# Why every square costs exactly $1 (and there are no sizes)

> Square Town charges $1 per 1×1 square, one-time, no sizes, no uploads. The design reasoning, and how it compares to MDH's $100 minimum and SaaSBoard's $10/mo.

Source: https://square.pov.town/blog/why-one-dollar

Every square on Square Town ([square.pov.town](/)) costs $1, one-time, and every square is 1×1 — there are no sizes, no blocks, no tiers and no subscription. One domain, one favicon, one cell. The price is fixed at $1 so that buying is an impulse rather than a decision, and the size is fixed at 1×1 so that nobody has to design anything: your favicon already exists, and it is already square. The game comes from *where* you are and who evicts you, not from how big you are.

> **TL;DR** — $1 buys one 1×1 square, forever (unless someone pays $2 to evict you). No sizes: a favicon is a favicon. No uploads: Square Town fetches your icon from your URL. No accounts, no renewals. The only other prices on the site are the Throne ($100 intro, doubles per eviction) and an optional $5 one-time analytics unlock on your deed. Compare: the Million Dollar Homepage's minimum was $100, SaaSBoard's bigger blocks are $10/tile/month, Pixel Spotlight rents a block for £500 a year.

## The whole price list

| Thing | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| One square (1×1) | $1, one-time | Any empty cell in the live area; you click it |
| Evicting a square | 2× what the current owner paid | $1 → $2 → $4 → $8 … |
| The Throne (4×4 centre) | $100 intro, doubles per eviction | One owner; the only non-1×1 tile |
| Per-day analytics on your deed | $5, one-time | Optional; totals are free |
| Kissing an icon | Free | Anyone, any icon, public |
| Choosing your coordinates | Free | The "pick fee" is $0 |

That's the [pricing page](/pricing) in a table. Everything else on Square Town is a mechanic, not a charge.

## Why $1 and not $5, $10 or "pay what you want"

**A dollar is below the threshold where people compare.** At $1 nobody opens a spreadsheet, asks their co-founder, or wonders about the return. It's the price of a coffee-adjacent impulse: less than the coffee, more than nothing, and precisely enough to make it a purchase rather than a signup. Square Town wants the decision to be "which cell?" not "is this worth it?".

**A dollar makes doubling work.** Evictions on Square Town cost double the current owner's price. Starting at $1 gives you a clean ladder — $2, $4, $8, $16 — where each step is a real decision but the first few are still impulse-sized. Start at $10 and the third eviction is $80, which ends most wars before they're fun. Start at $0.10 and the first ten evictions are noise. $1 puts the interesting part of the curve (roughly $4–$32) exactly where an indie hacker will fight over a good spot and a bystander will watch. See [the economics of eviction](/blog/economics-of-eviction).

**A dollar is easy to say.** "1 square = $1. Forever.*" is the tagline. The asterisk (unless someone evicts you) is the whole rulebook. A price list you can say in one breath is a price list people repeat.

**A dollar makes the wall about the wall.** If Square Town sold bigger blocks, revenue would come from selling size, and the incentive would be to make big blocks look great and small ones look sad. With one price, the only thing Square Town can sell more of is squares, so the incentives point at making the wall itself worth visiting — live feed, 3D towers, kisses, rings.

## Why there are no sizes

Almost every pixel wall since 2005 has sold blocks: 10×10 minimum on the Million Dollar Homepage, drag-to-select rectangles on its clones, tiered "featured" sizes on logo boards. Square Town sells one size, and it's the smallest one. Four reasons.

1. **No size decision.** The moment a wall offers sizes, buying becomes shopping. Should I get 2×2? Is 5×5 worth it? What if a competitor buys bigger? Square Town deletes the question. Everyone is 1×1; the only variable is location.
2. **No design work.** A 10×10 block needs an image made for it. A 1×1 square holds a favicon, which your site already has and which is already square. Square Town fetches it from your URL through Google's favicon service. If you don't have one you get a clown (see [the Hall of Clowns](/blog/hall-of-clowns-sites-without-favicons)) — that's the only "design" step, and it's one the rest of the web wanted you to do anyway. [Why favicons beat pixels](/blog/why-favicons-beat-pixels) goes deeper.
3. **One domain, one square.** Because a square shows a favicon and a favicon belongs to a domain, the natural unit is one cell per site. There's nothing to gain from a 3×3 of the same icon except a bigger version of the same icon. Big brands don't get to be louder by paying more — except at the Throne, on purpose.
4. **Legibility.** Every icon on the wall is the same size, so the wall reads as a wall of sites, not as a few billboards and a lot of noise. Zoom in and every cell is a recognisable logo. In 3D, the towers differ in height (height = click count) — earned, not bought.

The Throne is the one exception: a 4×4 gold tile in the exact centre with its own doubling price. It exists precisely because Square Town wanted one place where "pay more to be bigger" applies, so that it applies nowhere else. Read [The Throne, explained](/blog/the-throne-explained).

## Where the game comes from instead

If size is fixed and price is fixed, what's left to want? Location, and keeping it.

- **Location.** You click any empty cell in the live area. Only the central 16×16 is live at launch; each time it's 70 % full it grows by 8 cells in every direction, up to 1024×1024. Cells near the Throne, near famous icons, or next to your own other projects are worth more to people — not in dollars, in wanting.
- **Evictions.** Any square can be taken for double its price. Wanting expresses itself as money only when someone else wants your spot. Quiet squares stay $1 forever; contested ones climb, publicly, in the live feed.
- **Kisses and decay.** An icon not kissed in 90 days fades to grayscale. Anyone can kiss any icon for free. It costs nothing to keep a square alive; it costs attention.
- **Towers.** Click count is height. The wall rewards sites people actually click, not sites that bought the biggest block.

None of that needs a price list. That's the point.

## How $1 compares to what everyone else charges

Prices below are from our August 2026 snapshot; each site's model is different enough that the comparison is about *shape*, not just amount.

| Site | Smallest thing you can buy | Model | What Square Town does differently |
|---|---|---|---|
| [The Million Dollar Homepage](https://milliondollarhomepage.com) (2005) | 10×10 pixel block, $100 | $1/pixel, one-time, image upload; sold out in 5 months | $1 for a whole square, no upload, still open, evictable |
| [SaaSBoard](https://saasboard.app) | 1×1 tile free; bigger blocks $10/tile/month or $100/tile/year | Subscription for size; uploaded logo on a 100×100 grid | One size, one-time $1, favicon fetched, no renewal |
| [Pixel Spotlight](https://www.pixelspotlight.com) | £500 per block for 12 months | Rented logo/message block, promoted with paid ads; expires | $1 forever* vs £500 a year |
| [Link for a Dollar](https://linkforadollar.com/) | $1 per square ($4 for 2×2, $10 for 10, $25 for 5×5) | Permanent grid, logo or initials, tiered sizes | Same $1 entry, but no sizes and evictions/decay/Throne |
| [3MPixel](https://3mpixel.com) | 10×10 pixels, $10 minimum | $0.10/pixel, image upload, resale marketplace | No minimum above $1, nothing to upload |
| [TopWorldStartups](https://www.topworldstartups.com) | 10×10 pixels, $100 | $1/pixel blocks up to 100×100 = $10,000 | $1 flat |

SaaSBoard's free 1×1 is genuinely cheaper than Square Town for a single tile, and it lets you upload a logo and description; the trade is a subscription if you want to be bigger, and no eviction, throne, decay or 3D. Pixel Spotlight is a different product for a different budget — a promoted, expiring block. The Million Dollar Homepage's $100 minimum made sense when 1,000,000 pixels had to sell in a hurry; twenty-one years on, Square Town's bet is that a $1 favicon square is what an indie site actually wants. And 2026 has produced a wave of $1-a-square walls (Million Squares Project, Own the Void, Project Pixel, myPixelit and others), so the price point itself is no longer rare — which is exactly why Square Town's game loop, not its price, is what it's selling. Full comparisons: [Square Town vs SaaSBoard](/vs/saasboard), [Square Town vs the Million Dollar Homepage](/vs/million-dollar-homepage).

## What $1 doesn't buy

Being honest about this is part of why the price can be $1:

- No traffic guarantee. Views and clicks are counted on your deed; how many you get depends on the wall and your icon.
- No SEO. Clicks are 302 redirects through `/go/:id`; the wall is a WebGL canvas. There is no link equity to sell, so Square Town doesn't sell it.
- No permanence against evictions. "Forever" means no expiry and no renewal — until someone pays double.
- No account. Your secret deed URL is the only proof of ownership. Lose it and it's gone.

The [manifesto](/manifesto) says the rest.

## FAQ

### How much does a square cost on Square Town?

$1, one-time, for a 1×1 square anywhere in the live area of the wall. There are no sizes and no subscriptions. The only other prices are the Throne ($100 intro, doubling per eviction) and an optional $5 analytics unlock.

### Can I buy a bigger block?

No. Every square is 1×1 and shows one favicon. The Throne (4×4, centre) is the single exception and has its own price. Nothing else can be enlarged, and there's nothing to upload that would need the space.

### Why doesn't Square Town let me upload a logo?

Because your favicon already exists and is already square. Square Town fetches it from your URL via Google's favicon service, which is why a square costs $1 and takes a minute. Sites without a favicon get a clown until they add one.

### Is $1 really forever?

It's a one-time payment with no expiry and no renewal. You keep the square until someone evicts you by paying double what you paid. Unkissed icons fade after 90 days but stay yours.

### How does $1 compare to the Million Dollar Homepage?

The Million Dollar Homepage charged $1 per pixel with a 10×10 minimum, so the cheapest purchase was $100 and needed an image. Square Town charges $1 for a whole square and needs only a URL.

### Are there discounts or coupons?

No. The checkout jokes about "list price" and a daily discount, but every square arrives at $1 for everyone, every day.