Jamband Business DirectoryNo business can ever pay to rank higher.
Not a boosted listing, not a paid top spot in search results, not a "sponsored" tag that quietly outranks someone with more real trust behind them. Where a listing shows up is decided the same way for every business here: real community vouches and how close a fit they are to your scene, nothing else, no exceptions for who's paying us.
We're saying this out loud instead of just quietly practicing it, because we looked into what happens on directories that don't hold this line, and it's not subtle. It's worth reading in our own words below, not just taking on faith.
Where the money actually comes from
Two honest stages: what's true right now, and what's planned for later. We're not going to blur them together to sound bigger than we are.
$0 in revenue. Free to list, on purpose.
We're in a hand-built, concierge phase: every listing right now is added personally, one business at a time, not through an open self-serve platform yet. Every business that joins during this phase is listed at no cost.
- No subscription, no setup fee, no hidden catch.
- The goal right now is trust and traction, not revenue, prove the model works for real people before charging anyone for it.
A monthly subscription for businesses who join later.
When the self-serve platform is real (businesses managing their own listing directly, not waiting on us to build it by hand), a modest monthly subscription becomes the main source of revenue.
- Covers hosting your own editable profile, directly, anytime.
- A "Verified Pro" badge for businesses who complete credential verification (a bar number, a license, whatever applies), separate from and in addition to community vouches.
- Inclusion in the Spotlight rotation, an editorial, rotating "recently added" or "worth knowing" feature, never a change to default search order.
What "Spotlight" is, and isn't
It's tempting to let a paid "featured" placement quietly become a paid top-of-search placement, that's exactly the failure mode we're avoiding. So here's the actual boundary: Spotlight is an editorial feature, a rotating "meet a founding business" or "new to the scene" callout that any subscribing business can be included in on a fair rotation. It never changes where a listing lands in a search result. Search results are sorted by real community vouches and scene proximity, full stop, whether you've paid us anything or not.
What we looked into, and what we'll never do
We didn't just decide "no pay-to-rank" as a nice-sounding value. We looked at what happens on directories that quietly let it slide, and it's a real, documented failure mode, worth naming plainly rather than vaguely.
If you signed on during this hand-built founding phase, this part is simple and it isn't changing: you're listed at no cost, ever. That's not an introductory rate that quietly expires, it's a real thank-you for being here before there was a platform to join.
Questions about any of this?
If something above doesn't add up, or you want to know exactly where your listing (or a subscription, once that exists) fits into this, just ask directly, that's the whole point of writing this in plain language instead of a policy document.