# Advertise > Advertise on Sidekick Arcade: reviewed ads in fixed slots on a free browser arcade for all ages, sold directly. Submitting is free; you pay only after your ad is approved. Sidekick Arcade is a free arcade where people of every age play short games on phones and computers: on a lunch break, on the bus or on the couch. Ads here are sold directly to businesses, reviewed by a person, and shown from our own pages: no ad networks, no tracking pixels, no outside scripts. Every ad is reviewed before it runs. Submitting is free; we only ask for payment after your ad is approved. [Create an ad](https://sidekickarcade.com/advertise/desk/) [Read the guidelines](#guidelines) ## How it works 1. **Make your ad on the ad desk.** Sign in with a passkey (your device's fingerprint, face or screen lock; no password). Advertising needs an account for someone 18 or older. 2. **Send it for review. It's free.** We check it against the guidelines below, and our safety check looks at the page your ad opens. We email you about the review once you confirm your address with the link we send it; the ad desk always shows where your ad is. 3. **We approve it, or ask for changes.** We approve most ads. If something needs fixing, we say what, and you can send it again. 4. **Pay after approval.** With the approval we quote a price for the views you asked for and send an invoice. Nothing is charged before that. 5. **Your ad runs** from its start date until it reaches the views you paid for, at a steady pace: we count at most 1/48 of its views in an hour (or 50, for a small ad), so it runs for at least about two days. The desk shows its views and clicks each day, and you can pause it at any time. ## Ad slots Every slot has a fixed size, so pages never jump around while an ad loads. Every ad sits in a frame labeled "Advertisement" with the name of the site it opens, so nobody mistakes it for part of the arcade. Ad formats, slots and where they appear Slot Format and size Where it appears home-top Banner: 728 x 90 on computers, 320 x 50 on phones Homepage, under the playable games home-between Box: 300 x 250 on every screen Homepage billboard, between the neighborhoods category-top Banner: 728 x 90 on computers, 320 x 50 on phones Top of each neighborhood page game-below Banner: 728 x 90 on computers, 320 x 50 on phones Just below each game, never over it game-side Box: 300 x 250, wide screens only Beside the game details - **A banner** is two images, 728 x 90 and 320 x 50, and fills the banner slots. **A box** is one image, 300 x 250, and fills the box slots. Pick one or both. - Images are PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 150 KB each, at the exact size. Still images only: no animation, GIF or SVG. Add alt text that says what your ad says. - Show your ad in every neighborhood (the homepage included), or only in the neighborhoods you pick and their games. ## Ad guidelines Sidekick Arcade is for players of every age, so every ad must be suitable for every age. Within that, we approve most ads: we turn one down, or ask for changes, only when: 1. **It blends in with our site.** It looks like part of Sidekick Arcade: our logo or mascot, the colors and shapes of our buttons, pills or game cards, or game pictures made to look like our games. 2. **It has fake buttons or controls.** Download, install, play, close or X buttons, fake alerts or notifications, or fake form fields. Your whole ad is the link, so it needs no button. 3. **It is adult-oriented.** Anything sexual or suggestive, dating, real-money gambling or betting (sweepstakes casinos included), alcohol, tobacco, vaping, cannabis, weapons, graphic or scary violence, or hateful content. 4. **The page it opens fails our safety check** (below). 5. **It is misleading or illegal.** When we ask for changes or turn an ad down, we always say why. Everything else is welcome: games and apps, books, toys, shops, local businesses, events, courses and more. ## Where your ad leads Your ad links through our own address, which names your site: sidekickarcade.com/to/yoursite.com/…. Players see where they're going before they tap, and the link only ever opens the page you gave us. Your link always carries **link tags** (UTM parameters), so your own analytics can see visits from us: utm_source=sidekickarcade, utm_medium=display and a campaign named after your ad. You can change them, add utm_content, utm_term and up to five tags of your own, and the desk shows the finished link as you type. Your own tags only add to your web address, never change it, and are reviewed with it; the utm_ tags can change at any time. Tags are fixed words, the same for every visit: never anything about the person who taps. ## Our safety check Before your ad runs, and every day from approval until it ends, we check the page it opens. It must be a secure (https) web page on your own domain that opens without errors, not a download, with no more than five redirects that all stay on your site (no click trackers in between). We also ask Cloudflare's malware and adult-content filters about your domain. If a running ad's page fails, we pause the ad and tell you why on the desk. Fix the page and press Resume: we check it again, and the ad starts as soon as it passes. ## Real numbers before you buy Our [site stats](https://sidekickarcade.com/stats/) page shows real views for every page and ad slot, counted without cookies or IDs, and a budget planner that turns a budget into estimated ad views and clicks. ## Pricing Ads are priced per 1,000 views, so busy and quiet pages cost the same per view. Tell us how many views you'd like when you make your ad, and we'll quote a price with the approval. Early partner pricing is available. ## Questions? Ask us anything about advertising here. To make an ad, use the [ad desk](https://sidekickarcade.com/advertise/desk/).