Hey all! I keep seeing a lot of the same questions and wanted to remind everyone that some of it has been addressed by Brave. This is not an exhaustive resource and will be a bit long. My hope is that it might help some of you as this information is kind of scattered all over the place and a lot of users are sharing some misinformation…such as the thought that you have to click ads to earn BAT. So here we go, just my own personal attempt to explain what little I know and link to official resources for you to see for yourself. Remember, when in doubt, message moderators. (And remember, I’m not a moderator or affiliated with Brave in any way. I’m just a normal user)
HOW TO SEE ADS AND EARN
- Your IP address and device location MUST be in an ad supported region. It is vital to realize if you use a VPN and your device Locale is at a different location, you won’t see ads or earn BAT. Also true if yours matches but you’re not in a ad supported region
- Make sure Brave Rewards is turned on and you’ve chosen a set amount of ads per hour. NOTE This is only the MAXIMUM per hour. We aren’t guaranteed ads, it all depends on your location and how many advertisers are available. We also are limited to how many times we can see each ad. So it’s possible to hit the ad cap and be stuck with nothing.
User exceeded the frequency caps for their region
- There are a LOT of things that can interfere with ads. For example,
running your browser in full screen will cause ads not to show.
Turning off notifications, running in Game Mode, or even having Focus Assist can also stop them.
For a full list of some of the things that can prevent ads, check out https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360055013431-Why-don-t-I-see-any-Brave-Ads-after-enabling-them-
- Recognize that there is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED to click on ads. We are given BAT from ads based on it appearing in our notifications. You don’t need to interact with them. In fact, Brave has asked that we only interact with ads if we are interested in them.
How long do I have to view the ad before my “attention” accounts as a “view”?
Users are rewarded for viewing ad notifications as they appear in Brave. Users are not rewarded for clicking on ads.
What exactly am I getting paid for? Just seeing the ad notification or actually clicking the ad?
In the initial Brave Ads release, users receive BAT for viewing the ad notifications. In future releases, users will be able to earn additional rewards for engagement events within the ad tabs. Brave does not reward users for clicking on the notifications. Brave’s position is that users should only click on ads that they have a genuine interest in engaging with.
- Exception Unfortunately iPad and iPhone are not able to earn BAT at this time due to Apple. Those of us with either can still opt into ads but we won’t receive BAT. Instead 100% of earnings from those ads will go to Brave for future development and their maintenance on the Brave Browser for Apple devices. https://brave.com/rewards-ios/
EDIT Not 100%. They are saying it gets divided up and some of the BAT goes to support creators who are established with Brave. Either way, opting in helps to give incentive to creators to work with Brave to give us the best and safest experience.
WHY HAS MY ESTIMATED BAT DECREASED?
It’s important to remember that everything is an estimate until it processes. Advertisers can pay in either BAT or USD and this is then divided among users. As the month goes on, the system tries to track the price of BAT and your payout will change based on that. For those who paid in cash, that means as BAT value increases, you’ll receive less. Like if an ad somehow paid you 1 BAT, which was valued at $0.50 but then increases to $1.20, you’ll not receive 1 BAT but instead would receive something like .62 BAT or so. The trick here is it’s not just based on the current market, but the overall 30 days, which of course changes up until the time payments roll out. If you’d like to dig deeper, I’ll link two articles below here. The main thing to remember is your ESTIMATED total is just that, an estimate and may change.
I DID NOT GET MY BAT
There’s actually a lot of things that could be happening. A lot of times people assume it’s Brave but that’s not always the case.
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Gemini and Uphold have blacklisted some regions due to an increased amount of fraud. If you’re in those areas, Brave will be unable to send the BAT to your accounts. It will still exist on Brave, but it will only be available for tipping until Gemini and Uphold reopen the wallets in those regions again. Changes to Brave Ads Regional Availability
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There is actually a small delay in payments for newer people/wallets. This means your current cycle might not pay out immediately and instead pays out the following. There has been a lot of progress to eliminate this issue but it does show its head on occasion. An example of a post where Brave staff shared on this can be seen at https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/bkyn0r/notice_brave_ads_hotfix_dont_worry_you_didnt_lose/
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Some people don’t know how to follow directions. While the example I’m linking to isn’t about Rewards, it’s a good example of how people don’t pay attention.
But this also has been a regular issue in people not confirming email for Uphold, inputting the wrong information, etc.
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This kind of goes with things said prior, but it’s important to check that you’ve got all your things in order. People tend to forget to set up verifications or even ignore Uphold or Gemini, when sometimes issues on their end. An example of this is @steeven please read this / Incomplete December Payout - #3 by steeven
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Sometimes things just go wrong. In this situation you’re asked to reach out to staff/moderators such as @steeven . It is often best to DM him and provide the below quoted information. Again, that’s in a direct message. Keep your data safe and try not to share publicly.
Thank you for reporting! Please DM with the following information:
- Copy/paste your Wallet ID (found on
brave://rewards-internals
)- Your OS and Brave version (first three lines in
brave://version
)- A screenshot of your Rewards panel in
Settings --> Brave Rewards
.This will help to speed up the troubleshooting. Thank you in advance!
- Your account may have been flagged.
There are many reasons this can happen. One example is running multiple browsers with the same wallet ID (each browser on different devices have a different internal Wallet, so cloning this flags as possible issue or fraud) Another would be using a VPN to pretend you’re in another region to earn BAT. Essentially any activity that violates TOS, poses a security risk to your account, or anything that might be questionable will flag the account so that Brave and Brave users aren’t losing money. Currently there is no way to know if you’ve been flagged beyond messaging moderators/staff as mentioned in #5.
- And I’m sure there’s more things that I’m not listing because I don’t have a clue. It’s important to reach out to staff if you ever have concerns. Yet it’s equally important to remember they don’t have a lot of staff and they receive thousands of messages and notifications each day. While they do their best to get back to us, it can sometimes take a while. Try to be patient and remember, they are just human like you.