---
title: "nowyourlink pricing"
description: "Public read-only nowyourlink Spotlight integration and documentation."
canonical: "https://nowyourlink.com/pricing.md"
last-updated: "2026-09-07"
---

# nowyourlink pricing

nowyourlink sells one thing: a 24-hour advertising Spotlight on its homepage, allocated by a daily sealed-bid auction. There is no subscription, no seat licence and no paid API tier. Reading is free for everyone.

## Public reader

- Price: free. No account, API key or bearer token.
- Includes: website, current Spotlight, settled archive, day pages, Markdown twins.
- Limits: shared public request budget (see Limits).

## Agent (MCP)

- Price: free. No authentication.
- Includes: get_current_spotlight, list_spotlights, get_spotlight, create_sandbox_job, get_sandbox_job on https://nowyourlink.com/mcp; read_docs_page and search_docs on https://nowyourlink.com/mcp/docs; MCP Apps card; NLWeb /ask; A2A SendMessage.
- Excludes: bidding, payment, account access.

## Developer (REST)

- Price: free. security: [] in OpenAPI.
- Includes: GET /api/v1/spotlight, /api/v1/spotlights, /api/v1/spotlights/{day}, /api/v1/spotlights/batch, sandbox reads and the sandbox async job with Idempotency-Key. JavaScript and Python SDKs and CLIs under MIT.
- Excludes: write access to auctions, invoices or accounts.

## Advertiser

- Price: the winning bid of the daily auction. Minimum bid EUR 1, increments EUR 1, net of VAT. Losing bidders pay nothing.
- Includes: one Spotlight slot per UTC day, creative upload (image or video), bid history, advertiser dashboard, invoice per won auction.
- Requires: a business account, VAT ID validation, a saved Stripe payment method before the first bid.
- Not offered: enterprise or custom contracts, reserved slots, volume discounts, multi-day packages.

## How billing works

- One sealed-bid auction per calendar day (UTC), closing at 00:00 UTC. The highest valid bid wins; a bid is not a guarantee of winning.
- No listing, setup, platform or monthly fee. The winning bid is charged through Stripe immediately upon award; activation follows within 24 hours after payment.
- Invoices are issued per won auction under German law (§14 UStG). Reverse charge applies to VIES-validated EU B2B customers; German VAT applies otherwise.
- A failed payment cascades the slot to the runner-up and adds a strike to the account. Refunds, when granted, are issued as credit notes.
- Currency: EUR only.

## Feature breakdown

| Feature | Public reader | Agent (MCP) | Developer (REST) | Advertiser |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Current Spotlight | Website | get_current_spotlight | GET /api/v1/spotlight | Website |
| Settled archive | Website | list_spotlights, get_spotlight | GET /api/v1/spotlights, /api/v1/spotlights/{day}, /api/v1/spotlights/batch | Website |
| Documentation | Markdown pages | read_docs_page, search_docs at /mcp/docs | /developers.md, /llms.txt | Markdown pages |
| Natural-language lookup | No | NLWeb /ask, A2A /a2a | NLWeb /ask | No |
| Interactive result view | Website | MCP Apps card (ui:// resource) | No | Website |
| Sandbox / test mode | No | create_sandbox_job, get_sandbox_job | GET /api/v1/sandbox, POST /api/v1/sandbox/jobs | No |
| Idempotent retries | No | Reads and create_sandbox_job (idempotencyKey) | Idempotency-Key header on the sandbox job | No |
| Place a sealed bid | No | No | No | Yes |
| Upload a creative | No | No | No | Yes |
| Bid history and dashboard | No | No | No | Yes |
| Invoice per won auction | No | No | No | Yes |

## Limits

| Limit | Value | Scope |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Public request budget | burst 120 requests, refill 2 per second | Client IP; /api/v1/*, /mcp, /mcp/docs, /ask, /a2a |
| Archive page size | 1 to 50 settled days | Per request |
| Batch lookup | 1 to 10 dates | Per request |
| NLWeb query | 500 characters; POST body 4096 bytes | Per request |
| MCP request body | 16 KiB | Per request |
| Sandbox job key | Idempotency-Key 1 to 255 visible ASCII characters, no spaces | Per request |
| Minimum bid | EUR 1, increments EUR 1 | Per auction |

The budget is a token bucket, not a fixed window. RateLimit-Policy and RateLimit use the IETF draft structured-field format; exhaustion returns 429 with Retry-After. If trusted client identity or budgeting storage is unavailable, requests return 503. Missing or removed content is unavailable, not a paid upgrade. No throughput reservation or service-level guarantee is offered.

## Frequently asked pricing questions

- Is there a free trial? Not needed: reading is free, and bidding costs nothing unless the bid wins.
- Can an agent place a bid or pay? No. The public API and MCP tools cannot place bids, set up payment methods or charge an advertiser. Bidding requires a signed-in advertiser account at https://nowyourlink.com/login.
- Are there discounts for multiple days? No. Each day is a separate auction at its own winning price.
- Where are the binding terms? https://nowyourlink.com/agb. Operator details: https://nowyourlink.com/impressum. Sign up: https://nowyourlink.com/signup.