THE BOARD

An X Ads alternative that does not ask you to buy a checkmark before it takes a dollar

X Ads is the channel for a brand whose customers are already on X arguing about the thing it sells. There is no minimum spend, the auction is second-price so you pay a cent over the next bid rather than what you offered, and if your account already carries a checkmark the door is open. If that is you, run it.

If you do not hold a paid checkmark, X will not take your money until you do, and it will not tell you how many people are on the other side of the door. The Board asks for a dollar, once, puts a brand on a public leaderboard at the rank the dollar buys, and counts the traffic with somebody else's meter.

X Ads compared with The Board: to be listed, No minimum against $1
X AdsThe Board
To be listed
No minimumspend, but a paid checkmark before any ad runs
$1once, no subscription
The gate
A checkmarkbusiness tiers $200 to $1,000 a month, per X
Noneno account tier to hold
Position
Ad scorequality and bid, second-price, every impression
Helduntil somebody pays more
Audience
Unpublishedno user figure on any X page; estimates disagree
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 X Ads were read from its own pages on 6 September 2026 and are linked at the foot.

What X Ads is, and what it costs

X Ads is X Corp.'s self-serve placement product: promoted posts, follower ads and Takeovers, bought in Ads Manager and priced by auction per objective, so an engagement campaign pays only when somebody clicks, reposts, replies or likes. The auction is second-price with a quality component: X scores each ad on resonance, relevance and recency, combines that with the bid into an ad score, and the winner pays a cent over what it took to beat the next ad. The gate is in front of all of it. Per the eligibility page, read 6 September 2026, an account must be verified through X Premium (for a person) or Verified Organizations (for a business) before it can advertise at all, with public posts and a live URL in the bio.

The pricing page says there is no minimum spend, and that is true once you are through the gate. The gate has a price of its own: X Premium is listed from $3 a month on the help page, but the checkmark sits on the Premium and Premium+ tiers, whose dollar price the same page does not state; Premium Business is $200 a month for Basic and $1,000 a month for Full Access, per the help page on 6 September 2026, which contradicts itself on Basic's annual price. X publishes no cost per click. Third parties do, and they disagree: shno.co's 2026 statistics page quotes a median of $0.18 a click from Hootsuite and an average of $0.87 from SQ Magazine, nearly five times apart, and a CPM of about $2 to $3.

What X reaches is the one figure this page cannot give you. No page on business.x.com, help.x.com or legal.x.com read on 6 September 2026 states a user count, X has published no audited figure since 2022, and third-party estimates run from about 560 million to 611 million monthly users. The Master Services Agreement (updated 14 August 2026) says X's measurements are the definitive ones, so the number you are billed on is X's, and the number you are buying into is nobody's.

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 X Ads’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.

X Ads and The Board, side by side

QuestionX AdsThe Board
To be listedNo minimum spend, but a paid checkmark first: Premium for a person, $200 to $1,000 a month for a business$1, once, for a listing: a logo, a line and a link
What you payPer objective action at a second-price auction; third parties put a click at $0.18 to $0.87$1 once for the listing; more only if you choose a higher position
What decides your positionYour ad score, quality and bid together, every impression; X does not guarantee deliveryWhat the listing has paid. Nothing else, and nobody decides
A guaranteed top positionTakeovers, by insertion order with 30 days' notice to cancel; no price published$1 more than whoever holds rank 01 has paid
What a month runsWhatever the budget is set to, plus the checkmark subscription; there is no floor to quoteWhatever you paid once. There is no monthly charge and nothing bills again
Reach you can verifyX's own measurements, definitive under the MSA; no audience figure published anywherePage views and outbound clicks counted by Fathom on a public dashboard; every listing shows its own impressions and clicks
What you getAn engagement, a click, a view or a follower from an audience X targets, one impression per auction wonA place on a page people watch, and a click from somebody who chose your brand off it
Best forA brand that already holds a checkmark and whose customers live on XA brand that wants to be seen for a dollar and to price its own position

Eight things to know before you pay either

QuestionX AdsThe Board
Terms with a date on them✓ Master Services Agreement updated 14 August 2026✓ Dated 25 August 2026
A named operator✓ X Corp., Austin, Texas✓ Dustin W. Stout, with a city and a Stripe profile
The price of the top spot published✕ Takeovers by insertion order, price unpublished✓ On the board, live, to the dollar
Reach counted by a third party✕ X's own measurements, definitive under the MSA✓ Fathom, on a public dashboard
Position lasts past a day✕ While the budget runs; each win is one impression✓ Until somebody pays more; seasons end it
A refund path✕ Fees non-refundable; only an unspent balance comes back✕ None. Every payment is final
No curator between you and the page✓ Policy review only, once the checkmark is paid for✓ None. Money decides, nobody else
On the page for a dollar✕ No minimum spend, but a checkmark subscription first✓ $1, once

How The Board works, for somebody leaving X Ads

There is no checkmark to buy and no account to verify. The Board is one page of brands sorted by what each has paid, and a listing is a logo, a line and a link. Pay a dollar and it is on the page at whatever rank a dollar buys; there is no bid, no ad score and no second-place ad to beat by a cent, because the amount is the position.

There is also no feed. X puts a promoted post in front of people scrolling past it; The Board is a page people open to look at brands, and what you get is a click from somebody who chose yours off it. Every listing shows its own impressions and clicks, the page's traffic is counted by Fathom and published, and rank 01 costs a dollar over whoever holds it. Thirty days at the top ends the season, with the standings kept for good and the amounts reset.

Where X Ads falls short, and where it wins

Falls short
  • The door is paid before the ads are. A person needs Premium and a business needs Premium Business at $200 or $1,000 a month, and the eligibility page is plain that without a checkmark there are no ads.
  • Nobody will tell you the size of the audience. X's own pages carry no user figure, and the estimates that exist disagree with each other.
  • The measurements are X's and the MSA says they are definitive. Service fees are non-refundable and a billing dispute has sixty days.
Wins
  • No minimum spend, and a second-price auction that charges a cent over what it took to win rather than what you bid.
  • A real conversation. A promoted post can be replied to and reposted, which is a kind of attention a listing on a leaderboard does not get.
  • Takeovers exist. A brand with an insertion order can buy a guaranteed position for a day, which most auction channels do not sell at all.

Which to pick

Pick X Ads if
  • Your account already carries a checkmark and your customers are on X.
  • You want the post to be argued with, not only clicked.
  • You have the budget for an insertion order and a Takeover is the shape of the campaign.
Pick The Board if
  • You do not hold a checkmark and do not want to subscribe to one in order to spend a dollar.
  • You want a position that stays until somebody pays more, not one impression per auction won.
  • You want the audience counted by somebody who publishes the number.

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 X Ads alternative

Do I need a checkmark to run X Ads?
Yes. X's eligibility page, read 6 September 2026, says an account must be verified through X Premium for a person or Verified Organizations for a business before it is eligible for X Ads, and must also have public posts, non-animated profile photos and a live URL in its bio. Premium Business is $200 a month for Basic or $1,000 a month for Full Access per X's help page; the personal Premium tier that carries the checkmark is priced above the $3-a-month entry tier, and the help page does not say by how much.
How much does X Ads cost in 2026?
X says there is no minimum spend and charges per objective action at a second-price auction, so the price is whatever it takes to beat the next bid by a cent. It publishes no cost per click. shno.co's 2026 statistics page, citing Hootsuite and SQ Magazine, gives a median of $0.18 and an average of $0.87 a click, and a CPM of about $2 to $3; the two click figures are nearly five times apart. Add the checkmark subscription, which is the one cost that is fixed.
What is the cheapest alternative to X Ads?
If you already hold a checkmark, X itself has no minimum. If you do not, a Google Business Profile is free, Meta runs an awareness campaign from $1 a day, and The Board lists a brand for $1, once, with no subscription in front of it. Which is cheapest depends on whether you were going to pay for the checkmark anyway.
Is The Board an X Ads alternative?
For a brand that wants to be seen without buying a checkmark first, yes, and it works differently. X sells impressions and actions at auction inside a feed; The Board sells a position on a public leaderboard of brands for a dollar, ranked by what each listing paid, with the page's traffic counted by Fathom and published. Every listing on it is a paid placement and the page says so on every screen.
What does The Board cost compared to X Ads?
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. X Ads has no minimum spend, but a business needs Premium Business at $200 or $1,000 a month before it can run one, and the click price is whatever the auction settles at.
Does X Ads refund spend?
Service fees, promotional credits and initial deposits are non-refundable under the Master Services Agreement updated 14 August 2026. What can come back is an unspent balance left in the account after a campaign ends, which X says it will attempt to refund, and a Takeover it fails to deliver, which it may refund or rebook at its election. A disputed charge has sixty days to be raised in writing. The Board's payments are final, and its terms say so before you pay.
What happens when somebody outbids me?
You drop one place and keep everything else: the listing stays, and the amount you paid never goes down. You are told once who passed you and what taking the place back costs, and you can raise by any whole-dollar amount or wait. Waiting is free, and no auction is running against you while you do.
Can other brands damage my listing?
Yes, and it is part of the game. Anybody can pay for one of four kinds of sabotage against a listing, which changes how it looks or whether its link works for a few hours, never what it paid or where it really ranks. It wears off on its own, it can be cleared early or protected against in advance, and nobody is told who attacked whom. Backing a listing is public; attacking one is not.
Do I get a backlink from The Board?
Not one to buy the listing for. Outbound links go through a counted redirect, and the badge you can embed carries rel=sponsored, which is what an honest paid placement has to do. What the dollar buys is the people who see the listing and click it, and both counts are shown on the listing itself.

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, Carbon Ads, BuySellAds, Paved. Every listing site worth submitting to is in the directory list.