The menu bar as a stage.
An overlay in the style of the Dynamic Island, only bigger. It sits flush against the top edge, is exactly as tall as the menu bar, and for a new spot it only grows wider.
- Height
- = menu bar
- Animated
- Width only
- Spot change
- Every 60 s
- Dock icon
- None
Create an account, get the file.
The overlay shows ads while you work, and half of what an advertiser pays for them is yours. Signing up takes one tick: no email, no name, no bank details. You get an ID and a passkey, and that is the account. Your IBAN comes later, on your account page, once you actually want to be paid.
- WHAT YOU GET
- 50 % of the ad revenue
Every spot stands for 60 seconds, and it counts only once it has stayed on screen for the full 60 seconds. A spot you close, skip or hide before that does not count. At the current rate that is 0.0060 USD per spot. Every spot is worth the same. Clicking one does not pay more. How many paid spots you get depends on how much advertisers book, and that is shared across everyone running the app. While we are starting up, expect a few dollars a month, not an hourly wage.
- WHEN YOU GET IT
- From 10.00 USD
Paid to the bank account you add on your account page, once your balance reaches 10.00 USD and the account is at least 5 days old. The waiting period exists so fraudulent accounts can be spotted before money leaves. You choose how: by bank transfer to an IBAN, or through Stripe, which pays you in your own currency in the United States, Canada, the UK, Switzerland and most of Europe. Outside Europe, a bank transfer can lose a fee to your bank or an intermediary bank; the terms have the details.
- BE HONEST
- Faking views does not pay
Only what the app actually displays is counted, capped at 1,000 spots a day (that limit moves up as more campaigns are booked). Scripted requests are rejected, and an account caught faking loses its balance. Payouts go to a bank account in your name. It is not worth it for a few cents.
Already registered?
Enter your ID and passkey and you get a fresh download link.
What gets stored
- ID: randomly generated, in plain text.
- Passkey: only as an Argon2id checksum.
- IBAN and name: nothing at sign-up. Only once you add them on your account page, then encrypted with AES-256-GCM; the key sits outside the web folder.
- IP address: not at all, only a shortened HMAC to curb abuse.
- After 365 days the account is deleted automatically.
Double-click. That is the setup.
The download is a finished program. You do not need a compiler, and you do not need the Terminal.
-
Open Adflow.app
It is in the file you downloaded. Double-click it like any other app. There is no installer and nothing to agree to.
-
Allow it once, in System Settings
Open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway. That is a one-time step for the archive route; the one-line install skips it. After that the app starts normally, every time.
-
Enter your ID and passkey
The app asks for them itself, in a small window, right after the first start. Paste in the two lines you got with the download. You can also click Skip for now: the bar then shows demo spots and earns nothing.
The ready-made app runs on Macs with Apple Silicon, that is M1 and newer. On an older Intel Mac, use the one-line install in Terminal instead: it notices the Intel chip and builds the app for your Mac.
Once it runs
| Click the bar | opens it, click again and it closes |
| Right-click | jumps to the next spot |
| Esc, or the cross | quits |
Nothing to configure.
The app fetches the current spots from the server when it starts, and again every 15 minutes. You never edit anything, and you never restart anything. If you want to run a spot yourself, you book one, same as any other advertiser.
Or you are here to run an ad.
Everything above is for people who install the overlay. What follows is the other side of it: what a spot looks like from the inside, and what one costs.
Six fields, one spot.
What ships with it are placeholders. Real campaigns come later. The format is settled: every spot fills the same six fields, and everything else (width, type size, colors) works itself out from those.
- MARK
- One letter in a circle
Far left, outlined in the accent color. Present in both states, the smallest mark that still carries when only the menu bar has room.
- BRAND
- The name
All caps, bold, white. Always visible. Together with the tagline it decides how wide the bar gets in its compact state.
- TAG
- The line beneath
Short, after the separator dot. Always visible too. Anything too long here makes the bar permanently wide. Two to four words are plenty.
- BODY
- Only after the click
The body text appears only in the expanded state. It costs nothing as long as nobody opens the bar, and only a click can open it.
- CTA
- The button
Expanded state only, filled in the accent color. In the demo it answers the click with “Thanks! (demo)”; in production the campaign's action hangs here.
- ACCENT
- One color per spot
It colors the badge, equalizer, button and progress line. It gets no more surface than that. The rest of the bar stays black, like the system chrome.
No image, no video, no sound. The bar is as tall as the menu bar and stays that way. What fits inside is text, one letter and one color. That is the constraint every campaign has to work within.
Build your spot, see it at once.
A spot stands for 60 seconds, then the next one comes. Compact, it is visible the whole time, expanded only when somebody clicks. Enter your lines; the preview shows both states at the size they appear at in the menu bar.
How many displays
Between 500 and 5,000,000. The price follows as you type.
You pay per display, 12.00 USD per 1,000, half of that goes to the people running the app. Spots take turns, so every campaign gets the same share of the rotation. Only displays that stayed on screen for the full 60 seconds and were reported back are counted; a spot that never reached a screen is not billed to you. When your displays are used up, it stops by itself.
Book it
One step. You land on Stripe's payment page, pay by card, and your spot goes live within a minute. You get a campaign code and can watch the progress any time. No account, no password.
Founding offer · 10 of 10 places left. Delivered in full, or everything back. From 6.00 USD.