Managing Your Availability
A live listing is bookable by default on any open day. This page covers the four controls over when and how much you sell — none of which require unlisting, changing your prices, or sending the listing back through verification.
All four live on your listing manager page (/telegram/dashboard/paid-promotion/listing/ plus your listing's id — the Manage channel button on the Telegram message you get when a listing is verified takes you straight there). Each saves the moment you press its button and applies to new bookings immediately.
Booking lead time
The Booking lead time panel sets how far ahead advertisers must book before their placement window can start. Three options, chosen with one tap:
| Option | What it means |
|---|---|
| 2h · same-day | An ad can be scheduled to start as little as 2 hours from booking |
| 12h | At least half a day's notice |
| 48h | Two full days' notice — the default for a new listing |
Why it matters:
- A lead time of 24 hours or less puts your channel in the Available today filter — the segment where the highest-spending advertisers shop when they need a placement now. The panel confirms it: "your channel shows in the Available today filter".
- Short-notice bookings pay a rush premium that goes to you. Fast turnaround is a product in itself, and the marketplace prices it.
- The panel confirms the change instantly ("Lead time saved").
Pick the shortest lead you can genuinely honor. A same-day lead you cannot actually deliver on turns into missed windows, refunds and reliability penalties — see Posting the ad.
The same three-way choice appears in the listing wizard's Rules step as Lead time (Same day / Within 24h / 48h+), where it also becomes a chip on your public rate card. The listing manager's version is the one you can change on a live listing without re-verifying.
Blackout dates
Going on holiday, or facing a busy week? The Blackout dates panel closes specific days without unlisting — "Close specific days — a holiday, a busy week — without unlisting. Your channel stays ranked and discoverable; buyers just can't book those days."
- On the listing manager page, find Blackout dates.
- Pick a From and a To date (today or later). A single-day closure is just the same date twice.
- Optionally type a Note — for your own reference only, for example "family trip". Up to 200 characters.
- Press Close these dates.
Closed ranges are listed above the form, each showing its dates and note, with a Reopen button that removes it and makes those days bookable again.
What a blackout does — and does not do:
- Buyers cannot schedule a placement into a closed day. Those days are simply not offered.
- Your channel stays live, ranked and discoverable the whole time. Nothing about your marketplace presence, Standing or search position changes.
- Blackouts do not touch bookings you have already accepted — deliver those as agreed.
- Blackouts do not pause your auctions or spotlights. If you are away, end or avoid those too.
- With no blackouts set, the panel reads "No blackout dates — every open day is bookable."
Blackouts are the right tool for a break. Removing the channel deletes the listing — your history and earnings are kept, but coming back means listing again and passing verification again. A blackout costs you nothing when it ends.
Max ads per day
A listing can carry a max ads per day capacity — a cap on how many placements can be scheduled into a single calendar day. When one is set, it does three things:
- Caps scheduling. A day that has reached its cap cannot take another booking. Buyers see those days as unavailable.
- Powers your occupancy analytics. The listing manager's Slot occupancy panel can only report "N% full over the last 30 days" when it knows what full means; it also shows the underlying "N of about M slots filled (K/day cap)".
- Gives dynamic pricing its demand signal. Prices float up as your calendar fills and ease down when it is quiet. Without a per-day cap, dynamic pricing holds your base prices and changes nothing.
Without a cap, every day is open-ended: the rate card carries no "Max N ads/day" chip and the occupancy panel shows a raw booked count and the line "No per-day cap set — every day is open."
With no cap, nothing stops several advertisers booking the same day. Each is a real obligation with its own window and its own monitor. If you are running auto-accept, a cap is the sane companion setting.
Auto-accept
The Auto-accept panel takes qualifying bookings for you, so a request that arrives while you sleep never expires unanswered: "Accept qualifying bookings automatically so a missed offer never costs you reliability."
- Tick Auto-accept new bookings on this channel.
- Optionally set a floor: "Only when they pay at least $ N". Requests below the floor wait for your manual answer.
- Press Save.
Auto-accept behaves exactly as if you had tapped Accept yourself:
- The booking moves straight to In progress and the advertiser is notified.
- On high-value bookings, the refundable good-faith deposit is staked from your wallet on each accept, just like a manual accept — "the refundable good-faith deposit is staked from your wallet on each accept, exactly as if you'd tapped Accept yourself."
- All the normal delivery obligations follow: the posting window, the monitor, the full promised duration.
When auto-accept cannot act, the booking is left in your queue to handle by hand rather than failed. That happens when:
- your withdrawable wallet balance cannot cover the good-faith deposit;
- your reliability is below the 4.0 accept floor;
- the booking is below your price floor.
The 24-hour answer clock still runs on those, so keep an eye on the queue even with auto-accept on.
Every auto-accepted booking is a real obligation with a real posting window. Pair it with a price floor you are happy to honor, with prohibited-topics rules (set in the listing wizard, they stop mismatched bookings before auto-accept ever sees them), with a per-day cap, and with blackout dates for the days you are away.
How the availability controls fit together
A booking must clear every gate before it even reaches your queue:
- The topic is not on your prohibited topics list.
- The day is not blacked out.
- The day is under your per-day cap.
- The start time respects your lead time.
Then one of two things happens: auto-accept takes it (at or above your floor, deposit covered, reliability healthy), or it waits for you — for at most 24 hours, after which it auto-declines, refunds the advertiser in full, and costs you 0.30 reliability points.
See Receiving, accepting, and declining bookings for what happens from there.
FAQ
Can I close my channel entirely for a while?
Set a blackout range covering the whole period. Your listing stays live and ranked, and reopens by itself when the range ends.
Does a blackout cancel bookings I already accepted?
No. Accepted bookings are unaffected — you agreed to those windows, and they must still be delivered.
If I turn auto-accept off, does it undo anything?
No. It only stops future bookings from being accepted automatically. Anything already accepted stands.
Auto-accept was on but a booking is still sitting in my New tab.
It did not qualify: it was below your price floor, your wallet could not cover the good-faith deposit, or your reliability was under 4.0. The booking is untouched and still yours to accept manually — and its 24-hour clock is running.
Can I set different rules for different channels?
Yes. Lead time, blackout dates, capacity and auto-accept are all per listing, so a channel you watch closely can run same-day auto-accept while another stays on 48 hours and manual approval.
Next: Receiving, accepting, and declining bookings — what to do when a request clears every gate and lands in your queue.