A flat price for the spot
Venues pay a fixed price for a night in a city, from the public rate card below. Never per click, tap or view, so nobody gains anything from tracking you.
How Hot Mess makes money
Like a poster on the wall.
Hot Mess is free. It's paid for by venues that promote a night, the way they'd put up a poster or take an ad in a queer magazine. Here are the rules, and the prices, before you ever see an ad.
How promoted listings work
Placed by the city and the night
A promoted listing shows to everyone in its city on its nights. We never use anything about you to choose it: not your profile, not your tribes, not where you have been.
Always labelled
Every promoted venue or event says “Promoted”. Tap the label and we tell you why it is there.
Nothing hidden
You see at most two promoted listings at a time, shown first. Every promoted venue and event also stays in its usual place in the list, and nobody can pay to push anyone else down or out.
Fair turns
Each city sells at most four promoted spots a night, and a venue can hold one of them, for at most four nights a week. When more are booked than fit on screen, they take turns through the night.
What venues see
- One number: how many different people saw their promoted listing each week, counted the same way every week so they can tell which nights draw interest.
- Under 20, it just says “fewer than 20”, so a small town’s count can’t point at anyone.
- Only weeks that are over. No live count, no hours, and no breakdowns by age, tribe or anything else.
- Never who you are. We count views with a code that changes every week and delete it once the week is counted.
What we never do
- Sell or share your data with advertisers.
- Let anyone target you by who you are, what you look like or who you’re into.
- Let advertisers put tracking pixels or ad networks in Hot Mess.
- Charge you to use Hot Mess.
Why it works this way
A lot of free apps are paid for by learning about the people who use them and selling chances to reach them. For a community where being found by the wrong person can mean harassment or being outed, that's the wrong trade.
So Hot Mess sells space, not you. A venue buys a spot in a city on a night, everyone there sees the same thing, and the venue learns one weekly number. That's the whole deal.
Rate card
Per night, per city, in US dollars.
| Venue | Large city | Small city |
|---|---|---|
| Small venueBars and clubs holding up to about 150 people. | $15 | $7.50 |
| Mid-size venueAbout 150 to 500 people. | $30 | $15 |
| Large venueOver about 500 people, or a festival. | $60 | $30 |
- Threatened venue: free. A queer venue at risk of closing.
- Performer-run night: free. A night run by its performers rather than a venue or promoter.
A booking runs from one night up to 28. It keeps the price it was booked at if the rate card changes.
Where the money goes
Promoted listings pay for what keeps Hot Mess running and free: hosting, moderation and development. It's run by Love Wins Media, and what's left supports the community work built on top of it.
Get Hot Mess
See also Safety, our Privacy Policy and Terms.