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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 paid for itself twice over. How the idea became a marketplace.

2010: five stickers at $2,500 each

In January 2010, Cameron Herold, former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and a busy speaker at business events, 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 where the laptop went: on stage, in front of rooms full of the people his sponsors wanted, a hundred times a year. The price made sense against what a sponsor would otherwise pay to be in one of those rooms once. It also stayed a one-off. He had a stage, a newspaper and a following, and there was no way for anyone with only a laptop to do the same.

The sixteen years in between

The idea kept being rediscovered and kept running into the same three walls. Nobody could sell a spot to a stranger without a way to take the money and give it back if the sticker never went on. A laptop with one owner and one audience has at most a handful of buyers, and finding them was a job. And a brand buying a sticker on a stranger’s lid wanted some proof that it was there, which meant a photo and somebody to insist on it. Each of those is a marketplace problem, and a marketplace is a lot of work to build for a product nobody had yet shown would sell.

What changed was not the idea. Stripe made it possible to hold a card and charge it later, and to pay a stranger directly without touching the money; social platforms made a following something a stranger could verify; and one laptop, in 2026, showed that the demand existed.

2026: one MacBook, paid for twice over

In the summer of 2026, brandmymac.com put the idea on a page anyone could buy from: a MacBook still to be bought, its lid divided into 10 squares, and an auction for each. The launch post on X was seen 13M+ times and the page had 139k+ visitors. 150 bids were placed across two rounds. The lid alone raised $8,467; with the inside of the machine and its accessories, a second wave of 10 spots sold in the auction’s second week, the total came to $9,307 against a $4,263 machine: 218% of the goal.

The spread of prices is the useful part. The dearest square went for $2,007; the cheapest of the palm-rest spots for $46. A spot’s price was set by its size, by how many brands wanted it that day, and by nothing else. Two of the round-one winners never paid, their squares were put back up, and every one of the 20 spots was paid for when round two closed on 24 September. What each spot went for, with the lid as it closed.

What brandmymac proved is narrower than it looks, and worth stating exactly. A viral moment put several brands on one square at once, and an auction turned that into $9,307. A laptop with an ordinary audience gets one buyer per spot, not five, and an auction with one bidder is a fixed price with a fortnight of waiting in front of it. So the marketplace that came out of it sells at fixed prices by default, and offers the auction to sellers who want one.

Now: a price, a hold and a photo

BrandMyLaptop opened on 29 August 2026 and lets anyone with a laptop do what Herold did, without the stage. The owner picks a layout, sets a price per spot and a term of 3, 6, 12 or 24 months, says where the laptop goes and who they are, and signs in with X or LinkedIn to publish. Listing costs $19 once.

A brand picks a spot, uploads a logo and pays; the card is held, not charged. The owner approves or declines from their dashboard. On yes, the card is charged and the money goes straight to the owner’s own Stripe account, with 10% to the platform; on no, the hold is released and nothing was charged. The owner then has fourteen days to print the sticker, put it on and post a photo on the listing, where it sits beside a link to the brand for the whole term. An owner who wants bidding can run the lid as an auction instead, at 15%, with every bid held on a card and the winner charged at the close.

Since the board opened, brands have paid $13,461 across 43 spots on strangers’ laptops, at a median of $240. 139 laptops are open to brands today. All the figures, updated daily and free to cite.

Three ways to sell the same lid

What a laptop earns

Herold’s $12,500 a year and brandmymac’s $9,307 are the top of the range, and each had something most people do not: a stage, or a viral post. What an ordinary lid earns depends on three things the listing states — who carries it, where it goes, and how many stickers it already wears — and on whether the owner tells anyone it exists. A lid published and never mentioned sells nothing, and most of the lids that have sold were posted by their owner first.

• Where it goes is the price. Conferences, client meetings and a camera are worth more than a desk at home, and the wizard asks so the listing can say.
• Size is the next thing. The top row sells for several times the middle row; the medians by row are published.
• The owner keeps most of it. 90% of a fixed-price sale, less Stripe’s own processing fee, paid to their account on approval.

How much a lid can earn, for the seller side of it.

Doing it with your own laptop

1. 1

   List it

   The wizard asks for the machine, the layout, the prices, the term and where the laptop goes, then signs you in with X or LinkedIn to publish. It takes a few minutes.

2. 2

   Connect Stripe

   From the dashboard, so brands' money goes to you. Until then the listing is a shop window and says buying opens shortly.

3. 3

   Tell people

   A post with a picture of the lid is what sells the first spot. The dashboard writes it for you, and a badge for your site counts the spots down by itself.

4. 4

   Approve, print, photograph

   Each logo comes to your dashboard. Say yes and the money moves; print the file at the stated size, put it on, and post the photo within fourteen days.

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, and the brands on brandmymac bought it at auction. What changed is that it no longer takes a stage and a newspaper to sell it, or a viral post to find the buyer: the price is on the page, the card is held until the owner says yes, and the photo is the proof.

Questions

Can you really sell ad space on a laptop?

Yes. Cameron Herold sold five spots at $2,500 each in 2010, brandmymac.com sold all 20 spots on one MacBook in 2026 for 7,955 €, and brands have paid for spots on strangers' laptops on BrandMyLaptop since August 2026. The figures are on the stats page.

How much is a sticker spot on a laptop worth?

It depends on who carries the laptop and where it goes. Herold charged $2,500 a year on a laptop that went on stage; the median spot on BrandMyLaptop sells for much less, and the pricing page shows the medians by spot size as brands have actually paid them.

Is it an auction?

By default, no: each spot has one price set by the owner, and the first brand the owner approves takes it. An owner can run the lid as an auction instead, at 15% rather than 10%, which is how brandmymac was sold.

Who gets the money?

The laptop's owner, directly, into their own Stripe account, when they approve a logo. The platform takes 10% and never holds the money; listing costs $19 once.

What does the brand get?

A printed logo on the lid for the term the listing states, 3 to 24 months, a photo of it on the listing, and a link back to their site. It is a paid placement, not an endorsement.

Related guides

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• Developer marketing, on the laptops developers carryDevelopers ignore ads and notice what other developers use. A sticker on a developer's laptop is seen where they work, meet and give talks.
• Cheaper than a conference boothA conference booth costs thousands before you staff it. A sticker on an attendee's laptop is in the room for the price of one spot.
• Micro-influencer marketing, offlineA sponsored post lasts a day in a feed. A sticker on a creator's laptop shows up in every video, stream and meeting for months.