THE BOARD

A BuySellAds alternative where no publisher has to accept you and every price is on the page

BuySellAds is the honest end of display: a named slot on a named site at a listed price, for 30 days or a booked number of impressions. If there is a site your customers read and it is in the directory, buy the slot there; a sidebar on CSS-Tricks was $6,000 at checkout on 6 September 2026 because that is what a month in front of that audience is worth.

If the slot you want is more than the budget, or you want a position nobody has to accept you for, The Board lists a brand for a dollar on one public page ranked by what each listing paid, and every price above you is on the page rather than inside a checkout you have to open.

BuySellAds compared with The Board: to be listed, $50 against $1
BuySellAdsThe Board
To be listed
$50network minimum, per a support page dated 2015
$1once, on the board today
A named slot
$6,000CSS-Tricks sidebar, 30 days, at checkout 6 Sep 2026
$1 overwhatever rank 01 has paid
Position
Fixeda named slot, once the publisher accepts
Helduntil somebody pays more
Reach
Unpublished164 media partners listed; no total given
Fathompage views and clicks, in public

The Board is ours, so read this with that in mind. Every listing on it is a paid placement, its position is decided by money and by nothing else, and nothing on it is editorial. The figures for BuySellAds were read from its own pages on 6 September 2026 and are linked at the foot.

What BuySellAds is, and what it costs

BuySellAds is a direct-sold marketplace, running since 2008, where a publisher lists a named position on its site, newsletter or podcast and an advertiser buys it at the listed price. The self-serve directory held 164 media partners on 6 September 2026 and creates an account at checkout; larger buys go through the sales team; and the same company runs the Carbon Ads network. There is no auction. A publisher with manual approval has 24 hours to accept or deny the ad, after which BuySellAds may approve it; on auto-approve zones the ad goes live at once and the publisher has 24 hours to pull it.

Prices are per slot and visible only inside the checkout. The example read on 6 September 2026 was CSS-Tricks' 300 by 250 Premium Sidebar Sponsors position at $6,000, fixed. Category pages describe the two models, a flat fee for 30 days or a CPM, with examples of $3, $5 and $16 per thousand on smaller properties. The network minimum is $50 worth of impressions, per a publisher support page dated September 2015, which is the only place the figure appears and is a decade old; a publisher-set minimum overrides it. Payment is by card, wire, PayPal or cryptocurrency through Coinbase.

What it sends is each publisher's business to state. BuySellAds publishes no aggregate impression or audience figure; what it publishes is the roster, 80 and more named partners including Axios, Reuters, Morning Brew, Firefox and the Mozilla Developer Network. The terms and the refund policy carry no date. Refunds are considered within 24 hours of a first purchase for two named reasons, are at BuySellAds' discretion, and arrive as account credit for future purchases rather than money.

The price of a place, and the price of the top

Two prices matter: what it costs to be on the page at all, and what it costs to be the one everybody sees first. Drawn to scale, with The Board’s top spot read live from the board.

A log scale: every gridline is ten times the last, which is the only way a dollar and a five-figure sum fit on one line. Prices on the left are BuySellAds’s as read on 6 September 2026; the top spot on The Board is $101 as this page was built and changes as the board does.

BuySellAds and The Board, side by side

QuestionBuySellAdsThe Board
To be listed$50 minimum on the network, per a 2015-dated support page; a slot's own price above that$1, once, for a listing: a logo, a line and a link
What you payA flat fee for 30 days or a CPM, set per slot by the publisher: $6,000 for a CSS-Tricks sidebar on 6 Sep 2026$1 once for the listing; more only if you choose a higher position
What decides your positionThe slot you bought and the publisher's acceptance within 24 hours; the order among rotating sponsors is not publishedWhat the listing has paid. Nothing else, and nobody decides
A guaranteed top positionEvery slot is a fixed position on one site; there is no top across the marketplace$1 more than whoever holds rank 01 has paid
What a month runsThe slot's flat fee, $6,000 on CSS-Tricks; recurring billing unless cancelled a day before the next bill dateWhatever you paid once. There is no monthly charge and nothing bills again
Reach you can verifyNone aggregated; each publisher's own numbers, and no third-party counterPage views and outbound clicks counted by Fathom on a public dashboard; every listing shows its own impressions and clicks
What you getA named position on a named site or newsletter for 30 days or a booked number of impressionsA place on a page people watch, and a click from somebody who chose your brand off it
Best forA brand that can name the one site its customers read and afford a month on itA brand that wants to be seen for a dollar and to price its own position

Eight things to know before you pay either

QuestionBuySellAdsThe Board
Terms with a date on them✕ Terms and refund policy carry no date✓ Dated 25 August 2026
A named operator✓ BuySellAds.com Inc., Massachusetts, since 2008✓ Dustin W. Stout, with a city and a Stripe profile
The price of the top spot published✓ Per slot, at checkout; $6,000 for CSS-Tricks' sidebar✓ On the board, live, to the dollar
Reach counted by a third party✕ No aggregate figure; each publisher's own numbers✓ Fathom, on a public dashboard
Position lasts past a day✓ 30 days on a flat fee, or until the impressions deliver✓ Until somebody pays more; seasons end it
A refund path✕ Discretionary, as account credit, within 24 hours✕ None. Every payment is final
No curator between you and the page✕ The publisher accepts or denies within 24 hours✓ None. Money decides, nobody else
On the page for a dollar✕ $50 network minimum, per a 2015 page✓ $1, once

How The Board works, for somebody leaving BuySellAds

There is one property and one directory, and the directory is the page. The Board is a single leaderboard of brands sorted by what each has paid; a listing is a logo, a line and a link, it costs a dollar, and nobody has 24 hours to accept it. The amount you pay is the position, and the position holds until somebody pays more.

Where BuySellAds prices a slot inside a checkout, The Board prints every amount on the page, so the cost of any position is a number you read: rank 01 is a dollar over the holder. There is no 30-day term and no next bill date, because nothing bills again unless you choose to raise. Every listing shows its own impressions and clicks, the page's traffic is on a public Fathom dashboard, and thirty days at the top wins the season, after which the standings are kept and the amounts reset.

Where BuySellAds falls short, and where it wins

Falls short
  • The slots worth having cost what a month on that site is worth, and $6,000 for one sidebar is the going rate on a good one. The $50 minimum is a decade-old figure on a publisher page.
  • The publisher decides. A slot is not yours until it accepts the ad, and a paid slot can be pulled within 24 hours on an auto-approve zone.
  • The terms carry no date, no reach total is published, and a refund, if granted, is credit toward the next purchase.
Wins
  • Fixed placement at a listed price. You know the site, the position and the cost before you pay, which no auction channel can say.
  • The roster. Axios, Reuters and Morning Brew are not audiences a small network can offer, and each slot is a whole property's readership.
  • Eighteen years and a founder with a name. A bootstrapped company since 2008 has outlived most of the networks that were going to replace it.

Which to pick

Pick BuySellAds if
  • You can name the one site or newsletter your customers read, and it is in the directory.
  • A month's flat fee on that site is inside the budget.
  • You want a fixed position on a known property, not a rank on a shared page.
Pick The Board if
  • The budget is a dollar, and the slot you would want is a few thousand.
  • You want a position nobody has to accept you for and a price you can read before you pay.
  • You want the traffic counted by somebody other than the site selling the slot.

Claim a spot from $1

A listing is a logo, a line and a link. Rank 01 costs $1 more than whoever holds it, every amount on the page is public, and the traffic is on a Fathom dashboard anyone can open.

Questions people ask about a BuySellAds alternative

How much does BuySellAds cost?
Whatever the publisher lists for the slot, as a flat fee for 30 days or a CPM. The one price read at checkout on 6 September 2026 was $6,000, fixed, for CSS-Tricks' 300 by 250 premium sidebar; category pages give CPM examples of $3, $5 and $16 per thousand on smaller sites. BuySellAds publishes no rate card, and a price is only visible once you open a listing's checkout.
Is there a minimum spend on BuySellAds?
A publisher support page dated September 2015 says the network minimum is $50 worth of impressions or 1% of the total, whichever is greater, and that a publisher-set minimum overrides it. That page is a decade old and is the only place the figure appears; no advertiser-facing page found states a minimum at all.
What is the cheapest alternative to BuySellAds?
A Google Business Profile is free. Meta runs an awareness campaign from $1 a day. The Board lists a brand for $1, once, on a public leaderboard with no publisher to accept it. None of the three is a fixed slot on a named site, which is what BuySellAds sells, so cheapest depends on whether the site is the point.
Is The Board a BuySellAds alternative?
For a brand that wants to be seen without buying a month on one property, yes, and it is a different shape. BuySellAds sells a named slot on a named site at the publisher's price, subject to the publisher's acceptance; The Board is one public page of brands ranked by what each listing paid, a dollar to join, nobody to accept you, with the traffic counted by Fathom and published. Every listing is a paid placement and the page says so.
What does The Board cost compared to BuySellAds?
A listing on The Board is $1, paid once; rank 01 costs $1 more than the holder paid, every amount is public, and nothing bills again. On BuySellAds the price is the slot's, from a $50 network minimum on a 2015-dated page to $6,000 for a CSS-Tricks sidebar at checkout on 6 September 2026, and a flat-fee slot bills again every 30 days unless cancelled.
Does BuySellAds give refunds?
At its discretion, and as credit. The refund policy, which carries no date, considers a request made within 24 hours of a first purchase if you bought two ads in the same zone by accident or the publisher moved the ads during the purchase, and a request within 24 hours of a first recurring charge you did not realise was a subscription. It says nothing obliges BuySellAds to grant one, and a refund is credited to the account for future purchases. The Board's payments are final, and its terms say so before you pay.
What happens when somebody outbids me?
Your listing moves down one place and the amount you paid stays exactly where it was; a paid amount never goes down. You are told once who passed you and what taking the place back would cost, and you can raise by any whole-dollar amount or leave it. Nothing bills again while you decide.
Can other brands damage my listing?
Yes, for a few hours at a time. Anybody can buy one of four kinds of sabotage against a listing, which changes how it looks or whether its link works, never what it paid or its real rank. It wears off on its own, it can be cleared early or protected against ahead of time, and nobody is told who attacked whom. Backing a listing is public; sabotage never is.
Do I get a backlink from The Board?
Not one to buy the listing for. Outbound links on the board go through a counted redirect, and the embeddable badge carries rel=sponsored, which is what a paid placement has to do. The dollar buys the people who see the listing and click it, and both counts are shown on it.

Sources

Read on 6 September 2026. Prices on these sites move, and a figure here that no longer matches its source is a figure to tell us about: hello@toptheboard.com.

Also compared: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Reddit Ads, LinkedIn Ads, X Ads, Carbon Ads, Paved. Every listing site worth submitting to is in the directory list.