Disclosure policy

Every position on Today’s Top 10 was won in an auction. Founders bid one day for the next day’s board, each daily auction is independent, and bidding opens at $1. The highest qualifying bids take the ten positions, highest first; where two bids are equal, the one placed earlier ranks higher.

A won position is held for the whole of the next display day and cannot be outbid during it. Where fewer than ten positions are won, previously featured deals fill the rest at no additional charge rather than leaving the board short. The board marks which placements those are.

Honorable Mentions are paid placement too, at a flat $1 for a single display day. They sit outside the Top 10, they never enter it by being bought, and they do not carry over to the next day.

Rank on the daily board reflects what was bid for the position, and nothing else. The deal at number one is the deal whose founder bid the most for that day — not the deal Dealbid considers the best, the cheapest or the most trustworthy. Nobody here orders the board by quality, and no amount of money buys a favourable review.

Wherever the board appears, it says so. The disclosure sits between the heading and the first position rather than in a footnote, because a disclosure a reader has to go looking for is not one.

Top Deals this week and Top Deals this month rank deals by qualified buyer clicks through to the seller’s own site during that calendar week or month, with filtering for abuse. Bid amount plays no part in either, and there is no way to pay for a place on them.

The separation is deliberate, and it is why the daily board and the earned lists can disagree with each other. A founder can buy a day of exposure. What buyers do with that day is not for sale.

Review comes first. A deal is checked and approved before it can be listed or bid at all, so an auction only ever orders deals that already qualify. A large bid cannot make an ineligible deal eligible, and it cannot reopen a rejected one.

The bar is the offer itself: ordinarily a real discount of 30% or more, or value that is clearly compelling by some other measure. A nominal or misleading discount is not eligible, however much is bid for it.

Deal Verified means the seller association and advertised deal information were checked at review time. Review is manual, and it looks at:

• that the product and its site exist and work well enough to evaluate;
• that the submitter appears legitimately associated with the product;
• that the deal and destination links work;
• that the advertised price or value is genuine on the evidence available at the time;
• that the limitations that matter are disclosed;
• that the offer is not deceptive, abusive or prohibited by policy.

Placement is inventory, not a result. A winning bid buys a defined day on the board, and that is the whole of what is being sold: Dealbid does not promise sales, leads, sign-ups or a number of impressions, and it does not publish a figure it cannot measure honestly. What it does measure — placements, and qualified clicks through to the seller — is what this site shows.