BrandMyLaptop / Guides

Selling ad space on a laptop lid, a short history

In 2010 Cameron Herold sold the stickers on his laptop for $2,500 each. In 2026 one MacBook funded itself three times over. Here is what changed in between.

2010: five stickers at $2,500 each

In January 2010, Cameron Herold — former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and by then speaking at business events constantly — offered five spots on his laptop to sponsors for the year, at $2,500 a spot: about $200 a month for a logo in front of the business audiences he spoke to. By March the Vancouver Sun was writing about it, and he had sold space on the back of his phone too. He ran it again in 2011.

It worked because of who he was: a laptop opened on stage, in front of rooms full of the exact people his sponsors wanted. And it stayed a one-off for the same reason: it ran on his audience, and there was nothing in it that someone without one could reuse.

2026: one MacBook, paid for three times over

Sixteen years later, brandmymac.com put the same idea on a page anyone could buy from. A MacBook that did not exist yet, a lid divided into 10 squares, and an auction for each. The lid raised $8,467 on its own, and $9,307 with the inside and the accessories, against a $2,959 machine — 315% of the goal.

It worked because a post went viral and put several brands on the same square at once. That is what an auction needs, and it is not what most people with a laptop have.

Now: a price, a hold and a photo

BrandMyLaptop is that idea for everybody else. The owner sets a fixed price per spot and a term, from 3 to 24 months. A brand pays, and its card is held rather than charged until the owner approves the logo. The money goes straight into the owner’s own Stripe account, the platform takes 10%, and the sticker’s photo goes up on the listing.

Since the board opened on 29 August 2026, brands have paid $13,794 across 44 spots, at a median of $243. 151 laptops are taking brands today. All the figures.

What has not changed

A named person, a machine that goes in front of people, and a term. Herold’s sponsors in 2010 bought exactly that. What changed is that it no longer takes a stage and a newspaper to sell it.