Advertising disclosure

Every paid item has three cues, and any one of them is enough:

• It sits inside a box with a dashed edge on the page background. Organic results sit on white panels with a solid line.
• It starts with a square dark tag that names it, at every screen size. The tag is never an icon and never hidden in a tooltip.
• Screen readers hear the label first, for example “Sponsored: Acme CRM”.

The tags you’ll see:

Sponsored

A paid placement in a spot that would otherwise hold organic results: category and best-of trays, search, comparisons, the AI sponsored slot, profile alternatives and the sponsored leaderboards.

Featured — Paid placement

A fixed-price premium slot on the homepage. The word featured never appears without “Paid placement”.

Promoted

Launch boost puts your launch in the Promoted launches tray for 7 days. It doesn't change your place in New launches.

Each paid item also has an information button that names the company that paid and says why the item is there. And every app profile ends with a “Paid relationships” block listing the owner’s paid relationships with us, or saying there are none.

Leaderboard bid

A position on one category’s sponsored leaderboard. Bids also fill the sponsored trays on that category’s pages (after fixed-price category slots), and the sponsored spots in search, comparisons, AI recommendations and profile alternatives. Always labelled Sponsored.

Category sponsorship

A fixed-price slot for set dates in the top tray of one category page and its best-of page. Labelled Sponsored.

Homepage slots

Fixed-price slots for set dates on the homepage: the spotlight and the featured section. Labelled Featured — Paid placement.

Launch boost

7 days in the launches tray on the Launches page. Labelled Promoted. The free “New launch” date on the listing is unchanged.

Sponsored article

An article about the company's app on the AppFinder blog, checked by our editors before it's published. Labelled Sponsored, and every link in it is marked sponsored and nofollow. Our editorial articles are never paid for.

Launch Pass

Lets a company pick its launch date, up to 90 days ahead, instead of joining the next open launch week. It isn't a placement: no label, no extra votes, and the same review as every other listing.

Priority review

A faster review of a new listing or an edit. It isn't a placement, so visitors see nothing.

Pro profile

Extra profile features and full analytics. There is no public Pro badge; Pro is disclosed in the profile's paid relationships block instead.

Current prices are on the pricing page. They come from the same price list checkout charges from. Listing an app, its website link and its weekly launch are free.

Each category has its own board. It is the one place on AppFinder where order is bought, and it says so:

Sponsored ranking — position is based on promotional spend.

• Position is set only by the bid’s total in that category. The highest total ranks first.
• Equal spend: the earlier payment ranks higher.
• There are no periods and no monthly reset. Spend adds up, and a bid stays on the board until it is refunded, paused or removed. The amount shown is the bid’s current total. Refunds lower it, and an audited staff correction can never put it above what the company has paid.
• To move up, a company chooses a new total and pays only the difference. Each category sets a minimum first bid and a minimum raise; a single payment can add at most $10,000.
• Position is decided when the payment confirms, not when the company clicks pay. If another sponsor’s payment confirms first, the final position can differ from the expected one, and the receipt shows the final position.
• The arrows compare each position with the one it held before the last change on that board.
• Only a company that has verified it owns an app can bid for it, and only in a category the app is listed in.
• Clicks shown are from the last 30 days. They exclude bots, a company’s clicks on its own app and traffic we flag as invalid. Clicks are provisional for 24 hours while we filter invalid traffic.

What our staff can and can’t do

Nobody at AppFinder can set a position; it is always calculated from the amounts. Staff can correct a bid amount, pause a bid that breaks our policies, or refund it. Each action needs a written reason and is kept in an audit log.

See every category’s leaderboard

• Each slot has a set number of places, and we never sell more than that for the same time.
• Dates and times are in UTC, and start and end times are decided by our server clock.
• A place is held for 60 minutes while you pay. If a payment arrives after the hold ran out and the slot has filled, we move the booking to the next free window instead of overbooking.
• The price is fixed. It isn’t an auction, and it doesn’t depend on how many people see the placement.

Placements and bids

• A fixed-price placement that hasn’t started yet can be cancelled from the dashboard. The full price comes back as promotional balance.
• A running placement can be stopped early. The remaining time isn’t refunded.
• If a leaderboard bid is refunded, the bid drops by the refunded amount, so its position can change.

Pro

• You can cancel Pro at any time from Billing in your dashboard. It stays on until the end of the period you’ve paid for, then stops without renewing. We don’t refund part of a period.
• If a renewal went through that you meant to cancel, email us within 7 days of the charge. We refund that renewal in full, and Pro ends straight away.

Promotional balance

• Balance you haven’t spent can be refunded to your card within 30 days of the top-up. Balance you’ve already spent can’t be.
• Balance credited back for a cancelled placement stays promotional balance. It isn’t paid out. The balance doesn’t expire.

Priority review

• If we don’t finish the review within the 48-hour target, we refund Priority review in full on request.
• A decision you disagree with isn’t grounds for a refund. You get the reasons and can resubmit.

Launch Pass

• A Launch Pass you haven’t used can be refunded in full on request.
• A pass is used only when we approve the listing you picked a date for. If we don’t approve it, the pass stays unused: keep it for another launch or ask for a refund. A used pass can’t be refunded.

Sponsored article

• A sponsored article you haven’t used yet can be refunded in full on request.
• If our editors decline your article, or you withdraw it before we start drafting it, you get a full refund or keep the credit for a later article. Once drafting has started, withdrawing doesn’t return the credit, and once it’s published, it can’t be refunded.

How refunds work

• Card payments are refunded to the original payment method. Purchases made from the promotional balance are refunded to the balance.
• If a payment is disputed with the card issuer, a leaderboard bid it paid for is paused until the dispute ends, a fixed-price placement or launch boost it paid for is cancelled, and an unused Launch Pass or sponsored article it paid for is held until the dispute ends.
• Nothing in these terms limits the rights you have under the law where you live.

To ask about a refund, email ads@appfinder.tech from your account’s address with the receipt number.

Priority review speeds up review; it never guarantees approval.

It moves a submission to the front of the review queue with a 48-hour target. The approval criteria are identical for paid and free reviews. If we decline, you get the reasons and can resubmit. Priority review never shows a mark to visitors.

• A position in organic categories, best-of lists, search results or AI recommendations.
• Reviews, ratings or the Verified owner mark.
• Approval of a listing or an edit.
• Being described as the best, a top pick or recommended. Those words are never used on paid items.

How ranking works