How minutes work
1. The 1,440 minutes
A day has 1,440 minutes. Each one is a slot, written as HH:MM, from 00:00 to 23:59. There are never more than 1,440, and we will never make more.
Each minute has one holder at a time. The holder decides what goes on air at that minute. It airs at that minute in every timezone, every day, so 11:11 plays at 11:11 wherever the viewer is.
Some hours are not open yet. We open hours in waves so the site does not launch as a wall of empty tiles. You can watch a closed minute now and be told the moment it opens.
2. Claiming a minute
If nobody holds a minute, you claim it by paying its start price by card. That price depends on the kind of minute it is.
Once you claim it, the minute's value is what you paid. Value is not a price we set. It is simply the record of what has been put into that minute so far, and it is the number every challenge is measured against.
3. Challenging a minute someone holds
Anyone can challenge a minute that is already held. To do it you offer at least the current value plus the raise.
The raise is 20% of the current value, or $1.00, whichever is larger. So a minute worth $2.00 has a raise of $1.00, because 20% of $2.00 is only 40 cents. A minute worth $20.00 has a raise of $4.00.
Your offer is a hold on your card, not a charge. The amount is authorised at our payment provider and stays authorised while the challenge runs. It is charged only if your offer wins. You cannot cancel an offer once it is placed.
The first valid offer starts a 24 hour clock. During those 24 hours other people can join in. Each new offer has to beat the leading offer by the same rule, 20% of the leading offer or $1.00, whichever is larger. If someone outbids you, your money is released back to you straight away and you are told.
Only one challenge runs on a minute at a time.
4. Keeping your minute
If someone challenges your minute, you have the full 24 hours to keep it. You keep it by matching the raise, which means paying the difference between the leading offer and the current value.
If you keep it, the whole raise goes to the platform. There is no displaced holder to pay, because nobody lost the minute. The minute's value rises to the leading offer, and everyone who offered gets their held money back.
You can also set a proxy limit on a minute in advance. That is a standing instruction to match offers automatically up to a ceiling you choose, so you do not lose a minute because you were asleep.
5. Letting it go
If you do not match the raise before the clock runs out, the minute goes to whoever is leading at the end. When that happens:
- You receive the value plus half the raise. That is roughly 110% of what you put into the minute.
- The platform keeps the other half of the raise.
- The new holder's offer is charged, and the minute's value becomes what they paid.
Either way, whether you keep the minute or let it go, the minute's value goes up. It never goes down.
6. A worked example
Starting from a standard minute claimed for $1.00.
| What happens | Challenger pays | Old holder gets | Platform keeps | New value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ana claims the minute | $1.00 | nobody yet | $1.00 | $1.00 |
| Ben offers $2.00, Ana lets it go | $2.00 | $1.50 | $0.50 | $2.00 |
| Cal offers $3.00, Ben lets it go | $3.00 | $2.50 | $0.50 | $3.00 |
| Dee offers $4.00, Cal keeps it | released | Cal pays $1.00 | $1.00 | $4.00 |
Ana put in $1.00 and got $1.50 back. Ben put in $2.00 and got $2.50 back. Cal paid $1.00 to keep a minute now worth $4.00. Nobody who was challenged got back less than they put in.
7. Anti-sniping
If an offer lands in the last 10 minutes of a challenge, the clock is extended by 10 minutes. That stops someone winning a minute by placing an offer with three seconds left.
Extensions add up to a maximum of 2 hours. After that the clock cannot be pushed out any further and the challenge ends on time.
8. This is not an investment
We never promise that anyone will challenge your minute. There is no buyer waiting, no market maker, and nothing that makes an offer arrive.
You may hold a minute for years and receive nothing at all. That is a normal outcome, not a fault. The only way money comes back to you is if a specific other member decides, on their own, to challenge your minute and you let it go.
Money you spend claiming a minute, or spend keeping one, is spent. You are paying to programme a slot, in the same way you would pay for any other advertising or hosting.
A minute is not a security, a share, a token, a savings product or any other kind of investment, and you must not treat it as one. Value going up is a rule of the game, not a return. Do not spend money you cannot afford to lose.
9. How you pay
There is no balance to keep here. Every time you claim a minute, offer on one or keep one, you pay by card at our payment provider's checkout, for exactly that action. We never see or store your card number.
A claim and a keep are charged when you confirm at the checkout. An offer is only authorised: your card shows a pending amount, and it is charged only if the offer wins. If you are outbid, or the holder keeps their minute, the hold is released; your bank usually clears it within a few days.
The action happens only when the payment provider confirms the payment, not when your browser comes back from the checkout page. If the minute moved while you were paying, for example because someone else claimed it first, the payment is given straight back and you are told why.
For auto-keep you can save a card. It is charged only to keep a minute for you when someone offers on it and your limit covers the raise.
10. How you get paid
When someone takes a minute from you, you receive what it was worth plus half the raise, less the card processing fee on that sale. That fee never takes more than your half of the raise, so you never receive less than the minute was worth to you.
- The money is paid directly by the payment provider to a payout account in your name. With that account connected, it never sits with us, and there is no balance to withdraw.
- Your minute can be challenged whether or not you have connected a payout account. If it is taken before you connect one, your share waits for you: we hold it, your Earnings page shows it, and it is sent the moment your payout account can receive it. Nothing is forfeited and it does not expire.
- The payment provider decides which countries it can pay into and when payouts reach your bank. We do not control either.
- Your Earnings page shows every sale, what reached you, and what the provider still has on its way to you.
11. Checks before a sale completes
We check some sales by hand before the money moves. The rules for that are published here, and they are the same for everybody:
- Every holder's first sale is checked.
- Any sale paying the holder $500 or more is checked.
- A random sample of everything else is checked.
While a sale is being checked nothing moves: the holder keeps the minute, the buyer's card stays authorised and is not charged, and the minute page says it is changing hands and by when. We aim to finish within a few business days and there is a hard limit after which a check cannot be held open any longer; at that point the sale completes.
A check is routine. It does not mean we think anyone has done anything wrong, and being checked is deliberately common so that one sale being checked looks exactly like any other.
We may ask questions before a sale completes, and we may decline to complete one where we are required to. If we decline, nobody is charged and nobody is paid: the buyer's hold is released and the minute stays where it was.
12. Changes to these rules
The numbers on this page are settings, and they can change. If we change one in a way that affects money already in play, we will tell you before it takes effect and we will not apply it backwards to a challenge that is already running.
These rules sit alongside the Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Content Policy. If this page and the Terms ever disagree about money, the Terms win.
Questions about anything here go to support@itsmyminute.com.