How It Works
TileTakeover is a board of tiles, and every single one of them is up for grabs. Some are still sitting there empty, waiting for someone to claim them. Others already belong to someone — but "owned" doesn't mean "safe forever." Anyone can take a tile over from its current owner by outbidding them. That's the whole game: claim, hold, get challenged, hold or get taken over. Here's exactly how each part of that works.
Claiming a tile nobody owns yet
This is the easy part. If a tile is still open, it's yours for $1.00 — no bidding war, no negotiation, just claim it. Once you do, you can put your own image and a link on it, and it's genuinely yours until someone decides it's worth taking from you.
Taking over a tile someone else already owns
Here's where it gets more interesting. If the tile you want already has an owner, you can still get it — but you can't just offer a penny more and call it a day. Every takeover has to beat the current price by at least a dollar, and that minimum stays exactly $1.00 no matter how valuable the tile has become, so a hot tile never gets so expensive to contest that only the current owner could afford to keep it.
The rule: your bid has to beat the current price by at least $1.00 — no matter how expensive the tile already is. A few real examples:
| Current price | What it costs to take over |
|---|---|
| $1.00 | $2.00 |
| $8.00 | $9.00 |
| $25.00 | $26.00 |
| $100.00 | $101.00 |
Every tile is priced entirely on its own — a hot tile in one corner of the board climbing in price has zero effect on what it costs to claim a totally different, still-open tile somewhere else. There's no site-wide minimum beyond that first $1.00.
From submission to going live
When you place a bid, you submit your bid amount, a display name, your image, and your link all together in one go — nothing is charged yet. That whole package goes through a quick review before anything happens. Once it's approved, your payment goes through, the tile is yours, and your 24-hour lock starts right then: for a full day, nobody can outbid you, no matter how much they're willing to pay. That's your guaranteed window to actually be seen. Once those 24 hours pass, you don't lose the tile — you just lose the shield. It's still yours, for as long as nobody else decides it's worth taking over. If your submission isn't approved, you're never charged at all.
Your image and link
Your image gets cropped to a square automatically and shown right on your tile; your link is whatever you want people to land on when they click it — your shop, your project, your socials, whatever you're trying to put in front of people. Both go through that same quick review together with your bid, which is what keeps the board looking like something people actually want to look at, instead of turning into a dumping ground.
What losing a tile actually looks like
If someone outbids you after your 24-hour lock has expired, ownership passes to them immediately — same as it did for you. There's no argument, no grace period, no way to match the offer. It's the same deal you got when you claimed it: a fair shot, a guaranteed day in the spotlight, and after that, the board belongs to whoever's willing to pay for it. Nothing personal — it's just how the game is designed to keep working.
What you'll actually pay at checkout
The number you see on the board — $1.00, $30.00, whatever it is — is exactly what you're paying for the tile itself. Like pretty much any online store, sales tax and card processing fees get tacked on at checkout, so your total will land a little above the sticker price. Nothing hidden, just the normal cost of paying with a card online.
No account, ever
You will never be asked to create a login, pick a password, or remember anything for next time. Checkout happens through Stripe using nothing more than your name and email — the same way you'd buy anything else online. Win a tile today, come back in six months, claim another one the exact same way. No account to dig up, nothing to reset.
Refunds
All sales are final — aside from confirmed fraud on a payment method, which is handled by our payment processor the same way any fraud claim is, not through us. Outside of that, we don't do case-by-case refunds, and here's why: the moment you win, you're guaranteed a full day where nobody can touch your tile. That guarantee is the thing you're actually paying for, and you get it every single time, whether the tile gets taken over an hour after that window closes or it stays yours for a year. You always walk away with something real for your money.