Terms of Service

StartupThrone is operated by the business named at the foot of this page ("we", "us"). These terms are a contract between you and us when you pay for a listing, and they also apply when you browse the site.

You must be at least 18 years old to pay. By paying you confirm that you are, that you may act for the startup you list, and that you accept these terms, the Privacy Policy, the Content Rules and Acceptable Use and the Refund and Cancellation Policy.

Nobody needs an account. You pay without signing up. Only our staff (moderators, finance and administrators) have accounts, which we create, and they sign in with a one-time code sent by email plus an authenticator app.

StartupThrone is a public leaderboard of startups ranked only by the amount paid. It is a paid advertising ranking. A place depends only on the amount paid, never on quality, traffic or our opinion. Every listing is an advertisement by the startup that paid for it, and a place on the board is not an endorsement, a rating or a recommendation by us.

We sell visibility, not outcomes. We do not promise any number of visits, customers, sales, investment or other results.

To list a startup you give:

• its name (up to 40 characters) and a one-line pitch (up to 90 characters);
• its website, which must start with https and belong to the startup listed;
• optionally, a logo (PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 2 MB). We strip the file's metadata before it is shown;
• a category from our fixed list;
• an email address for the receipt, the private edit link and alerts (optional when you only move a listing up);
• the amount you want to pay.

Before you pay, automated checks look at the listing: text rules, checks on the website address, Google Safe Browsing and checks for impersonation of brands. A listing they refuse is never charged.

You keep ownership of what you submit. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, display and reproduce it on StartupThrone and in images that share the board, for as long as it is listed and for a reasonable time after, to run the service. You promise that you have the right to use it, that every claim in it is true, and that it does not infringe anyone's rights. You are responsible for your listing and for your website.

• Rank is the total paid. A listing's total is everything paid for it since it was last listed. The largest total holds #1. When two totals are equal, the startup that listed first is placed higher.
• Anyone can raise any listing. Anyone can pay any amount for any listing on the board, and it adds to that listing's total.
• A listing stays for 30 days after its last payment. Every payment extends it to 30 days from the day of that payment.
• Expiry starts it again. When a listing expires it leaves the board. A payment after that lists it again, and its total starts again from that payment. The old total does not come back.
• Being passed is how the ranking works. Anyone who pays more can take a place above yours at any time.
• Passing is public, and stated as fact. When a startup takes a place, the leaderboard and its takeover page may say which startup it passed, by name only and never with that startup's logo, and only as a statement of what was paid. Our emails to other founders name only the startup that took the place, never the one it passed. You can turn this off for your startup at any time from your manage link; it then says only that the place was taken. A startup removed for breaking the rules is never named.

The name, pitch and logo show as soon as the payment is confirmed. The website link shows only after a moderator checks it, usually within a few hours.

If a moderator does not approve the link, it stays hidden and the logo is taken down with it, but the paid name, pitch and place remain. Not approving a link is not a reason for a refund.

"Visit" links pass through our own address so we can count visits, and we add ?ref=startupthrone to the address your visitors arrive at.

Each payment is a whole number of rupees from ₹49 to ₹5,00,000. Prices are final and include any GST that applies; while we are registered for GST, the tax is shown on the payment page and on a GST tax invoice. A numbered invoice is issued for every paid order and is shown on the payment confirmation page.

Payments are taken by Cashfree Payments, our payment provider, by UPI, card, netbanking or wallet. You enter card and UPI details on Cashfree's pages, never ours, and we never see or store them. A payment counts only when Cashfree confirms it to our servers.

A listing must follow the Content Rules and Acceptable Use. Visitors can report a listing, and a moderator can remove one that breaks the rules. When a listing is removed, every payment made for it is refunded in full, automatically, to the original payment method.

Otherwise payments are not refundable, except as the Refund and Cancellation Policy sets out (for example, a payment taken twice).

Do not interfere with the service: no scraping that burdens it, no automated or fake visits or reports, no attempts to get around the automated checks or the link check, and no attempt to reach systems or data you are not meant to reach.

We provide the service with reasonable skill and care, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or free of errors. Listings are advertisements by the startups that paid for them, and we do not check or vouch for their claims, products or websites beyond the checks described above.

To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss. Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law does not allow to be limited, or your statutory rights as a consumer.

These terms are governed by the laws of India. Please contact the Grievance Officer first; most problems are solved there. Any dispute that remains is subject to the jurisdiction of the courts at the place of our registered office, without affecting your right to approach a consumer commission.

We may update these terms. The date at the top shows the latest version. A change never applies to a payment made before it took effect.