Billing Integrity
Your advertisers pay for ads that were seen
Serving an ad and charging for it are two separate events in Pyrobid. An impression only becomes billable once the ad has actually been on screen. Nothing else moves money.
An ad two screens below the fold, on a page the reader closes after one paragraph, is a billable impression almost everywhere.The tag fired, the file was requested, the counter went up. Whether a human being ever laid eyes on it is a separate question that most billing systems never ask.
The gate every impression has to pass
An ad is served. Nothing is charged yet. The advertiser's balance moves only after the ad is confirmed on screen.
The ad renders and a measurement loop starts in the reader's browser. Every 100 milliseconds it recalculates how much of the ad's area overlaps the viewport. Once that crosses 50 percent it starts counting time, and if the ad drops back out of view the counter resets to zero. It has to stay in view continuously.
When the ad has held that position for more than 300 milliseconds it is marked viewable and calls back to the server. That callback is the only thing that starts the billing chain: the impression is written to the parsing queue, flagged as parsed, and carried into the analytics store.
Settlement runs separately and only looks at impressions that are flagged parsed and not yet paid. An impression that never became viewable never gets that flag, so the settlement pass never sees it. It is not discounted or credited back later. It simply never enters the ledger.
Wide units get a slightly different rule. An ad 500 pixels or wider counts at 30 percent visible rather than 50, because a leaderboard that is a third on screen is genuinely readable in a way a small square at 30 percent is not.
Why this is worth putting on your rate card
Viewability is usually something a big advertiser demands and a small publisher cannot prove. Here it is the default behaviour of the billing system.
It is a sales argument, not a feature
You can tell an advertiser their money only moves when the ad is on screen, and that is a stronger opening than any rate you could quote. Most sites selling their own inventory cannot say it at all.
It changes what a complaint looks like
An advertiser who feels they got nothing for their spend is usually arguing about whether the impressions were real. Billing on confirmed views removes the argument before it starts, because the ads they paid for are the ads that were on screen.
It tells you which placements are actually worth selling
A slot that serves a lot and bills little is a slot too far down the page. That gap is a layout problem you can see in reporting and fix, rather than a mystery about why an advertiser did not renew.
It prices the good inventory correctly
Once you are only billing for views, an above-the-fold placement and a footer placement stop looking like the same product. You can charge properly for the one that works.
It is enforced in the settlement pass
This is not a reporting filter applied on top of billing. The settlement pass selects only impressions carrying the viewed flag, so there is no path where an unviewed impression moves money.
It applies to every campaign by default
There is no premium tier for it and nothing to switch on. Every advertiser in your portal is billed this way from their first campaign.
Being straight about the threshold
The industry benchmark most often quoted for display, from the Media Rating Council and the IAB, is 50 percent of pixels for one continuous second. Pyrobid uses 50 percent for 300 milliseconds, which is the same pixel test with a shorter dwell, so it is a more forgiving bar than that benchmark and should not be described as meeting it. What it does is separate ads that were on screen from ads that were never scrolled to, and that is the distinction that actually matters when someone is deciding whether their spend was wasted. If you sell to buyers who audit against the one second standard, quote them the real numbers above rather than implying a certification that is not there.
The measurement also runs in the reader's browser, like every viewability implementation that is not a paid third-party verification service. It is honest measurement, not adversarial measurement, and it is not a substitute for an independent verification vendor if a large buyer insists on one.
Common questions
Does this mean I earn less than I would elsewhere?
On a per-impression basis you will bill for fewer impressions than a server that charges on serve, which is the entire point. What it changes is what you can charge for the ones that count. A placement that reliably gets seen is worth more than a placement that reliably gets served, and once your reporting distinguishes the two you can price accordingly.
What happens to an ad that is served but never seen?
It is delivered normally and the advertiser is not charged for it. There is no clawback and no correction later, because the charge was never made. The impression simply does not enter settlement.
Can I change the threshold?
The 50 percent and 300 millisecond values are platform defaults rather than per-campaign settings in the portal. If a specific buyer needs a different bar agreed contractually, that is a conversation to have before you sell rather than a checkbox.
Does the reader need to click anything?
No. The measurement is passive and needs no interaction. It watches where the ad sits relative to the visible part of the page as the reader scrolls.
How does this interact with clicks and conversions?
Clicks and conversions are tracked separately and have their own validation, including duplicate suppression and click-timing checks. Viewability governs whether an impression is billable. It does not suppress a click that happens.
Will my advertisers understand this?
Most will recognise it immediately, because viewability is the thing they already worry about when buying anywhere else. It is usually easier to explain than a rate card. The short version is that they pay when the ad is on screen, and not when it is not.
Sell impressions you can stand behind.
Every campaign in your portal settles on confirmed views. Your placements, your rates, your advertisers, and a billing story that survives being asked about.
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