# The five rules, in full | AgencyLadder

> The five rules that decide rank on AgencyLadder, with worked dollar examples computed from the same function the board itself runs.

Source: https://agencyladder.com/rules

Rank is decided by money and nothing else. These five rules are the entire product. If a
live number on the board and a rule here ever disagree, this page is wrong.

## 01. Anyone can list for $1.

$1 is the whole minimum, whole dollars only, no cents. It buys a real slot on the
board, a public profile page, and a starting effective balance the instant the payment
clears. There is no application, no queue, and nobody reviews a listing before it appears.

Worked example: pay $1 today. The effective balance starts at exactly $1 and, like
every other bid on the board, begins losing 2% of itself a day from that moment.

## 02. Rank is purely what you've paid.

One global list, sorted by one number: effective balance, the sum of every bid ever made,
each one still worth whatever daily decay has left of it. Category and country filters and
search all filter that one list. They never create a second, cheaper ranking of their own.

Worked example: bid $300 on day one, then $100 more forty days later. On that fortieth day
the effective balance is $234: the original $300 decayed for forty days, plus the fresh
$100 at full value. Nothing resets.

## 03. Every bid decays 2% a day.

Every bid loses 2% of whatever is left of it, every day, from the moment it is placed, for as
long as it exists. It compounds, so it slows down as it shrinks. Because it is exponential,
decay approaches zero but mathematically never reaches it, which is also why decay can
never delete a listing.

Worked example: pay $500 once and never bid again.
- After 1 day: $490
- After 30 days: $273
- After 90 days: $81
- After 180 days: $13

## 04. Passing someone costs $5 more.

To move above the listing directly ahead of you, pay its current effective balance plus a
flat $5 (floor $5), rounded up to the next whole dollar. The flat premium is what
guarantees a payment actually passes them, without it a matching payment would only tie,
and ties are decided by rule 5, not money.

Worked examples: the listing above you holds $100 and you have nothing yet, passing costs
$105. If you already hold $95 of your own, passing costs only $10, never the full $105.

## 05. Ties go to whoever got there first.

If two listings land on the exact same effective balance, whichever listed earlier keeps
the higher rank. It is decided by how long a listing has existed on the board, not by which
bid happened to land first in a given moment. This is the whole reason rule 4 exists,
matching the balance above you is never enough to pass it.

## What it costs to hold a balance

Decay never stops, so holding a number means replacing 2% of it every day.

| Effective bid held | Cost per day | Cost per month |
|---|---|---|
| $250 | $5 | $150 |
| $1,000 | $20 | $600 |
| $5,000 | $100 | $3,000 |

List your business for $1: https://agencyladder.com/list
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