How the board works
Five rules, no small print. The first two are the whole design; the rest is housekeeping.
1. The price is computed, not chosen
To pass the app directly above you, you pay the difference between your heat and theirs, plus $1. There is no box to type a bigger number into, and no way to skip anyone. Climbing from position forty to position one means winning thirty-nine separate fights.
This is the part other boards get wrong. When bidders name their own number, one person eventually posts something nobody wants to beat, everyone else walks, and the board goes quiet with the leader holding a spot they massively overpaid for. Here the largest possible bid is a dollar past the leader, so the price rises in steps everyone can follow.
2. Heat halves every 24 hours
Your position comes from heat. Heat is what you have paid, decayed continuously: half of it is gone after 24 hours, three quarters after 48. Decay is applied by the clock rather than by a nightly job, so the board is honest at every second.
Nobody buys the top permanently. Stop bidding and you slide, without anyone having to outbid you.
3. Apple platforms only
Real Mac and iOS apps. Paste an App Store link on the submit form and the name, subtitle and icon come straight from Apple.
4. Listing costs $5
Your first bid puts you on the bottom rung. From there the ladder applies to you exactly as it applies to everyone above you.
5. Bids are final
Heat cannot be refunded, transferred, or cashed out. You are paying for a position on a board that decays by design, and that is the entire game. Payments are processed by Dodo Payments, who act as merchant of record and handle invoicing and tax.
The arithmetic
If your heat is h and the app above you sits at H, your price is
H − h + 1. Once it clears, your heat is H + 1:
just past them, still short of whoever is above them.
Decay is heat × 2^(−hours ÷ 24). The board and its prices are
readable without an account at /api/board.