Earning credits by hosting
Hosting is the only way credits are created. Every time one of your enrolled channels carries another member's ad for its full 24-hour term, the exchange mints credits and puts them on your account. There is nothing to claim, no button to press, and no timer to watch.
This page is the flow itself — what pays, what does not, and how fast a channel can earn. What a credit actually is, and where the balance is readable, is How credits work.
Credits recognise the scarce side of the exchange. Reach is easy to want and hard to supply, so the members who supply it — hosts — are the ones the exchange keeps a running record for.
Before you start
- At least one channel enrolled and showing Hosting under My channels. If you are not there yet, follow Getting started.
- Your own reliability at or above the exchange floor. Below it the matcher stops offering your channels ads, which is also how you would have earned the score back.
- The bot still an administrator of the channel with Post Messages and Delete Messages. A placement the bot cannot post never happens, and one it cannot delete pays nothing.
Step by step
- Your channel sits in the pool. Nothing to do. The matcher looks for ads at or below your content level, from accounts close to yours in audience size.
- A placement is matched to your channel. With Review ads on it is held for your approval first; otherwise it goes straight to the next step.
- The bot posts the ad. You get a Telegram message — "An ad just went live in your channel" — naming the exact time it comes down and what the two possible endings do to your reliability.
- The ad stays up for a full 24 hours. Do nothing. Do not delete it by hand, and do not remove the bot's administrator rights.
- The bot collects the final view count and removes the ad, closing the placement.
- Credits land on your balance. The bot marks the placement as served; the website's credit sweep mints the award within a few minutes and records it in the ledger against that exact placement, so it can never be paid twice. The takedown message tells you the placement served its full window and that the credits are added on onflowads.com — it does not quote the number, because the bot no longer mints it.
That is the whole loop. Repeat it as often as the pool has ads for you.
What one placement earns
The base award is 10 credits per completed placement, multiplied by your plan's credit rate.
| Plan | Credit rate | Credits per completed placement |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1.0x | 10 |
| Lite | 1.1x | 11 |
| Plus | 1.2x | 12 |
| Elite | 1.5x | 15 |
| Master | 1.7x | 17 |
| Ultimate | 2.0x | 20 |
The rate that applies is the plan the website reads for you when it mints the award — moments after the placement completes — so upgrading raises what your hosting earns from that point on. Under the hood that is the base of 10 multiplied by your plan's credit rate, rounded, and never less than 1.
Most plan benefits help you advertise. The credit rate is the one that pays you for hosting. If your channels carry a lot of ads, a higher plan compounds — Ultimate earns double Free for the same work.
What does not earn credits
A placement pays only if it served its full term.
| Situation | Credits | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You refuse an ad through Hosted ads → Refuse | None | It did not run its term. There is no penalty either — refusing is your right |
| You decline a held ad in the review queue | None | It was never posted. No penalty |
| A held ad expires because you did not decide in 24 hours | None | It was never posted. No penalty, but it is earnings left on the table |
| The placement is removed early — you deleted it, or the bot lost its rights | None | It broke the 24-hour promise. This also costs reliability and a strike |
| The bot could not delete the post after the term because it was demoted | None | The credits are withheld because the take-down guarantee could not be honoured. A strike is recorded, but no reliability is lost — the ad did run its window |
| Your channel is Suspended, or your account is cooling down | None | Nothing is being placed at all until it lifts |
| A swap placement | None | A swap is a direct trade; its return is the promotion itself, not credits |
How fast can you earn?
Hosting is deliberately gentle on your channel, so there is a natural ceiling on earning speed.
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Ads one channel is asked to carry in a rolling week | 4 by default |
| Minimum gap between two placements in one channel | 20 hours |
| The same campaign in one channel, per cycle | Once |
| The same advertiser in one channel | Not again inside 72 hours |
| Content | Only at or below your chosen level, and only from accounts close to yours in size |
Those limits are per channel, not per account, so the honest way to earn more is to enrol more channels.
| Plan | Enrolled channels |
|---|---|
| Free | 5 |
| Lite | 10 |
| Plus | 25 |
| Elite | 50 |
| Master | 100 |
| Ultimate | 250 |
If your channel is rarely matched, the usual causes are a very restrictive content level, a size that sits far from the rest of the pool, or your own reliability slipping below the exchange floor. Lowering the level ceiling is not the fix — raising it widens the set of ads that may reach you. Re-run Add a channel on the same channel to change the level, and see "Why your channel might be quiet" in Hosting ads.
Tracking what you have earned
- The bot's takedown message, one per completed placement, which confirms the placement served its full term and earned credits. Your Telegram chat with the bot is the running list of completed placements; the numbers live on the website.
- My channels, where each row shows how many ads that channel has hosted.
- Hosted ads on a channel row, listing the ads it carried in the last 30 days with their level, topic and campaign reference.
- That channel's own dashboard, which carries a lifetime Credits earned figure for the channel plus the credit each recent placement paid. On every plan.
Every credit is minted by one channel, so those are all per-channel figures. There is no screen that adds them into one account-wide number; if you need that total, ask support and they will read it off the ledger.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A takedown message arrived, but the channel's dashboard shows no credit for it yet | The website mints on a sweep a few minutes after the takedown | Wait a few minutes and reload. If it still shows nothing, contact support with the channel's OFSC- reference |
| The same placement appears once on the dashboard, however many times it was checked | The ledger allows one award per placement | Nothing — this is the double-payment guard |
| No placements for days | See the causes table in Hosting ads | Usually the pool, your level ceiling, or your own reliability |
| A strike message instead of a credits message | The placement did not serve its term | Read Rules and fair play, and use Refuse instead of deleting |
Frequently asked
When exactly do the credits appear?
A few minutes after the placement is closed out — the bot takes the ad down at the end of its 24 hours and marks it served, and the website's sweep mints the credits from that record. Not at posting time, because an ad removed early was never really hosted.
I host on several channels. Do they earn separately?
Credits all land in one balance, but the exchange records which channel earned what, so a second channel genuinely adds to your earnings rather than sharing one allowance.
I upgraded mid-week. Which rate do I get?
The rate in force when each placement completes. Placements finishing after the upgrade earn at the new rate.
Does refusing ads hurt my earnings long term?
Refusing a specific ad costs you nothing — no reliability, no strike — but you do not earn on a placement that did not run. Refuse the ads you genuinely do not want; there is no advantage in letting an unwanted ad run just for the credits.
My channel is Suspended. Do I keep the credits I already earned?
Yes. Credits already earned are yours. A suspension only stops new placements, and therefore new earnings, until it lifts.
Related
- How credits work — what a credit is, the ledger, and where the balance is readable.
- Hosting ads — every protection on a placement, and why a channel goes quiet.
- What the bot sends you — the message that names each placement's earnings.