# Square Town vs Link for a Dollar: two $1 squares, one with rules > Square Town vs Link for a Dollar — both sell $1 squares on a million-square grid; one is a permanent verified directory, the other a live 3D wall with evictions. Source: https://square.pov.town/vs/link-for-a-dollar Link for a Dollar (linkforadollar.com) is a permanent public grid of 1,000,000 squares at $1 each: you place a logo or your initials with a brand name and link, browse by category, and verify ownership with an email on your domain. Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall: $1 buys one 1×1 square on a live 3D grid, Square Town fetches the favicon from your URL, and anyone can evict you for double. The difference is a permanent, verified directory versus a wall with a game loop. ## At a glance | | Link for a Dollar | Square Town | |---|---|---| | Price | $1 per square; $4 for 2×2, $10 for 10 squares, $25 for 5×5 | $1 per square, one-time; every square is 1×1 | | What you place | Logo or initials + brand name + link | Your site's favicon (fetched from the URL) + link | | How you pick a spot | Choose squares on a 1,000,000-square grid; browse by category | Click any empty cell in the live area | | Ownership model | Permanent | Own it until someone pays double what you paid | | Can you lose your spot? | No | Yes — eviction at 2× your price; un-kissed icons fade after 90 days | | Game mechanics | Click-count leaderboard | Evictions, one Throne ($100 intro, doubles), kisses vs decay, rings unlock at 70 % fill, Hall of Clowns, boards | | Live? | Not verified in our August 2026 check | Yes — WebSockets push every buy, eviction, kiss, unlock | | 3D? | No | Yes — favicons are towers, height = clicks | | Analytics | Click counts (public leaderboard) | Views, clicks, kisses per deed; $5 one-time for per-day charts | | Accounts | Email-domain verification | None — a secret deed URL is the only proof | | Payment | Not verified | Stripe (card) | | Audience | Brands and small sites wanting a permanent listing | Indie hackers, side projects, anyone with a URL | | Launched | 2025 | August 2026 | | Status (Aug 2026) | Active; 5 of 1,000,000 squares claimed | Active; central 16×16 live, grows to 1,048,576 squares | Link for a Dollar facts are as of August 2026 from our competitor snapshot. ## What Link for a Dollar does well **Verification.** Proving you own the domain via an email at that domain is a real feature. It means the brand on the square is the brand that bought it, and nobody can list your company before you do. Square Town has nothing like it: anyone can buy a square for any URL, and the only proof of ownership is a secret deed URL. **Bigger blocks and bundles.** $4 for a 2×2, $10 for ten squares, $25 for a 5×5. If you want a larger presence, or a bundle for a portfolio, the pricing exists. Square Town sells one size — 1×1 — at one price. **Categories.** You can browse the grid by category, which turns it into a small directory. Square Town's wall is spatial only; the closest thing to browsing is the leaderboards in the side panel. **Permanent.** Nobody can evict you and nothing fades. If you want to list once and forget, that is a strength. **Initials as a fallback.** No logo? Use your initials. On Square Town, no favicon means a clown emoji. ## What Square Town does differently **Favicon from the URL, zero input.** Paste a URL and Square Town fetches the favicon via Google's favicon service. There is no logo upload and no brand-name field. If your site has no favicon it gets a clown emoji and a public place in the Hall of Clowns until you add one — see [/blog/how-to-add-a-favicon](/blog/how-to-add-a-favicon). **Every square can be taken.** Anyone can evict any square by paying double its last price: $1 → $2 → $4 → $8. The Throne (the 4×4 centre) starts at $100 and doubles on each eviction. Location has a price because location can be contested. **Decay unless kissed.** An icon nobody has kissed for 90 days fades to grayscale. Anyone can kiss any icon, free; kisses are public and counted. Dead sites don't get kissed, so they fade and stay cheap to evict. The wall cleans itself instead of accumulating dead links. **The wall never looks empty.** Link for a Dollar had 5 of 1,000,000 squares claimed in our August 2026 check — a million-square grid with five squares on it looks empty because it is. Square Town only shows the live area: the central 16×16 at launch, growing by 8 cells in every direction each time it is 70 % full. Density is designed in. **Live and 3D.** Every buy, eviction, kiss and unlock is pushed to all open browsers over WebSockets. Ctrl+drag tilts the wall into 3D, where each favicon is a tower whose height is its click count. **Analytics beyond clicks.** Both count clicks. Square Town also counts views (someone opened your square's card) and kisses, per deed, and $5 one-time unlocks per-day charts. There is a public read API at `/api/state` for the whole wall — see [/api](/api). ## Who should pick Link for a Dollar - You want your brand verified so nobody can squat on it. - You want a 2×2 or 5×5 presence, or a 10-square bundle at $10. - You want a permanent listing with categories, and no chance of eviction. - You'd rather show initials than fix a favicon. ## Who should pick Square Town - You want to spend $1 and be done, without email verification or a form. - You have several URLs and want each one visible for $1 with zero design — [/for/indie-hackers](/for/indie-hackers). - You want a wall that is visibly full and visibly alive rather than a mostly-empty million-square grid. - You want the position to be worth something — and are fine that someone might pay double for it. - You want views, clicks and kisses per square, and per-day charts for $5. ## Can you use both? Yes — $2. Link for a Dollar gives you a verified, permanent, categorised listing; Square Town gives you a live spot with a click count and a game around it. Neither excludes the other. The full field of $1 walls is ranked at [/blog/pixel-walls-ranked-2026](/blog/pixel-walls-ranked-2026); Link for a Dollar's alternatives are at [/alternatives/link-for-a-dollar](/alternatives/link-for-a-dollar). ## FAQ ### What does Link for a Dollar cost? $1 per square, with $4 for a 2×2, $10 for ten squares and $25 for a 5×5, on a permanent 1,000,000-square grid, as of August 2026. ### What does Square Town cost? $1 per 1×1 square, one-time. There are no bigger sizes or bundles. An optional $5 one-time unlock adds per-day analytics to a deed. ### Does Square Town verify that I own the domain? No. Square Town has no accounts and no verification; you paste a URL, pay $1 and receive a secret deed URL as the only proof of ownership. Link for a Dollar verifies via an email at your domain. ### Can I be evicted from Link for a Dollar? No; squares are permanent. On Square Town anyone can evict you by paying double what you paid, and the Throne doubles on every eviction. ### How full is each grid? As of August 2026 Link for a Dollar had 5 of 1,000,000 squares claimed. Square Town only shows its live area, which starts at 16×16 and grows by 8 cells in every direction each time it is 70 % full, up to 1,048,576 squares — so it never displays empty space it hasn't unlocked. ### Do either of them sell backlinks? Square Town does not: the wall is a WebGL canvas and clicks go through a counted redirect, so there is no link equity. Buy a square for visibility, the game and the analytics. We make no claim about Link for a Dollar's markup.