12 pixel advertising alternatives in 2026 (small permanent spots)

The Million Dollar Homepage is sold out. Here is where the "own a tiny piece of the internet" money goes now.

Pixel advertising means paying once for a small permanent spot on a shared page — a block of pixels, a tile, a square, a rank — that links to your site. In 2026 the genre is crowded again: our August 2026 survey found 434 walls and boards, 221 of them active. These twelve are the ones worth a small site owner's money, ranked by how much you get for how little, with prices as seen on 17–18 August 2026. Square Town (square.pov.town) is on the list because it is ours; the pros and cons are written the same way for everyone.

TL;DR — Cheapest permanent spot with something happening: Square Town ($1, favicon, evictions). Cheapest pixel-art rectangle: 3MPixel ($10 minimum). Free tile if you can live with a subscription upsell: SaaSBoard. Competitive rank instead of a spot: Milliboard (any amount). Wildest: earth.tattoo (a square kilometre of a 3D globe, crypto). Nothing here is a backlink product worth buying for SEO, including Square Town.

The list#

1. Square Town — one 1×1 square, $1, one-time, on a live 3D favicon wall. Why: it is the only wall where the unit is your favicon (fetched from your URL, no upload) and the only one with a full game loop: anyone can evict you for double what you paid, un-kissed icons fade after 90 days, the wall unlocks outward at 70 % full, one Throne in the centre from $100. Price: $1 per square; $5 optional per-day analytics. Pros: cheapest per site, zero design work, live for everyone, click and view counts, launched August 2026 so central cells are still available. Cons: no sizes, no images, you can be evicted for $2, no audience guarantee, and it is not a backlink (clicks are 302 redirects). Full rulebook: How Square Town works — the complete rulebook.

2. Milliboard — a pay-to-rank leaderboard: pay any amount, the highest single payment holds #1, outbid by 1¢, freezes forever at $1,337,690. Why: the closest thing to Square Town in spirit — competitive, a "Daily Throne", a top-3 hall of fame — but a ranked list, not a grid. Price: whatever you like. Pros: pay a cent more than the person above you; the fight is the content. Cons: no spatial spot, no favicon, ends on purpose when the goal is hit. Compare: Square Town vs Milliboard: spatial wall or pay-to-rank list?.

3. SaaSBoard — a 100×100 logo grid for SaaS and indie tools; a 1×1 tile is free, bigger blocks $10 per tile per month or $100 per tile per year (Stripe). Why: the same "logo tile on a shared grid, pick your spot" idea, with about 111 listings as of August 2026. Pros: free tier, drag to pick position and size, description and link. Cons: uploaded logo, subscription for anything bigger than 1×1, no eviction, decay or 3D. Compare: Square Town vs SaaSBoard: $1 favicon square or free logo tile?.

4. The Forever Wall — $1 = 1 pixel, forever, on a 1,000,000-pixel wall. Why: the cleanest "$1 forever" pixel wall of the 2026 wave. Pros: claim, customise, permanent, one-time. Cons: you upload an image and need a block big enough to read; no game loop, no live view, no 3D. Compare: Square Town vs The Forever Wall: $1 favicon square or $1 pixel forever?.

5. Link for a Dollar — $1 per square on a permanent 1,000,000-square grid; $4 for 2×2, $10 for ten squares, $25 for 5×5. Why: the closest $1-a-square analogue: logo or initials plus brand name and link, category browse, click-count leaderboard, email-domain verification. Pros: honest pricing, permanent, verified owners. Cons: 5 of 1,000,000 claimed as of August 2026, so you are mostly alone; no eviction, decay or favicon auto-fetch. Compare: Square Town vs Link for a Dollar: two $1 squares, one with rules.

6. Million Squares Project — $1 per square, Stripe, forever, on a 1000×1000 grid with drag-select and a "Hall of Founders". Why: nearly the same premise as Square Town with images or GIFs per block instead of favicons. Pros: GIFs, drag-select, one-time. Cons: 17 of 1,000,000 sold as of August 2026; tied to a $MSP memecoin; static ownership. Compare: Square Town vs Million Squares Project: static squares or evictions?.

7. Tocka — a 1000×1000 painted-pixel canvas where every takeover raises that pixel's price by 1¢; $1 of credits free to start. Why: the same "pay more to evict" loop as Square Town, live, with a leaderboard — for pixel art rather than links. Pros: cheap, fun, live. Cons: no URLs or favicons, so it is a game, not advertising. Compare: Square Town vs Tocka: favicon wall or penny-war pixel canvas?.

8. 3MPixel — $0.10 per pixel, minimum 10×10 ($10), on a 2000×1500 canvas with a resale marketplace and reservations. Why: the cheapest per pixel for a real image block. Pros: big canvas, resale, leaderboard. Cons: 0 sold as of August 2026; upload-your-image; no game loop. Compare: Square Town vs 3MPixel: $1 favicon squares or 10¢ pixels?.

9. The Pixel Orbit — pay-what-you-buy rectangles (5×5 = $2.50); the highest total payer holds the exact centre and the whole canvas re-sorts around them. Why: the closest thing to Square Town's Throne — pay to hold the middle, get outbid. Pros: cheap, drawn or written or uploaded content, leaderboard. Cons: position is by cumulative spend rather than a spot you pick; no per-square eviction or decay. Compare: Square Town vs The Pixel Orbit: fixed squares or a re-sorting canvas?.

10. Own the Void — $1 per cell, one-time via Stripe, on a 1,000,000 × 1,000,000 grid: a coloured cell, up to 32 characters of text and an optional link. Why: the same $1 price with text instead of a favicon. Pros: infinite, cheap, text is readable. Cons: infinite means no scarcity and no reason to fight over anything; no eviction or decay. Compare: Square Town vs Own the Void: scarce favicon wall or infinite $1 grid?.

11. earth.tattoo — 16×16 pixel art on roughly 1 km² tiles of a live 3D globe; first tile free hourly, extra tiles $1, outbid the current owner at $1 → $2 → $4 → $8; crypto only. Why: the doubling-outbid takeover closest to Square Town's evictions, on a globe, with prior art archived and evicted owners emailed. Pros: genuinely novel, leaderboard, HN traction in July 2026. Cons: crypto payments, pixel art not links, no favicons. Compare: Square Town vs earth.tattoo: favicon wall or pixel art on a globe?.

12. The SaaS Wall — 100-pixel blocks with banded pricing ($0.05 per block, then $1, rising as the wall fills), a built-in pixel-art editor and a product link; SaaS only; 123 blocks as of August 2026. Why: the same indie/SaaS audience with hand-drawn logos. Pros: cheap early, community feel. Cons: you draw your own logo, permanent with no eviction, SaaS-only. Compare: Square Town vs The SaaS Wall: favicon squares or pixel-art logos?.

Free honourable mention: WebTiles — a free grid of 250×250 hand-coded HTML/CSS/JS mini-sites, with a live online count and chat, popular with the indie-web crowd. Not advertising, but the same instinct.

Summary table#

How to choose#

Ask three questions. Spot or rank? Milliboard is a rank; everything else is a spot. Do I want to draw? If yes: Tocka, The SaaS Wall, 3MPixel or earth.tattoo. If no: Square Town (favicon), Own the Void (text) or Link for a Dollar (initials or logo). Should anything happen after I pay? Only Square Town, Milliboard, Tocka, The Pixel Orbit and earth.tattoo have a mechanic that keeps the wall moving; the rest are buy-and-forget — fine if that is what you want, risky if the wall never fills. Several 2026 walls had sold single or double digits of a million units when we looked, and a mostly empty wall is a bad billboard. Square Town's answer is to show only the unlocked 16×16 until it is 70 % full — see What is a ring unlock on Square Town?.

None of the twelve is a substitute for actual marketing. See Is buying pixels still worth it in 2026? An honest answer before you spend more than pocket money.

FAQ#

What is pixel advertising?#

Paying once for a small permanent spot — pixels, a tile, a square, a rank — on a shared web page that links to your site. The Million Dollar Homepage (2005, $1 per pixel in 10×10 blocks) started it; today's variants sell squares, favicons, text cells, ranks and globe tiles.

What is the cheapest pixel advertising in 2026?#

Per site: Square Town, Link for a Dollar, Million Squares Project and Own the Void are all $1 for one unit; SaaSBoard gives a 1×1 tile free. Per pixel: 3MPixel at $0.10 (minimum $10). Milliboard accepts any amount but position depends on outbidding others.

Is pixel advertising good for SEO?#

No. Treat any wall as visibility to a small niche audience, not link equity. Square Town's clicks are 302 redirects from a WebGL canvas and it makes no SEO claim; walls that promise "dofollow" links are selling something Google has discounted for years.

Which pixel walls are permanent?#

Most classic walls (The Forever Wall, Link for a Dollar, Million Squares Project, Own the Void, 3MPixel, The SaaS Wall) are permanent, first-come, no expiry — as long as the site stays online. Square Town is one-time with no expiry but evictable for double; Tocka and earth.tattoo can be taken over; SaaSBoard's bigger blocks are subscriptions.

Which walls are live or 3D?#

Square Town (WebSockets, three.js 3D with click-height towers), earth.tattoo (3D globe with live updates), Tocka (live canvas). Most others are static pages you refresh.

Why is Square Town on its own list?#

Because it belongs in the category and leaving it out would be odd. The pros and cons are stated the same way as everyone else's: no images, no sizes, evictable, no audience guarantee, not a backlink.