For radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, digital and outdoor
Turn unsold ad space into cash.
Local businesses trade for your advertising and pay you in gift certificates. Your audience buys them at a discount on your own deal store, under your name. The money goes straight to your bank.
No setup fee, no monthly fee. Buddy Bargin takes 15% of each sale and nothing else.
- You are the seller
- Payments land in your own Stripe account
- Vouchers in seconds
- Bought online, scanned once at the counter
- Your market, exclusively
- One store per Census market
- Live public data
- FCC station records and the 2020 Census
How the trade works
Three steps. You keep the cash.
Trade
A local business takes an ad schedule and pays you in gift certificates instead of a check.
Sell
Your audience buys those certificates at a discount on your own Buddy Bargin store.
Collect
Buyers pay by card straight to your Stripe account. The business gets customers in the door.
The money, worked through
One $3,000 trade.
A restaurant takes a $3,000 schedule and pays in 120 certificates worth $25.00 each. You sell them at $12.50 — half off. Here’s where every dollar goes.
The airtime or space was inventory you weren’t selling. The restaurant got $3,000 of advertising and 120 new customers. Nobody wrote a check.
- Certificates sold120 × $12.50
- $1,500
- Buddy Bargin platform fee (15%)taken automatically
- − $225.00
- Stripe card processing2.9% + 30¢ each
- − $79.50
- In your bank
- $1,196
Who it’s for
Any media company with space to trade.
Radio
Commercial, public and community stations, clusters and translators
Trades unsold spots, sponsorships and live reads.
Read the one-sheet →
Television
Full-power, Class A and low-power TV stations, and their digital newsrooms
Trades unsold spots, news sponsorships and digital pre-roll.
Read the one-sheet →
Newspapers & magazines
Daily and weekly papers, city and regional magazines, shoppers
Trades unsold ad pages, inserts and digital ad space.
Read the one-sheet →
Digital & outdoor
Local news sites, city guides, podcast networks, billboard and DOOH companies
Trades display and native ads, newsletter sponsorships, open billboard faces.
Read the one-sheet →
Your money is never ours to hold
When a deals vendor folds, stations lose money. Not here.
In 2024 a deals vendor serving radio went dark, and stations reported money from certificates already sold that they never received. With Buddy Bargin, every payment goes to your own Stripe account and out to your bank on Stripe’s schedule. You’re the seller of record. We take our 15% automatically and never touch the rest.
Market exclusivity
Be the only deals store in your market.
Your home market — the Census metro or micro area around your transmitter or office — is yours. No Census market? Then 25 miles around you.
We help you sell
Social media pushes that send your audience to your store.
Your stations bring the reach. We help with the social side: pushes for new deals, drops and gift seasons that point your followers straight to your online store, so certificates sell between your on-air mentions too.
See what your coverage is worth.
Type your call letters — or your cluster’s — and we’ll pull your FCC record and count the people in your coverage from the 2020 Census, live.