Terms and bidding rules

Outbidoku is a free Sudoku game. The nine digits of every grid can be sponsored: when a company owns a digit, its logo replaces that digit everywhere in the game. These terms cover both playing and bidding. By using the site or placing a bid, you accept them.

1. How bidding works

• Each digit from 1 to 9 is a separate slot, held by at most one company at a time.
• A free digit costs $5.
• To take a digit that is already owned, you pay at least 25% more than the current owner, rounded up to the next dollar. You can always pay more than the minimum.
• Taking a digit back: when you are outbid, our email gives you a link to take the digit back. Through that link, the amount of the bid you lost is deducted from your payment: you only pay the difference. The minimum bid is unchanged. The link works once, on that digit, until the next monthly reset; if the same link pays twice, the second payment is refunded in full, automatically.
• Your logo appears as soon as the payment is confirmed, usually within a few seconds.
• Prices are in US dollars. Payments are processed by Stripe; we never see your card details.

2. The 30-minute lock

Right after a purchase, the digit is locked for 30 minutes: nobody can outbid you during that time. After the lock, anyone can take it by paying at least 25% more.

3. Monthly reset

On the 15th of every month at 00:00 UTC, every digit is released and becomes free again at $5. A bid gives you a digit until you are outbid or until the next reset, whichever comes first. The reset date is shown before you pay. The launch season, opened on September 12, 2026, runs until October 15, 2026.

4. Payments are final

Bids are non-refundable. Losing your digit to a higher bid, or at the monthly reset, is the normal course of the game and does not entitle you to a refund, whatever the time you held it.

One exception: if the digit is bought by someone else while you are on the payment page (because it got locked, or because the price went up), your payment is refunded in full, automatically, and we email you.

5. Results

When you lose a digit, we email you how long you held it, how many grids were started while your logo was on it, and how many times it was clicked. These numbers are counted in good faith but are approximate (ad blockers, bots and outages can affect them). We don't guarantee any number of views or clicks.

6. What you can put on a digit

You must have the right to use the name, logo and website you submit. We don't accept content that is illegal, sexual, hateful, violent, deceptive (phishing, scams, fake products, impersonation), malware, gambling or anything aimed at children in a harmful way.

We may remove a sponsor that breaks these rules, or at the request of a competent authority, without refund. We may also replace a broken or unreadable logo with your site's icon.

7. Playing

The game is free and needs no account. Your current grid is saved in your browser only. The site is provided as is: we do our best to keep it running but don't guarantee it will always be available.

An account is optional. It keeps your XP and your solved grids, and puts your username, and the link you add to it, on the public leaderboard. Keep it respectful: we may rename or remove an offensive or misleading username, remove a link to harmful or misleading content, and remove scores obtained by cheating. You can delete your account at any time from your profile.

8. Sponsor prizes

A sponsor that owns a digit can offer a prize to players. The prize goes to every signed-in player who earns the required XP during the season, not only to the top of the leaderboard, within the number of winners the sponsor set, if any. Seasons follow the monthly reset.

• We set the XP threshold, review every prize before it is listed, and may decline, edit or remove a prize at any time, without refund or notice. One prize per digit per season.
• The prize is offered and delivered by the sponsor alone, who commits to honouring it for every winner. Outbidoku is not a party to it and is not responsible for its delivery or its value.
• Winners receive the redemption details (a code, a link or instructions) in their account and by email. Sponsors never receive players' email addresses; they only see how many players won, and the winners' usernames may appear on the leaderboard.
• Scores obtained by cheating forfeit any prize, and we may withdraw a prize already awarded in that case.
• A prize submission must follow the same content rules as a digit (section 6) and must be lawful where it is offered.

9. Liability

To the extent permitted by law, our total liability to a sponsor is limited to the amount of their last bid. We are not responsible for the content of the websites sponsors link to, nor for the prizes they offer.

10. Changes and contact

We may update these terms; the new version applies to bids placed after it is published. Outbidoku is a project by Uneed. Questions: [email protected].