# Square Town vs The Million Dollar Homepage: $1 square vs $100 block

> Square Town vs The Million Dollar Homepage — the 2005 original ($1/pixel, $100 minimum, sold out) compared with a $1 favicon square on a live 3D wall.

Source: https://square.pov.town/vs/million-dollar-homepage

The Million Dollar Homepage (milliondollarhomepage.com) is the 2005 original: a 1,000×1,000-pixel page that sold pixels at $1 each in 10×10 blocks ($100 minimum), sold out in five months for $1.04 million, and has been frozen ever since. Square Town (square.pov.town) is a favicon wall: $1 buys one 1×1 square on a live 3D grid, no minimum, and anyone can evict you for double. The difference is a finished monument versus a wall that is still being played.

## At a glance

| | The Million Dollar Homepage | Square Town |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1 per pixel, sold in 10×10 blocks — $100 minimum | $1 per square, one-time; every square is 1×1 |
| What you place | Uploaded image + link + tooltip | Your site's favicon (fetched from the URL) + link |
| How you pick a spot | Chose a free block at purchase time (2005) | Click any empty cell in the live area |
| Ownership model | Permanent; the page has been static since it sold out | Own it until someone pays double what you paid |
| Can you lose your spot? | No — nothing changes; but your link can die (about 40 % have) | Yes — eviction at 2× your price; un-kissed icons fade after 90 days |
| Game mechanics | None; the last 1,000 pixels were auctioned for $38,100 | Evictions, one Throne ($100 intro, doubles), kisses vs decay, rings unlock at 70 % fill, Hall of Clowns |
| Live? | No | Yes — WebSockets push every buy, eviction, kiss, unlock |
| 3D? | No | Yes — favicons are towers, height = clicks |
| Analytics | None | Views, clicks, kisses per deed; $5 one-time for per-day charts |
| Accounts | n/a | None — a secret deed URL is the only proof |
| Payment | n/a — sold out | Stripe (card) |
| Audience | 2005 web: casinos, hosts, novelty sites, and everyone who wanted to be on it | Indie hackers, side projects, anyone with a URL and $1 |
| Launched | 2005 | August 2026 |
| Status (Aug 2026) | Sold out; frozen archive with roughly 40 % dead links | Active; central 16×16 live, grows to 1,048,576 squares |

## What The Million Dollar Homepage does well

**It is the original, and it finished.** Alex Tew's page sold 1,000,000 pixels in five months for $1.04 million, and the last 1,000 pixels went at auction for $38,100. No clone has repeated that, and hundreds have tried — our landscape counts about 120 dead or dormant ones. Being on the MDH is being in a museum; nothing built after it can offer that.

**Permanence in the strict sense.** Nothing has been added, moved or removed since it sold out. If your block is on the page, it will be on the page. Square Town's "forever*" comes with an asterisk: a one-time payment with no expiry, but you can be evicted for double.

**Big images.** A 10×10 block is 100 pixels of your own artwork; the page is a collage of logos, banners and jokes. Square Town is a grid of 16-pixel favicons. It looks like a wall of app icons, not a billboard.

**A story everyone already knows.** "Million Dollar Homepage" is the mental model for the whole category. When you explain Square Town, you say "like the Million Dollar Homepage, but…". That is a compliment to the MDH.

## What Square Town does differently

**$1, not $100.** The MDH minimum was a 10×10 block for $100. Square Town's minimum is one square for $1, and there is no larger size to buy. Ten squares is $10, and they do not have to be adjacent.

**Favicon from a URL, no upload.** Paste a URL and Square Town fetches the favicon via Google's favicon service. There is no image to design, host or resize. Sites without a favicon get a clown emoji until they fix it — the [Hall of Clowns](/glossary/hall-of-clowns) is public.

**Things can happen to your square.** Anyone can evict any square by paying double its last price ($1 → $2 → $4…). The Throne — the 4×4 dead centre — starts at $100 and doubles with every eviction. An icon nobody has kissed for 90 days fades to grayscale until someone kisses it (free, anyone, counted). The MDH has no rules after purchase, which is exactly why it is a monument and not a game. See [/blog/economics-of-eviction](/blog/economics-of-eviction).

**The wall never looks empty.** Only the central 16×16 is live at launch; each time the live area is 70 % full it grows by 8 cells in every direction, up to 1024×1024. Locked area is not shown. The MDH launched as one million blank pixels and filled from there.

**Live and 3D.** Every buy, eviction, kiss and unlock is pushed to every open browser over WebSockets. Ctrl+drag tilts the wall into 3D, where each favicon is a tower whose height is its click count. The MDH is a static image map.

**Analytics.** After buying you get a secret deed URL showing the square's views, clicks and kisses; $5 one-time unlocks per-day charts. On the MDH you never learned whether anyone clicked.

**Dead links are visible.** The MDH is roughly 40 % dead links because nothing ever fades or gets replaced. On Square Town a dead site keeps its square, but nobody kisses a dead site, so it fades to grayscale within 90 days and stays cheap to evict. The wall self-cleans. See [/blog/dead-links-problem-of-pixel-ads](/blog/dead-links-problem-of-pixel-ads).

## The Million Dollar Homepage in 2026

As of August 2026 the page is up, sold out and unchanged: a frozen archive of the 2005 web. Roughly 40 % of its links no longer resolve, and it sells nothing — there is no waiting list, no resale market and no way to buy in. It remains the most-cited page in the genre and the reason every clone since has been priced at "$1 a pixel". Its 20th anniversary in 2025 produced a wave of anniversary clones, most of which are already dead or empty; 2026 has produced a second wave of "$1 forever" square walls. The MDH itself is not competing with any of them. It is finished, and that is the point of it. Our longer write-up is at [/blog/million-dollar-homepage-21-years-later](/blog/million-dollar-homepage-21-years-later).

## Who should pick The Million Dollar Homepage

- Nobody can, in the buying sense — it sold out within five months of its 2005 launch. Visit it as history.
- If you already have a block: keep the link alive. You are in the 60 % that still works.

## Who should pick Square Town

- You want the MDH idea at $1, today, with a spot you choose yourself.
- You have several URLs and want each visible without designing anything.
- You want a wall with rules — evictions, a Throne, kisses, ring unlocks — rather than a static collage.
- You want to know whether anyone clicked, per square, without an account.
- You are choosing between the current $1 walls: compare [/vs/the-forever-wall](/vs/the-forever-wall), [/vs/million-squares-project](/vs/million-squares-project) and the ranked list at [/alternatives/million-dollar-homepage](/alternatives/million-dollar-homepage).

## Can you use both?

Only in one direction. You cannot buy into The Million Dollar Homepage; you can buy a square for $1 at [square.pov.town](/). If you own an original MDH block, putting the same URL on Square Town costs a dollar and gets you the one thing the MDH never had: a click count.

## FAQ

### How much did a spot on The Million Dollar Homepage cost?

$1 per pixel, sold in 10×10 blocks, so the minimum was $100. The page sold out in five months for $1.04 million; the final 1,000 pixels were auctioned for $38,100.

### Can you still buy pixels on The Million Dollar Homepage?

No. It sold out within five months of launching in 2005 and has been a frozen archive since. As of August 2026 roughly 40 % of its links are dead.

### How is Square Town different from The Million Dollar Homepage?

Square Town sells 1×1 squares for $1 with no minimum, shows the site's favicon instead of an uploaded image, and adds rules: any square can be evicted for double its price, the centre Throne doubles on every eviction, un-kissed icons fade after 90 days, and the live area grows only when 70 % full. It is live over WebSockets and can be viewed in 3D.

### Is Square Town "forever" like the Million Dollar Homepage?

Square Town is a one-time payment with no expiry, but you can be evicted by anyone paying double what you paid, and un-kissed icons fade (still owned). The MDH is permanent in the strict sense because nothing on it can change.

### Does buying a square give me SEO value like the MDH's links?

No. Square Town does not sell backlinks or link equity; the wall is a WebGL canvas and clicks go through a counted redirect. Buy a square for visibility, the game and the analytics.

### What replaced The Million Dollar Homepage?

Nothing replaced it — it is still up. In 2026 the closest active options at the $1 price are Square Town, The Forever Wall, Million Squares Project and Link for a Dollar; the ranked comparison is at [/alternatives/million-dollar-homepage](/alternatives/million-dollar-homepage).