How to Become an Adspots Host: Earn Per Adspot-Hour

An Adspots host is paid for turning a surface they already own or use — a delivery box, a shopfront window, a café counter — into bookable, GPS-verified advertising space. Setup takes under 30 minutes, and the seven Greenwich host listings live on the platform right now range from £8 to £16 per adspot-hour, depending on the surface. This guide covers who qualifies as a host, which surfaces the platform accepts, how a listing goes live, and what actually happens once a client books it.

Mobile hosts and local hosts

Adspots splits hosting into two categories, and the difference is simply whether the surface moves.

A mobile host carries a client's advertising on something that travels a route — a delivery rider's box, a cargo bike panel, a car door or window wrap. The advert moves with the host's normal working day; nothing changes about their route or shift, and the platform checks the surface's location at the start of each booked hour.

A local host displays advertising on something fixed — a shop window, a café table, a gym reception stand, a garden fence. The surface doesn't move; clients book specific hours within the host's normal opening times, and the check confirms the surface is still in the same place it was listed.

Either way, the mechanics are the same: a client finds a surface on the Adspots marketplace by location and rate, books one or more adspot-hours, and the host submits proof once each booked hour runs. A verified hour pays out; an hour that fails verification doesn't.

What surfaces qualify — and how size sets the rate

Not every flat surface is a qualifying one, but the list is broader than most new hosts expect. Adspots maintains a published table of accepted surface types, each with a standard size and a size-based multiplier that anchors how it's priced relative to a baseline 40 × 40 cm delivery box (multiplier 1.0):

• Mobile: a bicycle frame banner (50 × 15 cm, multiplier 0.5) and a bicycle delivery bag (30 × 35 cm, 0.7) sit below the baseline; a scooter or motorbike delivery box (40 × 40 cm) is the 1.0 reference size; a car door panel (80 × 80 cm, 1.5), a van side panel (2 m × 1 m, 3.0) and a full van wrap (~12 m² aggregate, 6.0) scale up from there.
• Local: a garden fence panel (100 × 60 cm, 0.6) and a house window (100 × 100 cm, 1.0) sit toward the smaller end; a shop window (100 × 200 cm, 2.5) and a building hoarding (~6 m², 4.0) sit at the larger, higher-visibility end.
• Wearable: a cap (0.4) or a jacket back panel (0.8) — the smallest qualifying category, typically listed by hosts already wearing branded kit for another reason.

The seven live Greenwich listings map onto this table directly: a Motorbike Delivery Box and a Food Courier Backpack Board sit at or near the 1.0 baseline and list at £11–£12/adspot; a Cargo Bike Delivery Box and an E-Scooter Rider Wrap sit slightly above it and list at £14–£16/adspot; a Café Counter Table Tent, at the smaller end of the local category, lists from £8/adspot, while a Corner-Shop Window Poster and a Gym Reception Portable Stand list at £13–£15/adspot.

Whatever the surface, it has to hold a clear, undamaged print for the length of the booking and sit somewhere the advertising actually reads — not folded into a bag, not obscured by till equipment or stock, not on something that moves too unpredictably to photograph reliably (a bike basket bouncing over cobbles, for instance). A private car used only for personal journeys, anything inside a residential home, or a spot that would obstruct road signage doesn't qualify. If a surface is borderline, the host onboarding flow flags likely problems before the listing goes to review, rather than after.

Setting up a listing

Most hosts finish onboarding in under 30 minutes.

1. Create a host profile at adspots.ai. Onboarding asks for identity verification and details of the surface being listed.
2. Describe the surface — category (mobile, local or wearable), location, and a clear photo of it in situ. This photo is the main thing a client judges the listing on.
3. Set the rate. Use the surface-type multiplier as a starting point, then adjust for route visibility or footfall — a table tent on a quiet side street is worth less than the same tent in a market square.
4. Add availability — the shifts or hours the host is genuinely working the route or has the venue open. Clients can only book from these declared slots.
5. Publish. The listing appears in the Adspots marketplace and becomes bookable immediately.

How a booking is verified

Once a client books an adspot-hour, the host receives the slot time and the creative — a sticker or wrap the client has arranged and delivered in advance. The host displays or carries it for the booked window, then proves it happened.

Proof of display has three parts, and getting the radius wrong is the single most common reason a host loses a paid slot:

1. A timestamped photo showing the advertising clearly visible on the surface.
2. A GPS check — within 200 metres of the declared location for a mobile surface (a moving vehicle or rider has more positional drift to allow for), or within 50 metres for a fixed local surface, where the location should barely vary at all.
3. A server-checked upload window — the photo has to land within 30 minutes of the booked start, timed by Adspots' own server rather than the phone's clock.

All three have to pass. A slot that fails isn't billed to the client and doesn't pay the host — there's no dispute process for the ordinary case, because the check is automatic and applies identically to every booking.

Why slots actually fail

Three patterns account for most failed proof, and all three are avoidable:

• An unclear photo — blurry, taken before the wrap is fully applied, or with the creative partly hidden by a strap, hand or till display. Photograph the surface once it's properly set up and well lit.
• Indoor GPS drift — a local host photographing from deep inside a shop can register outside the 50-metre radius even without moving. Stepping toward a window or doorway before submitting usually fixes this.
• A late upload — the 30-minute window starts at the booked slot time, not whenever the host next has a free moment. If a shift or opening hours shift on a given day, update availability in advance rather than uploading late.

A failed slot doesn't touch any other booking — each hour is verified on its own, and the next one is unaffected.

What hosts actually earn

Earnings scale directly with the rate set and how many booked hours a listing fills — Adspots doesn't set a fixed wage, and a listing that never gets booked earns nothing, whatever its rate. As a live example: a mobile host running the E-Scooter Rider Wrap listing at £16/adspot for a three-hour shift earns £48 if every hour is booked; a local host on the Café Counter Table Tent at £8/adspot fills a five-hour café opening for £40. Both figures are illustrative of current listed rates, not a guarantee — actual pay depends entirely on client demand for that route or location during the hours listed.

New Greenwich listings have generally started seeing bookings within their first few weeks live, but that reflects current demand in one borough at one point in time, not a platform-wide promise.

Practical points before you list

Sourcing the surface is the host's job. Adspots doesn't supply delivery boxes, wraps or stands. For a standard 40 × 40 cm delivery box, UK suppliers including Hartwells UK, Amazon UK and eBay UK are listed as options in the Adspots host guide; local hosts usually already have a qualifying surface in place.

Printing is the client's job. The client arranges and delivers the sticker or wrap before the slot starts — hosts don't manage production.

Multiple surfaces mean multiple listings. A host with more than one delivery box, or a venue with several distinct qualifying surfaces, lists each one separately, with its own rate, calendar and booking history.

Businesses looking at the other side of the marketplace — booking a surface rather than hosting one — can see how budgets and rates are set from the buyer's side in How Much Does Local Mobile Advertising Cost in the UK?

Frequently asked questions

How much can I earn as an Adspots host? It depends on the surface's rate and how many hours get booked. The seven current Greenwich listings range from £8/adspot (a café counter table tent) to £16/adspot (an e-scooter rider wrap). A fully booked three-hour shift at £16/adspot pays £48; a fully booked five-hour café opening at £8/adspot pays £40. Actual earnings depend on client demand for that route or location.

Do I need to buy special equipment? Only if you're a mobile host without a qualifying surface already. A standard delivery box is 40 × 40 cm, available from UK suppliers such as Hartwells UK, Amazon UK or eBay UK. Local hosts typically already have a qualifying surface — a window, counter or fence — in place.

How does GPS verification actually work? At the start of each booked hour, the host uploads a timestamped photo through the Adspots app. The platform checks that the photo's GPS position sits within 200 metres of the declared location for a mobile surface, or 50 metres for a fixed local surface, and that it was uploaded within 30 minutes of the slot start, timed by Adspots' own server. Pass all three and the hour is marked delivered; fail any one and neither the client nor the host is charged or paid for it.

How and when do I get paid? Payment processes after each hour is verified as delivered. Adspots pays the host's listed rate minus the platform commission, transferred via Stripe to the host's connected account.

Can I list more than one surface? Yes. A host with several qualifying surfaces — more than one delivery box, or a venue with distinct spots — creates a separate listing for each, with its own rate, availability and booking history.

What if I need to cancel a booked slot? Cancel through the Adspots app as early as possible so the client can rebook with another host. Frequent late cancellations can reduce how often a listing surfaces in local search, since reliability is part of what makes a host worth booking again.

Can I stop hosting whenever I want? Yes — pause or remove a listing at any time, with no minimum commitment. Slots already booked and confirmed before pausing should still be honoured; no new bookings arrive once the listing is inactive.

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See the current range of bookable surfaces on the Adspots marketplace, read how the platform verifies every booking in How Adspots Verifies Every Local Ad Actually Went Up, or start a host listing at adspots.ai.