We get it. The ads are annoying. The ads are confusing. The popups - oh the horror of the popups.
The ads are a necessary evil when offering a low cost solution -- or in this case, a completely free solution -- to visitors on the internet. It costs us a great deal of money and time to develop and manage a website such as ours, which we unfortunately have to recoup somehow.
We've always offered free Squares Contests at SBPS, before online Squares Contests were even a thing. We literally invented the concept 15+ years ago, and we don't want to take that option away from the countless charities and fundraisers that rely on us to raise crucial money for important causes.
But we understand there are many people out there who would be willing to pay a small amount to operate a cleaner, more fulfilling version of their online Squares Contest.
Great News - As of 2021, we added the ability for you to Upgrade your Contest!
Throughout your various Contest pages and Settings pages, you'll find buttons referencing such concepts as "Go Ad Free", or "Upgrade Your Contest". We encourage you to click those buttons to learn about the variety of options available to you.
The simplest way to remove the ads is to pay the small fee of $15, which can be done instantly using any credit card through our secure payment processor (SquarePay). Within seconds, your ads can be removed via this method.
We've also partnered with companies making very lucrative offers for our users, so be sure to check out those options on the Upgrade page as well. For instance, we have partners that will get you the Ad Free Upgrade for only $10, and in return they will even give you up to $60 worth of free credits to be used on their respective platforms. So they are essentially paying you to Upgrade your SBPS Contest, as ridiculous as that seems.
Our data suggests that Upgraded Contests fill up far quicker than Contests with advertisements - often as much as 3x faster - because your visitors take your Contest more seriously and aren't distracted by the flashing deals that take them away from your Contest page. Depending on your entry fee, the $15 Upgrade cost typically amounts to only one single square's worth of cost to your Contest.
We leave that option up to you, as always.