CancelAds General FAQs

What is CancelAds?

CancelAds is a service that makes it possible for web publishers to generate some extra revenue in addition to what they get off ads while the web surfers get a chance to show their appreciation of their favorite websites and blogs. CancelAds is based on the micro-payments approach where web surfers pay small amounts for subscriptions and in return web publishers grant them the right to view their websites without ads (and also provide them with some special content not available to other visitors).

How does CancelAds work?

Simple: web publishers register their sites for CancelAds and integrate the code that makes sure that their subscribers will not see the ads after a subscription is purchased. When web surfers visit their websites, they can pay for a subscription via PayPal and they will be able to view the sites they purchased subscriptions for without ads throughout the duration of their subscriptions.

Why would anyone want to pay for web surfing – the web was made to be free?

According to Advertising Age survey, 69% of internet users are not ready to pay to view their favorite sites ad-free. But it still leaves 31% of all internet users who may choose to pay for some of the sites not to display advertising to them. This is a huge crowd of people who dislike the way all the websites are now monetized with advertising but understand that website publishers also need to make money. CancelAds is a win-win solution for both publishers and surfers.

FAQs for publishers

Why should I use CancelAds for my website?

If you already monetize your website or blog with advertising – be it Google Adsense or any other advertising network – CancelAds will generate for you an additional revenue stream that could even become a more important one for you if you have many loyal visitors. CancelAds will offer your visitors to buy a subscription to your website and we will pay you your portion of the revenue after deducting PayPal charges and our service fee. A subscription means that when your subscriber visits your website, he or she will not see the ads that your other visitors see. So while all your visitors “pay” you for your content by watching ads on your site or blog, your CancelAds subscribers will pay for not seeing those ads.

Why would my visitors want to pay me for ad-free browsing of my website?

The reality of the online publishing world is that while the vast majority of web publishers rely on some form of online advertising to make money off the web content they create, the majority of internet users find such ads to be distracting and annoying. So the obvious solution for such internet users is to install various ad blocking plugins in their browsers for ad-free browsing experience. CancelAds offers a fair alternative for those internet users who dislike ads yet are willing to compensate the publishers for all their hard work. You can think of CancelAds as donations from your loyal visitors but donations where you also give them something in return – ad-free browsing of your pages and some exclusive content if you so choose.

How will I earn money by using CancelAds?

Every time your loyal visitor buys a subscription to CancelAds, your share of the payment will appear in your account statistics. Every subscription is divided by months so that only the amount for the actual time the subscribers use can be calculated and added to your account balance. If any subscriber chooses to unsubscribe at any point of time (because you remove CancelAds code and ads are served again or simply because this subscriber does not want to visit your site any more for any reason), the amount returned to the subscriber will be deducted from your account balance.

Ok, I want to use CancelAds on my site or blog. How do I begin?

Now that you have made your decision to use CancelAds on your site, you will first need to register for the service and submit your website. You will need to specify your website’s URL, and select a category for it so that subscribers could find your website easier. On the next step you will be able to grab the code you will need to integrate into your website. The code is needed for CancelAds operation: it prevents serving of ads to your subscribers and also allows you to show some content exclusively to your subscribers. In addition to the code itself, you will also need to put a CancelAds button anywhere on your website for your visitors to be able to buy subscriptions. Now you are all settled and the only thing we’d recommend doing is encourage your visitors to buy CancelAds subscriptions for your site so that they know such an opportunity exists and they can use it.

Why has my website been removed from CancelAds?

The main reason why we could remove your website from CancelAds is your content: websites containing adult content, racial, hate and violence content are not allowed for CancelAds publishers for ethical and legal reasons. If you think that your content is a perfect fit for CancelAds, we invite you to contact us at cancelads@profy.com and we will take a closer look at your website.

How many websites can I submit to CancelAds?

We do not have any limitations: you can use CancelAds on as many websites as you want to provided that the content of all such websites meets our Terms of Service for publishers. In fact, if you run multiple websites, using them all with your CancelAds account is only reasonable because loyal visitors to all your websites will buy individual subscriptions and your accumulated revenue will grow.

How does the code I integrate into my website work?

The code relies on cookies and works simply: for all the advertising banners that you implement the CancelAds code for, it will make sure that once a paying subscriber visits your website, he or she will not see the ads while all the other visitors continue to see your ads. Once a subscription expires, this visitor will see the ads again unless he or she extends the subscription. We also offer the code that is intended to only show some parts of your content to your CancelAds subscribers and hide it from all the other visitors. Be it a research report or a blog post, you can use the code to serve this particular piece of content to your paying subscribers – and thus add value to them.

What do I need to be able to use CancelAds on my website(s)?

First of all, you will need a website that you already monetize with ads (after all, who will want to pay for an ad-free subscription if your website does not show any ads to your visitors anyway?). Also keep in mind that we use PHP to make CancelAds possible so your website will need to support PHP (it does if you run a blog on WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and many other popular blogging platforms, for example). Another thing is a PayPal account where you will be able to receive your earnings from CancelAds.

My website does not support PHP. What should I do?

Remember, this is the very first iteration of CancelAds while we have huge plans for the service so we will eventually support many other blogging platforms with our codes and even dedicated plugins. We invite you to join our mailing list to be notified when such new features arrive and your site is supported by CancelAds.

Where do I need to put the CancelAds button?

We do not have any particular requirements to location of the CancelAds button on your website so it is up to you to decide. But of course putting it in a place where it is visible and draws enough attention from your visitors is recommended for them to click it and buy subscriptions easier. Simply remember that the more subscriptions your visitors buy, the more money you will earn.

Are there any additional bonuses I could offer to my visitors to encourage them to subscribe to my website?

Yes, in addition to the code that prevents display of advertising we also offer you the code that allows you to show some parts of your website content to your CancelAds subscribers only. This means that you could offer some exclusive articles, reviews, reports or whatever only to your CancelAds subscribers – and offer them another reason to subscribe.

How do you calculate the subscription price for my visitors?

When you submit your website to CancelAds, you will need to specify some amount of money that you want every subscriber to pay you for ad-free browsing for one day. We add the applicable PayPal fees and service fees to calculate the final price for your subscribers.

What daily subscription price should I choose?

We do not have any strict rules on the price your visitors will pay you for ad-free browsing of your content. We’d only recommend you to be reasonable and understand that if the price is too high, no one will probably pay you. Besides, a good way to calculate the price you want your subscriber to pay you daily is take the amount you earn off ads per month and divide this amount by the number of unique visitors you received during this month and by 30. This will be reasonable because this will mean that you make the same amount per regular visitor of your website or per CancelAds subscriber.

What if I decide to change the subscription price for one of my websites?

It is totally up to you to decide what price your subscribers will pay you for CancelAds so you can change the amount at any time. The only thing you will need to keep in mind is that your current CancelAds subscribers will not be charged any additional amounts throughout the duration of their subscriptions and the new amounts will only be applicable to new subscribers.

How do I know how much I have earned?

CancelAds offers you various ways to track your revenue: you can either see General stats for all your websites or you can see the subscription amounts generated by individual websites by clicking the websites’ names in the My websites section. In the General stats you will be able to see the graphs representing the amounts you earn every month. This is also where you will see the button to authorize the payment once you reach the minimum payment amount.

When will I get my first payment?

On CancelAds the minimum payment amount is $50 so once your account balance reaches $50, you will need to submit your W-9/W-8 forms information for the taxation purposes. When your information is received, you will need to authorize the payment to be issued. Every time your account balance reaches $50 in the future, you will not need to resubmit your W-9/W-8 information (unless you want to change something) and authorizing a payment by clicking ‘Send Payment’ link in your account stats will be enough for us to issue your payment.

Why do I need to authorize every payment from CancelAds?

The minimum payment amount on CancelAds is $50 but some publishers may prefer to wait until their account balance reaches a larger amount before getting paid. This is partly due to the fact that some publishers may need to pay extra fees to PayPal for processing the payment. Another reason is that when you have numerous subscribers, you will accumulate the minimum payment amount of $50 too soon and receiving the payments so frequently will not make sense for you. This is why we ask you to authorize us to issue your payment every time you want to actually be paid.

What if I don’t want to use CancelAds any more on my website?

You are totally free to use or not to use CancelAds code on your website as it is nothing but a tool to help you generate some extra revenue off your website. But if you decide to remove the CancelAds code from your website, you will need to remember that your existing subscribers will be able to receive a refund for all the unused days of their subscriptions and the amounts they have already paid for seeing your content without ads will be returned to them.

I tested my website with the CancelAds code integrated and now I see the site without ads all the time. Can I see my ads myself again?

When you test your site with CancelAds code integrated, we send cookies to your computer and instruct your browser not to display you the ads. If you want to see ads on your own website, you should click the “Click here to switch ads on” link on the page where you see the website code to be able to see ads again in the future. If you click the link to test the site without ads again, you will have to repeat the procedure again as these links work like a switcher for your own ads.

FAQs for surfers

Why would I use CancelAds?

Many internet users find the online ads to be increasingly intrusive and annoying but simply blocking ads away does not seem to be a fair solution because for many online publishers advertising revenue is the only way to support themselves. Remember, advertising income enables them to create the content that you enjoy. CancelAds offers a fair way for you not to see the ads yet compensate your favorite bloggers and website owners for the work that results in the things you enjoy.

I have purchased a subscription to a website but I now see ads again? What should I do?

This problem happens because when you buy a subscription, the website sends cookies to your computer – a small file that tells your browser not to display ads to you throughout the duration of your subscription. If this file does not exist (when you delete cookies, use a new browser or a different computer), your browser will display ads to you even on the sites you purchased ad-free subscriptions for. But there’s a simple solution to that: whenever you use a new browser (or delete cookies from your current one), head over to Your subscriptions section on CancelAds and click the link available to restore cookies for all the sites that you are subscribed to. This will let you browse the subscribed sites without ads using all your browsers and all your computers.

I have paid for a subscription but I am unhappy with what I get. Is there a way to get my money back?

There are many reasons for why you may want to stop your CancelAds subscription. You could simply lose interest in the content delivered by some website or the website owner could remove the code and you see ads on the site again so paying for CancelAds subscription does not make sense to you. Whatever the reason, you are free to unsubscribe from any of your existing subscriptions (it is possible via Your subscriptions section for any website you are subscribed to). When you unsubscribe, we return you the money paid minus the amount for the already used subscription days and PayPal fees.

Can I see how a website will look without ads to make sure this is what I want to pay for?

Yes, we know that it is always difficult to make a purchase decision so we have decided to show you exactly what you will get once you pay. On the subscription page for any website you can click a special link that will let you browse the website you are interested like you have already paid for it – for a minute. This will show you exactly what you get and will help you make the decision to subscribe – or not.

I have unsubscribed from a website but I have not received my money back. Why?

There are two possible reasons for this: either you have entered a wrong PayPal email when unsubscribing or you cannot receive money to the PayPal email you have specified. As a result, we could not send you the money back. Such payments remain “unclaimed” in our system for 30 days. After 30 days you will be able to request your money back again but please, make sure that you enter the correct PayPal email and you can receive payments to this email.