Pay-per-view campaigns are the engine of the clipping economy, and they're frequently half-understood by both sides. This is the full mechanical walkthrough — every number on the campaign card, what it does, and where the money physically sits at each step. Written once, for clippers and buyers together, because the system only works when both sides can see all of it.
The campaign card, decoded
- Pot — the total budget, paid up front into the platform before the campaign lists. "Pot remaining" is live: budget minus everything accrued so far.
- Rate per 1,000 views — what verified views earn. A 200,000-view clip at $0.25/1k earns $50 of view money.
- Per-link bounty — what each submission earns the moment it verifies as a real live clip (minimum $0.50). This pays for the edit itself, independent of performance.
- View gate — the minimum views before a clip earns view money. Crossing it pays on all views from view #1, not just the excess. A 999-view clip earns bounty only; a 1,001-view clip earns bounty plus all 1,001 views' worth.
- ⏳ Countdown — optional end date. At zero, pitching and new submissions stop; clips already submitted keep tracking and earning. Owners can raise pay (never lower it) while the clock runs — the ⬆ PAY RAISED flash.
- 🔒 Committed until — the pot lock: funded money is committed to the campaign for 90 days and cannot be pulled back, which is why clippers can trust the bounty enough to work it.
Life of a clip, money's-eye view
- Funding. Buyer pays pot + 15% platform fee (card or wallet balance). Money now sits with the platform; the campaign goes live; the 90-day lock starts.
- Pitch → accept. Clippers pitch (spending a pitch card); the owner accepts the ones they want. Only accepted clippers can submit — and each clipper's submissions are capped by tier (10/25/50), so no one monopolizes a pot.
- Submission. A link enters only if the pot can still cover its bounty — the "brand always pays for the link" guarantee is enforced at the door.
- Verification. The trust pipeline reads the view count — YouTube via official API, other platforms through gated confirmation. First verified reading = the clip is real = bounty accrues. Suspicious patterns (counts dropping, implausible jumps) freeze the clip for human review instead of paying.
- Accrual. Verified views past the gate accrue at the rate, capped by the pot — the pot can never overspend, and exhaustion closes the campaign automatically.
- Payout. Accrued earnings transfer to the clipper's bank after a 7-day hold (fraud clawback window). No invoices, no approval clicks.
- Settlement. After the 90-day lock, the buyer can reclaim any unspent remainder to their wallet — manually, audited, once.
The design logic, briefly
Every mechanism above answers a specific way this market breaks without it: unfunded pots → work-then-beg (fixed by fund-first); vanishing budgets → rug pulls (fixed by the lock); screenshot views → fraud (fixed by verification); one whale clipper → dead marketplace (fixed by slots); infinite tracking → zombie campaigns (fixed by settlement). None of it is decoration.
Reading a campaign like a professional
Clippers: rate × realistic views + bounty × your slot count, against the pot remaining and the number of clippers already in. A modest rate with a huge untouched pot often out-earns a flashy rate with $40 left.
Buyers: your effective CPM is the rate you set; your risk is bounded by the pot; your quality control is the accept-gate on pitches. Start at how brands use clippers for the strategy layer on top of these mechanics.
The card is the contract, and everyone can read it. That's the whole point.