Earnings & Payouts
Your banner makes money by showing a sponsorship. This page explains how those earnings build up, why an ad sometimes comes down on its own, and how cash payouts work. You can watch all of it on your Earnings & Payouts page.
Estimated now, cash at launch
We're in a preview phase, so the dollar figures you see are honest estimates — projections of what you'll have earned, not yet withdrawable. Real, payable cash opens at launch using the exact same mechanics. Nothing you accrue now is lost.
How your earnings accrue
You earn for display time, not clicks. While a sponsorship is actually showing on your live banner, a small amount ticks up continuously — and it keeps adding up second by second.
Two things set how fast it climbs:
- Your reach. Bigger, more engaged audiences are worth more to advertisers, so they earn more. Reach is modeled from your follower count, posting activity, and engagement — see How reach works for the details.
- The advertiser's rate. Each campaign carries a daily rate the advertiser is willing to pay. Higher bids pay you more per day of display.
Put together, your daily rate scales with both: a reference-sized account earns the advertiser's rate, smaller accounts earn proportionally less, and larger accounts earn more.
Sub-cent amounts are preserved
Daily rates are spread across the full day, so the per-moment amount can be a fraction of a cent. Xenopic tracks earnings as fractional cents and never rounds them away — that's why your earnings page can show four decimal places while a total is still under a dollar. Every sliver counts toward your balance.
Switching ads never zeroes your total
Your earnings are checkpointed whenever the display state changes. When you toggle an ad off, the time it was visible is folded into your running total before the clock stops. Toggle it back on and it picks up cleanly from there.
Your total carries over
The "Estimated" total on your Earnings & Payouts page is cumulative. It folds in earnings from ads you've since swapped out or removed, so changing which sponsorship you show — or pausing one — never resets what you've already earned.
Why an ad might stop showing
An ad you left on can come down through no fault of yours. When that happens, Xenopic notifies you so you're never guessing. Common reasons:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Paused by advertiser | The advertiser paused the campaign. Your spot is saved and returns automatically if they resume. |
| Budget spent | The campaign used up its budget and came down. Pick another ad to keep earning. |
| Campaign ended | The advertiser ended the campaign. Choose a new sponsorship from the Marketplace. |
| In review | The advertiser is updating the creative; it returns once approved. |
| Hidden by you | You turned it off. Turn it back on anytime to keep your spot and earn while it runs. |
Because advertiser budgets are capped and can't overspend, a paying campaign will eventually exhaust its budget and stop — that's normal, not an error. When one ad ends, browsing the Marketplace for a new "Earn Cash" sponsorship gets you earning again.
A note on tiers
Some campaigns target specific reach bands or plan tiers. If you downgrade your plan, an ad that required your old tier may stop. You'll be notified, and your accrued earnings stay intact.
How payouts work
Your Earnings & Payouts page breaks your balance into a few buckets: an Estimated total accruing now, plus Pending, Withdrawable, and Lifetime figures that activate as the cash phase comes online.
During the current preview, these are estimates — there's no withdrawal yet. At launch, the same accrued amounts become real, withdrawable cash, and payout setup lands right on this page.
Cash and coins are separate
Your cash earnings (from showing ads) live in a completely different system from coins. Coins are refundable build capacity for adding widgets — never cash, never withdrawable. Learn the difference in What are coins.
Next steps
- How reach works — what drives your earning rate
- Earning overview — the full picture of publishing ads
- What are coins — why capacity and cash are different