A sponsored placement is a paid, labelled card on the HEY home page. It is advertising, and it is kept apart from everything HEY researches. This page is what a builder or a sponsor needs to know before paying for one.
This page is the contract; it does not say whether placements are open right now. That is a switch HEY sets, and /sponsor says whether they are open today, with the free slots; /hey says whether they are priced in $HEY yet.
What you get
- A card in a row on the home page headed Sponsored · paid placement, under the line Paid placement. Not a ranking; scores, feeds and the API ignore it. Your card says Sponsored · ends in N days.
- There are two slots. A placement runs for 3 days or 7 days and comes down by itself.
- Nothing else. A placement changes no score, no activity status, no badge, no position in Explore or search, no feed, no API answer, and nothing on your project page.
What it costs
HEY sets two prices, one for 3 days and one for 7, and the token on Robinhood Chain they are paid in; the request page shows both prices and the token. When that token is $HEY, a holder pays their holder-tier price. The price you are quoted is the price you pay: if HEY changes its prices later, a placement already paid for keeps its quote.
Payment goes to HEY's treasury address, shown on the request page with a link to the explorer. HEY never holds your keys.
How to buy one
- Sign in, and link the wallet you will pay from on your account page.
- Open
/sponsor/<your-project>for a published project. You do not need to have claimed it; your account and the paying address are recorded. - The page shows both prices, the token and the treasury, and these terms. Your wallet sends one transfer of exactly the quoted amount. Sending it reserves the slot.
- HEY reads the transaction on Robinhood Chain. It goes live only if the transfer succeeded, came from your linked wallet, and paid at least the quote, in the quoted token, to the treasury. Then it runs for the length you bought. A transaction HEY cannot confirm within 24 hours is declined and the slot is released.
A purchase can be refused when placements are switched off, the project is not published, both slots are taken (the page says when the next one frees up), the project already has a placement running or waiting, or the same transaction is submitted twice.
The rules
- No refunds. The request page says so before your wallet is offered.
- HEY checks the transfer, not the person. It confirms the recorded wallet paid; it does not prove that whoever is signed in controls that wallet.
- HEY can end a placement early or decline a waiting one, always with a reason. Every step — set up, paid, live, declined, ended — is kept on HEY's audit record.
- Featured projects are a different row, chosen by the HEY team and never paid for.
Why it cannot buy research
Paying for a placement can never make a project look more active, more verified or higher on a list. HEY's automated tests fail any release in which a score, a ranking, a feed or a discovery page reads anything about placements; the home page reads only which cards to show and when they end, never who paid. Research requests and placements are separate products, and neither buys a status, a score or a badge.
Want HEY to read your project better instead? That part is free: see the builders' guide.