Backstory: Even though we planned on having the Free version of billQ be ad-supported, we've been struggling with a good way to handle the ads. We tried Google Ads for a little while, but eventually just scrapped third-party ads all together and instead just ran an ad promoting the coupon code for billQ Free users who wanted to upgrade to billQ Plus.

Part of the problem is finding ads we approve of. We don't want to throw garbage out there, and we'd rather not have to sell our souls and put up ads for things we don't believe in. Plus, we have an app that is designed around saving you money by helping you keep track of your bills and ultimately reduce expenses you don't need. So how do we reconcile throwing ads out there that encourage you to buy more crap? It's a dilemma.

But all that being said, we're still going to try to find something that works and allows us to generate some revenue to invest back into billQ. Starting today, we are again going to try to experiment with some banner ads within billQ and on the billQ blog. (The in-app ad will only show up for billQ Free users of course, and it will be small and static. No animations.)

The system we have in place allows us to approve ads before they run, so we plan on doing so with a heavy hand. We want to only show ads that are more endorsements than anything else. Products or services we think would be actually useful for all of you.

If not, we won't approve them. This means that you may see a blank "Advertise Here" slot 99.9% of the time. If this ends up being the case after the first few months, we'll probably just scrap the ads again. At least until we can dedicate the time to sell the ad inventory ourselves and secure some ads for useful products and services.

So we just wanted to give everyone (mostly users of billQ Free) a heads up that they may start seeing a small banner ad in billQ. If anyone has any questions or concerns about this, please let us know at support@mybillq.com.

And if you happen to be the owner of a useful, well-designed product or service that would match up nicely with the responsible, value-conscious people who use billQ, then please feel free to purchase some ad space.