Spending credits on extra placements
Credits buy exactly one thing: extra placements on your own broadcast campaign. A placement is one appearance of your ad in one other member's channel, live for a full 24 hours. More placements means your ad is put in front of more audiences in the same 30-day cycle — which is the whole point of being in the exchange.
This page is the spending side. The earning side is Earning credits by hosting.
The price, the cap and the ceiling
Three numbers govern every credit spend, and they apply in this order:
| Number | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 25 credits per extra placement | The fixed redemption rate. It does not change with your plan. |
| Your plan's cap | 0 to 6 extra placements | The most one campaign may add with credits, whatever your balance. |
| The absolute ceiling | 24 placements per cycle | The hard limit on any single campaign, from any combination of plan, credits and paid boosts. |
Your plan's cap:
| Plan | Included placements per cycle | Max credit-bought extras | Cost of a full top-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 7 | 0 | Not available |
| Lite | 9 | 3 | 75 credits |
| Plus | 11 | 4 | 100 credits |
| Elite | 13 | 5 | 125 credits |
| Master | 15 | 6 | 150 credits |
| Ultimate | 18 | 6 | 150 credits |
The exchange gives every member, paid or not, a full included cadence for free. Credit-bought extras are one of the things a paid plan unlocks. If you try to add extras on Free, the exchange answers: "Extra drops are part of a paid plan. Hosting ads earns the credits that pay for them." Your earned credits are not lost — they wait on your balance until you move to a paid plan.
How to spend them
Extra placements are attached to a campaign when you submit it — they are not bought separately, and they are not added to a campaign that is already running.
- Open My advertisements and click Create an ad.
- Build the creative and any link buttons as normal (see Running ads).
- On the final Level and submit step, choose the topic and content level, and leave How should this run? on Broadcast — reach the whole eligible pool. Extra placements only apply to broadcast campaigns.
- Add the extra placements you want, up to your plan's cap.
- Click Submit for review.
What happens next:
- The exchange checks your plan's cap, then your balance, then the 24-placement ceiling.
- If everything clears, the credits are debited in the same operation that creates the ad. Either both happen or neither does — you are never charged for an ad that failed to submit, and you never get an ad whose extras nobody paid for.
- Your ad goes to human review with its higher placement target already attached, and the campaign's target reflects the extras from its first delivery onward.
Credit-bought extras and the paid Delivery boost menu are two different rails on the same submit step. Credits come from hosting; a delivery boost is charged to your Onflow Ads wallet. You can use one, both or neither — see Delivery boosts.
What the extras actually change
| Changes | Does not change |
|---|---|
| The number of placements your campaign gets this cycle | Which channels are eligible for it |
| How much of the eligible pool you reach in the cycle | Any host's content level, weekly limit or review setting |
| Your views and clicks, in proportion | The 24-hour hold on every placement |
| Nothing else | Your reliability, your standing, or anyone's willingness to host |
Each placement still goes to a different channel — the exchange never places the same campaign in the same channel twice in one cycle — so extra placements are genuinely extra audiences, not repeats.
If something doesn't clear
The exchange refuses the whole submission rather than partly charging you. Nothing is debited when a submission is refused.
| What went wrong | What you see | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| You asked for more extras than your plan allows | "Your plan allows up to N extra drops per cycle." | Ask for fewer, or upgrade. |
| Your plan's cap is zero (Free) | "Extra drops are part of a paid plan. Hosting ads earns the credits that pay for them." | Keep hosting; the balance waits for you. |
| Your balance is short | The exact numbers: what the extras cost, what you hold, and how many credits one hosted ad earns you at your plan | Host a few more placements, or ask for fewer extras. |
| The extras plus a chosen delivery boost would break the 24 ceiling | "This campaign has room for only N more placements this cycle before the 24 ceiling…" | Lower your extras, pick a smaller boost, or add Priority Review on its own. |
Reliability applies to extras too
Your reliability score scales the whole placement count for a campaign — your plan's included placements and the credit-bought extras together, in one calculation.
| Reliability score | Share of the campaign's placements delivered |
|---|---|
| 7.5 and above | 100% |
| 5.0 to 7.4 | 75% |
| 4.0 to 4.9 | 50% |
| Below the exchange floor | The exchange is closed to the account until the score recovers |
Adding 6 extra placements while your score has you at 50% reach delivers about half of what you paid for. The credits are spent either way. Check the reliability pill at the top of the exchange page before you buy — and see Rules and fair play for how to earn the score back.
When credits come back
| Situation | Your extra-placement credits |
|---|---|
| The ad is declined in review | Returned automatically |
| You cancel the campaign and nothing has delivered yet | Returned automatically |
| You cancel mid-cycle, after at least one placement has run | Forfeited — the campaign was partly delivered |
| The cycle finishes normally | Spent, as intended |
Refunds are protected against double-payment: a campaign whose credits have already been returned once cannot be refunded again, whichever path it took.
To cancel, click Cancel on the ad row in My advertisements and confirm. Any placement already live still finishes its full 24 hours — cancelling stops future placements, it never pulls a running one down.
Edge cases worth knowing
- Swaps never take extras. A swap is a single, disclosed 1:1 trade with no placement count. If you switch How should this run? to Swap, extra placements do not apply and nothing is charged.
- Your plan is frozen onto the campaign at submit time. If your subscription lapses on day 20 of a running cycle, the campaign keeps the allowance — and the extras — it was submitted with.
- Extras are per campaign, per cycle. They are not a standing setting on your account. Each new campaign asks again.
- A near-maxed campaign leaves no room for a boost. Your plan's base plus your extras occupy part of the 24-placement budget. On Ultimate, 18 included plus 6 extras is exactly 24 — so a paid delivery boost has nowhere to go and is refused up front rather than sold to you.
FAQ
Can I add extra placements to an ad that is already running?
No. Extras are attached at submit time. To run a bigger campaign, cancel the current one before anything has delivered (your credits come back) and submit a new one, or wait for the cycle to finish.
Do extra placements make my ad appear more often in the same channel?
No. Each placement lands in a different channel, so extras widen your reach rather than repeating it.
I bought extras and the campaign delivered fewer than the total. Why?
Most often reliability (see above), or a targeting choice so narrow that not enough channels match. Click Why? on the ad row for a step-by-step diagnostic that names the exact gate.
Are credits spent before or after review?
Before. They are debited when the ad is submitted, and returned in full if the reviewer declines it.
Can I spend credits on somebody else's campaign?
No. Credits only ever apply to your own ads.
Next: Delivery boosts — the paid rail that sits beside credits on the same submit step, and works on every plan including Free.