How this works

Mars is divided into 182 parcels along real lines of latitude and longitude. A parcel’s price is a property of the ground, not something you choose: open ground starts at $1, and a parcel starts higher only because something famous is standing on it.

Those are starting prices. Once a parcel has been bought its price becomes whatever was last paid for it — see clause 03.

Prices are set on the server. The amount you are charged is read from our database at checkout and never from your browser.

• OutpostOpen ground. Real coordinates, no famous neighbours.$1
• ClaimA parcel holding a named feature from the IAU gazetteer.$2
• TerrainVolcanoes, canyons and basins with a reputation.$5
• LandmarkOne of the six landmarks. That is the entire supply.$20
• MissionGround humanity has actually landed hardware on.$50

Your parcel drawn on the map with your brand name across it, visible without anyone having to zoom in or hover. A page at /brands/your-name with your description and a link to your site, a place in the public ranking, and anonymous visitor and click counts you can see on your own page.

A parcel you have bought can be bought out from under you, and you are not refunded when it is. Read that again before you buy anything. It is the one rule on this page that can cost you something you already paid for.

Any parcel that is held can be taken by paying $1 more than its holder paid. That happens the moment the payment clears: the parcel, the name on the map and the place in the ranking move across immediately. The brand that held it keeps its page and its numbers, and keeps every day it was on the map, but it does not keep the ground and does not get its money back.

The price ratchets. A parcel taken for $6 costs $7 to take next, and so on upward — so holding something people want gets more expensive to challenge every time it changes hands. Nothing ever gets cheaper except by refund.

We email the brand being displaced as soon as it happens, telling them what was paid and what it would now cost to take it back. You can outbid the same parcel as many times as you like.

You may buy a single parcel or a contiguous rectangular block of up to nine, at most three parcels on either side. The price of a block is the sum of its parcels — no discount, no premium.

A block may cross the antimeridian, because Mars has no edge. It may not span the poles: the two polar caps are single parcels and are always sold alone.

One brand per parcel. Once a parcel is claimed it is off the map for everyone else, and a block is assigned all at once or not at all — enforced in the database, not just in the interface, so two simultaneous purchases of overlapping ground cannot both succeed.

Supply is finite and deliberately so. There are six landmark parcels and five holding real landing sites. There will not be more.

A sponsorship runs from the moment payment is confirmed until it is outbid under clause 03, or cancelled or removed under these rules. It is a one-time charge, not a subscription, and it does not auto-renew.

There is no minimum period. Popular ground can change hands the same day it is bought, and quiet ground can sit untouched indefinitely.

Needs legal reviewConfirm the committed minimum display period and what happens to a placement if the site is discontinued, then state both here as a specific term.

Sponsorships are reviewed and may be removed. We will not host:

• Illegal goods or services, in any jurisdiction we operate in.
• Sexual content, gambling, or content directed at children.
• Impersonation — a brand you do not represent, or a name chosen to be mistaken for one.
• Malware, phishing, or a destination that redirects to either.
• Harassment of, or content targeting, a private individual.
• Anything claiming that a Marsbid parcel confers real property rights.

Destinations are checked when submitted and again on every outbound click. A site that changes into something on this list after purchase will have its sponsorship removed.

Being outbid is not refunded. If someone takes your parcel under clause 03, you keep the time you had on the map and nothing else. This is the ordinary way a parcel ends, not an exception to it.

If a sponsorship is removed for breaching clause 06, no refund is given. If we remove it for any other reason, or if a block cannot be assigned after a successful payment because part of it was taken first, you are refunded in full.

Needs legal reviewSet the voluntary-cancellation window and any partial-refund rule, and confirm they satisfy consumer-protection law in the jurisdictions you sell into (UK and EU distance-selling rules in particular).

A Marsbid parcel is a sponsorship placement on this website. It is not land, not property, and not a claim of any kind. It confers no ownership, mineral rights, naming rights, or legal interest in Mars, in the ground it names, or in anything else.

No space agency, government or treaty body recognises these placements, and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits national appropriation of celestial bodies in any case. The feature names and coordinates are drawn from the IAU gazetteer and are used descriptively.

Payments are processed by Dodo Payments. We never see or store your card details. A sponsorship is activated only after Dodo confirms the payment to our server with a verified signature — returning to the success page does not, by itself, activate anything.

We store your email address against the order so we can send a receipt and reach you about the sponsorship. It is not shown publicly and not used for anything else.

These rules may change. Material changes will not be applied retroactively to a sponsorship already paid for.

Needs legal reviewAdd the operating entity’s legal name, registered address and a contact address for notices before launch.