An experiment · Live · Takes real money

A public board where rank is the bid. Ten percent of it is pledged to the American Heart Association.

Bid Club is a paid leaderboard. Anyone with a site, a handle or an app can pay for a seat, and the amount paid is the rank. That is the whole product, and it is advertising. Ten percent of every sale is recorded each week and pledged to the American Heart Association.

Open Bid Club The live ledger

The board is public and the payer is not. Anyone can list any site, including one that is not theirs, and there is a takedown route below.

The ten percent

Ten percent of every bid, boost and suppress

Recorded every week and pledged to the American Heart Association, in remembrance and honor of family.

The running total is on the board and the raw numbers are public at giveback.json, which shows what has been recorded and what has actually been sent, as two separate figures.

The ledger runs the arithmetic on every sale, and whatever it says I owe is what goes.

That ledger is written by me. It is a public running total rather than an audit, and publishing it is what makes the pledge checkable over time rather than checkable in one glance.

It is an operator pledge, not your tax receipt. Bid Club is not affiliated with or endorsed by the American Heart Association.

Why I am telling you all of this

I sell AI search visibility for a living. I also run a board where people pay for placement. Those two facts sit next to each other and you should have both of them before you decide whether to hire me.

So here is the line, and it is the same one the board prints on the page where your money would change hands. A bid buys a seat on that board. It does not buy a backlink, a citation, search ranking, app store ranking, AI answer placement, or traffic anywhere else. Rank there exists only there.

And you should know the house sits on its own board. My own site is on it, and so is my mom's shop. I paid for both the same way anybody else does.

If you hire me, none of your work touches that board and none of your budget goes near it. They are two different things I run, and I will say so here if that ever changes.

The ten percent above does not cancel any of this out. Ninety percent of it is revenue, and that ninety percent is what pays for the open source tools I give away and lets me keep working for myself. Both things are true.

Why the American Heart Association

Because a year ago I lost someone in my family unexpectedly to a heart attack. It changed the course of my life forever.

Seeing someone 8 years older than me in a casket reminded me about how quickly 8 years can slip away before your eyes.

I choose to improve 1% every day through Kaizen. I choose to show others that if you are consistent, it's not the goal that matters. It's the process to that goal, and the refinement of it that matters.

Always be improving.
Always be curious.
Ask questions, and learn.

How it works

Rank is the bid

Whole dollars, and the amount is the whole ranking system. Beat a listing's bid and you take that slot. Beat number one and you take the belt. The current floor and the current top bid are printed on the board, because they move, and a price copied onto this page would start going stale the day I wrote it.

The ring, and what it cannot do

Number one and number two sit in a two-up fight, and anyone can pay to boost or bury either one. Power is bid plus boosts minus suppressions. Power swaps the corners of that fight and it never touches board rank. Rank is the bid, always. A suppression does not lower anybody's bid and it does not move the rest of the board.

Free things that do nothing

Cheers, reactions and anonymous notes are free and carry zero weight on rank. They do not move bid, power, boosts or suppressions. They are there because a leaderboard with a comment section is funnier.

What you can list

A website, a social profile, an App Store or Play listing, or a GitHub repo. No chat or invite links, no shorteners, no raw IP addresses, nothing adult.

You do not have to own what you list

Somebody can put your site or your profile on that board without asking you, and other people can pay to push it up or down without ever showing a name. That is the design rather than a gap in it. The fight is public and the payer is not, which is the whole joke the thing is built on.

How to get off the board

If you are on it and you did not put yourself there, mail hello@ryanlenk.com and it comes down. That is the operator line on the Bid Club privacy page, and it applies whether or not you paid. A takedown is not a refund, so if you bought the listing yourself, removing it does not return the money.

Advertising, not gambling

A bid is the price of a sponsored seat on a page. Nothing is drawn, nothing is wagered, there is no prize pool, and no payout ever comes back to a buyer. What you get is the seat.

Nothing is guaranteed

Rank moves when somebody outbids you, which can happen a minute after you pay. Listings are public and payment is final. Billing problems go to hello@ryanlenk.com before a chargeback.

FAQ

Does a bid get me backlinks, citations, or search ranking?
No. A bid buys a seat on the board and nothing else. It does not buy a backlink, a citation, search ranking, app store ranking, AI answer placement, or traffic anywhere else. Rank on Bid Club exists only on Bid Club. Nobody can guarantee the other things, myself included.
What is the ten percent?
Ten percent of every bid, boost and suppress is recorded each week and pledged to the American Heart Association, in remembrance and honor of family. The running total is on the board and the raw ledger is public at bidclub.lol/giveback.json. It is an operator pledge rather than your tax receipt, and Bid Club is not affiliated with or endorsed by the American Heart Association.
Where does the other ninety percent go?
To me. It pays for the open source tools I give away and it is part of how I keep working for myself. The pledge does not change that, and saying so is the point of this page.
Is this connected to the SEO and AI search work you sell?
No, and I keep them apart on purpose. If you hire me, none of your work touches that board and none of your budget goes near it. They are two different things I run, and I will say so on this page if that ever changes.
Somebody listed my business without asking me. What now?
Mail hello@ryanlenk.com and it comes down. You do not need an account and you do not have to explain yourself. Anyone can list any site or profile on that board without the owner's permission, which is how the thing is designed, and the takedown route exists for exactly this reason. A takedown is not a refund, so if you paid for the listing yourself, removing it does not return the money.
Can people pay to push my listing down?
Yes, if your listing is one of the top two, and you will never see who did it. Anyone can pay to boost or suppress either fighter in the ring, and no name, handle or receipt is ever shown. What that buys is the corner swap in that fight. It does not lower your bid, it does not move your rank on the board, and it does not touch anything outside bidclub.lol.
Is it gambling?
No. Bid Club is advertising. A bid is the price of a sponsored seat on a page. Nothing is drawn, nothing is wagered, there is no prize pool, and no payout ever comes back to a buyer. What you get is the seat.
Can I get a refund?
No. A listing is public the moment a payment completes and that payment claims the rank, so it is final. If something went wrong with a charge, mail hello@ryanlenk.com before starting a chargeback. It reaches me directly.
Does anyone see who paid?
No. The board is public and the payer is not. The listing shows up, the rank shows up, the fight between the top two shows up, and the name on the card is whatever site or handle was listed.

Bid Club is an independent experiment by Ryan Lenk, run at bidclub.lol. It is advertising: a bid is the price of a sponsored seat on that page and it carries no guarantee of any outcome anywhere else. The ten percent is an operator pledge, not a tax receipt, and Bid Club is not affiliated with or endorsed by the American Heart Association. Full rules at bidclub.lol/rules. Written August 2026.

More things I built on the Side Projects page.