topcompanies.live

Rules

topcompanies.live is a public leaderboard with two halves. There are no ads.
Listing is free and unlimited. The top 10 places are the only thing for sale, and there rank is the bid — nothing else.

Listing is free

  1. 1

    Anyone can list, and it costs nothing

    Give a website, a category and an email and you are on the board. There is no limit on how many companies can be listed, no queue, no approval, and no card — the listing is live the moment you submit it. List a company →

  2. 2

    Free listings are ordered newest first

    Free listings sort by when they were listed, most recent at the top, and none of it is for sale: no amount of money buys #11, and your place there moves only as other companies list. The one thing that sits above the free listings is a bid that lost — a company still subscribed but pushed out of the top 10 keeps its place in bid order until it raises or cancels, and its row says outbid. The board is paginated 25 to a page.

  3. 3

    One website, one listing

    A domain can hold exactly one listing. Submitting a website that is already on the board does not create a second row — it points you at the one that already exists.

The Top 10 is the only thing you can buy

  1. 4

    Only the top 10 companies bid against each other

    Those ten places sort by monthly amount, highest first, and they are the whole auction. Everyone outside them is free and not competing for anything, so a bid is only ever placed against the nine or ten companies that are actually paying.

  2. 5

    Getting in means beating whoever is tenth

    Entry costs at least $5 more than the tenth-placed bid — $10/month right now, and never less than $10. Taking #1 costs $10/month. A bid below the tenth place is refused rather than taken: it would be charging you for a rank you already have for free.

  3. 6

    Equal bids keep the order they were placed

    Equal bids stay in the order they were placed — the older bid keeps the higher rank.

  4. 7

    Raise from your manage link

    Raise your bid at any time to move up inside the top 10. The new bid must be at least $5 above your current one; you only pay the difference. Someone else cannot take your rank by paying that difference — they have to outbid the full amount you hold.

  5. 8

    Gold, Silver, Bronze

    #1, #2 and #3 get the podium — on the front page and inside every category. Category podiums are separate, so a niche crown is cheaper than the overall one.

  6. 9

    Stop paying and you keep your listing

    A failed payment gets a 7-day grace period. After that, or when you cancel, your bid ends — and that is all that ends. Your listing, your page, your clicks and your rank history stay exactly where they are; you simply rejoin the free half of the board. What you used to pay is recorded in the archive.

  7. 10

    Being outbid drops you out of the top 10, not off the board

    If enough companies bid above you, your subscription stops buying a top place. You stay listed and you stay subscribed until you say otherwise — we email you when it happens so you can raise your bid or cancel. Auto-defend does it for you.

Because the money recurs

A one-time bid buys a place in a photograph. A subscription buys a place in something that is still moving tomorrow.

Auto-defend

Set a rank and a ceiling from your manage link. When somebody passes you, your subscription is raised to the next legal bid above them and you get the rank back — up to the ceiling, and never past it. Every defence invoices the difference immediately and emails you that it happened. Two listings defending the same rank will escalate until one of them runs out of ceiling; that is the mechanism working, not a bug in it.

You are told when you drop

Being passed is the only thing on this board worth an email, so it is the only thing we send one about: who passed you, where you are now, and what taking the place back costs. Point it at a Slack or Discord webhook instead if you would rather your whole team saw it. Turn either off from your manage link.

What you can list

After you list, and after you pay

Your listing is public either way. Clicks go to the URL you submitted, without query parameters.

A free listing is live immediately. Nothing is checked by hand and nothing is held back — the manage link emailed to you is the only key to it, so keep it.

A completed payment is what claims a top rank. Nothing is reserved by filling in the form: the Top 10 only changes when Stripe confirms the payment, and an abandoned checkout leaves a free listing exactly as it was.

What this board is

This is a paid placement board. A high rank means a company was willing to spend money, and nothing else. It is not a review, an audit, or an endorsement. Treat it exactly like the ad it is — the only difference is that we show you the price.

Only the top 10 places are paid placements; everything below is a free directory listing and is not ranked by money at all. Payments are handled by Stripe; we never see your card. Subscriptions are cancellable at any time. Fees already charged are non-refundable. We remove listings that break the rules above, or that are illegal, malware, or impersonating someone else, without refund.

List your company — free Bid for the Top 10

Listing is free and unlimited. Taking #1 costs $10/month — cancel any time.