceiling itself is Telegram's: 1,024 once a photo or video is attached, 4,096 for a text-only post — so with no media the same counter reads 4,063 or 4,096. See Booking a promo slot.

Where do my saved templates live, and why is one locked?​

Under Templates in the Paid Promotions bar. Every booking's composer can Save as template and Use a template. Your plan decides how many stay usable — Free 2, up to Ultimate 20 — and after a downgrade the newest ones past the allowance lock (kept, read-only) until you upgrade again. See Saving and reusing templates.

I bought "1 hour at the top" and the ad was never pinned​

Nothing was pinned, and nothing was meant to be. The hours at the top are top-of-feed exclusivity — your ad is the newest post in the channel and the owner publishes nothing else in that window. A pin is sold separately: as the owner's Pinned for the whole campaign extra, or as the 7 days in feed · pinned throughout format. See What you are actually buying.

The Campaigns page agrees: it says LIVE · pinned and Posted & pinned only on an order that bought the pin, and plain LIVE and Posted on every other booking.

The owner posted right after my ad. What do I get?​

The owner takes a 0.40 reliability penalty and you are both notified — but there is no refund and no discount, because your ad still ran for its full booked duration. It is not a dispute reason either; filing one costs you reliability if it is rejected. See Orders and campaigns.

Proof and reporting​

How do I prove to a client that the ad really ran?​

Two layers, strongest last:

  1. "🔗 View live post ↗" on the order opens the actual Telegram post.
  2. "Delivery proof" shows the frozen, signature-verified trail — the creative as booked plus every monitor capture, each row's signature recomputed on every view.

The archive is the stronger of the two: a live link cannot show what the post looked like last week, and it disappears with the post. See Tracked links and delivery proof.

They are now, in the caption and in an inline button alike. Every link a reader can tap is published as its own onflowads.com/rr/… short link that counts every tap and then sends the reader to the Telegram address exactly as written — Telegram's in-app browser opens it straight back in Telegram, and a bot's start payload arrives byte for byte. A link into a channel that is yours and connected to Onflow Ads counts joins too: its short link opens a campaign invite link, and Telegram reports every join through it. A booking made before every link became a short link keeps its older links, and a t.me link in it to anybody else's channel, an invite hash or a bot was published exactly as written and counted nothing. See Tracked links and delivery proof.

A metric on my campaign is blank. Did it deliver zero?​

No. Across the marketplace a number that could not be measured is shown blank or as Measuring…, never as zero. Blended CPM, for example, is computed from measured lines only and labelled with how many of the campaign's orders that is.

Disputes and refunds​

The post looks wrong — deleted early, edited, or never appeared​

Open a dispute from the order's details within 14 days of delivery. Held funds stay frozen while it is investigated. Many failures never need a dispute at all: a monitor-verified failure auto-refunds on Elite and above, and a non-delivery refunds itself after its grace period. See Raising a dispute.

Where do refunds go?​

To your Onflow Ads wallet — and they come back non-withdrawable. You can spend the money anywhere on the platform; you cannot cash it out. That covers auto-refunds, cancellations, insurance payouts and upheld disputes alike.

The one that lands on a delay is a refunded paid pin: same pocket, but paid when the campaign finishes or within 48 hours — whichever comes first — rather than the moment the owner unpins. The outcome is not final until the run ends, because the owner can still put the pin back.

The one exception is a released auction hold — an outbid, an unsold auction, a failed settlement. That restores the exact pocket it was taken from, so money that was withdrawable comes back withdrawable.

Is raising a dispute risky?​

A genuine concern is always safe. A concern the review finds unfounded costs −0.5 reliability, and a pattern of them costs more — the form says so before you submit. Check the live post and the proof trail first; they are the same evidence the review uses.

Something went wrong on screen​

"We couldn't reach …" with a Retry button​

A display problem, not a marketplace one. Every Paid Promotions page distinguishes the two on purpose: your bookings and your escrow are untouched.

My cart shows a different count on my phone than on my laptop​

The cart lives in your browser and, from Lite up, syncs to your account. Open the Cart page on either device and it reconciles. If two devices saved at once, one is refused with "Your cart was changed on another device. We've loaded the latest one."

A channel disappeared from my cart​

Its listing was paused, removed, or its format withdrawn between adding and paying. The line is pruned automatically and you are told. Nothing was charged.

A channel disappeared from the marketplace​

Owners can pause or remove a listing at any time. If you had saved it, it stays on your watchlist badged Unavailable so you notice if it comes back.

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