No. Rankings come from votes by people who used the product, and nothing else buys a position. Paid placements sit beside the board, labelled Promoted, and they are excluded from the ranking maths entirely.
Is launching really free?
Yes, and it stays free. A free launch gets the same product page, the same place on the board and the same shot at the top of the day as a paid one. There is no daily cap and no queue to skip.
Which upgrade should I pick?
Featured if you want more attention on one specific day — the digest slot and the rail card both land in launch week. Promoted if you want to keep showing up for people browsing weeks later. They stack: Promoted includes everything in Featured.
How do ad slots work?
Two rail cards run at a time and one newsletter slot goes out per issue, so a placement is genuinely exclusive rather than one of twenty. Rail weeks are booked online and go off sale the moment both slots are taken; a featured launch takes one of those two slots for its launch week.
What if a launch flops?
Both a featured week and a promoted week can be cancelled for a full refund from your orders page until seven days before the week starts. Inside those seven days, and once it is running, the booking is committed — the refund policy has the detail.
Can I pay right now?
Yes. Featured weeks and rail cards are paid by card at checkout, handled by Dodo Payments as merchant of record — they issue the receipt and invoice, and tax is worked out for your country on the spot. The booking is confirmed the moment the payment is, and shows up under Orders in your dashboard.