In one line: Indie makers can advertise a Chrome extension, Shopify app or SaaS on The Pillar for $4 to $8 a month (billboard) or from $9 a month (tower window). You get your logo in a 3D city game, a panel with your pitch, price and link, and a share page with its own preview card for launch posts. It's cheap and fixed, not a source of thousands of installs.
The indie maker's ad problem
I build small software for a living: six Chrome extensions, a handful of Shopify apps and a set of free web tools, all listed on this site. Most of them hit the same wall after launch. The products worked and the listings were fine, but hardly anyone knew they existed.
The usual answers don't fit a one-person product. Search ads on competitive software keywords can cost more per click than a small app earns from a user in a month. Social ads need a budget big enough to get through the platform's learning phase before they tell you anything. Agencies want retainers. And most of the free channels, from forums to directories, depend on someone else's rules about self-promotion.
What a small maker needs is less glamorous: a cheap, fixed-price placement that keeps showing the product's name all month, a link that's easy to share, and a way to see whether anyone clicked. That's the gap The Pillar fills, and since I built it, I'll be plain about where it helps and where it doesn't.
What The Pillar is
The Pillar is a free 3D city that runs in any browser, on desktop and on phones, with nothing to install. Visitors walk, drive cars, fly helicopters and planes, and glide in wingsuits through the streets, with other players in the same city live. There are loot boxes with cartoon weapons, a daily treasure hunt called the Golden Window, and an 80-floor glass tower in the middle.
Every window on the tower and every billboard in the city is ad space. There are 1,920 windows and 187 billboards. Windows show your logo on a pane of glass; billboards show your logo or a full banner on top of a building.
When a player taps your window, a panel opens with your app's name, a pitch of up to 140 characters, a pricing line of up to 80 characters and a link. Every lit spot also gets its own page with a link preview card, so you can post it like any other link.
Prices are fixed and public. Windows cost $9 a month on the bottom floor and rise about 4.5% per floor, to $291 on floor 80; corner panes cost 35% more, so the top corner is $392.85. Billboards cost $4 to $8 a month. You pay monthly through Stripe and can cancel any time.
One legal note, since it matters for anything you put in a budget: a window is a licence to show your ad. In The Pillar's own words, a window is a licensed ad pane on its 80-floor tower, not real property and not a security.
Why it fits an app better than most placements
A few details make The Pillar unusually suited to software, as opposed to physical products.
The pricing line. Apps have pricing that people want to see before they click: a free tier, a trial, a monthly price. It sits right under your pitch in the panel and takes up to 80 characters. "Free plan, Pro from $9 a month" or "Free, no account needed" answers the first question before anyone leaves the game.
Sign-in with X. You sign in with your X account to rent a spot, and your handle is your identity on the tower. A lot of independent developers already build in public on X, so your window is tied to the account your users already follow.
The share page. Every lit spot has a page at thepillar.io/w/ followed by its id. Each one carries a preview card with your logo, your app's name, your pitch and your floor, and anyone who opens it gets flown straight to your spot in the city. For a launch post, "my extension is now on a skyscraper in a video game" with a working preview card is a stronger post than another screenshot.
The audience. Anyone exploring a browser-based 3D city is, almost by definition, someone who tries new things on the web. That's not a promise of installs, but it's a better fit for a new web product than a random banner slot.
The price. At $4, a billboard is cheaper than almost any other test you could run, and it can't overspend. There's no daily budget to burn through and no bid war around launch days.
Window or billboard for an app
Pick based on your app's best visual.
Use a window if your icon is strong. App icons are designed to read at small sizes, which is exactly what a window needs. A Chrome extension's 128-pixel icon or a Shopify app's square logo usually works on a window without changes. Windows sit on the tower, which every visitor sees first, and players riding the elevator pass them at reading distance.
Use a billboard if a screenshot sells it. Some tools are best explained by showing them: a before-and-after, a dashboard, a single striking result. A billboard holds a full-bleed banner, and the checkout shows a live preview shaped like the exact board you picked, so you can drag your image until the important part is in frame. Billboards range from nearly square to about nine times wider than tall, so check the shape before you design the banner.
Use both if you're launching. Together, a window for the icon and a billboard for the screenshot cost $13 to $17 a month at the low end, a small line item for a launch month.
Setting up your app's spot
Setup takes about ten minutes.
- Open thepillar.io. For a window, tap one on the tower or ride the elevator and pick a floor. For a billboard, head into the city and tap a sign.
- Sign in with X. You need an account to rent a spot, though not to play.
- Paste your app's website address. The Pillar reads your page's tags and fills in your app's name, its logo and a short pitch.
- Replace the logo if it looks soft. Uploads can be PNG, JPG, WebP or SVG files up to 400 KB. Your app icon on a transparent background is usually the right file.
- Rewrite the pitch for a stranger, in 140 characters or less.
- Add the pricing line.
- On a billboard, choose between your logo and a full banner, and frame the banner in the preview.
- Pay through Stripe. Your spot lights up a few seconds later.
- Copy the share link and save it for your posts.
There's no self-serve editing after checkout yet, so finish steps 4 to 7 before you pay. Keep version numbers, launch dates and limited-time offers out of the pitch, since they'll still be there at the end of the month.
Writing the pitch and pricing line for software
Your pitch has one job: tell someone who has never heard of your app what it does for them. Lead with the outcome, in plain words, and name the platform.
Some examples:
- A Chrome extension: "Shows the true price history of any Airbnb listing, right on the page."
- A Shopify app: "Inventory and purchase orders for Shopify, with a days-of-stock countdown."
- A SaaS tool: "Turns a long sales call into a one-page summary and next steps."
- A free web tool: "Checks your product CSV before you import it into Shopify."
Avoid slogans. "The future of productivity" tells a player nothing, and they won't click to find out.
For the pricing line, use the number your users ask about first:
- "Free, no account needed."
- "Free plan, Pro from $9 a month."
- "14-day free trial, then $19 a month."
- "Free for 3 projects, $12 a month after that."
A visitor who sees the price and still clicks is a visitor who's ready to try it.
Examples by product type
The same setup changes a little for each kind of indie product.
A Chrome extension with a free tier. A window low on the tower, around floor 5 to 10 for $11 to $13 a month, with the extension's icon. Pitch: what it does on which sites, such as "Shows the true price history of any Airbnb listing, right on the page." Pricing line: "Free, Pro $4.99 a month." Link: your extension's landing page with tags, which then sends people to the Chrome Web Store listing.
A Shopify app. A window with the app icon, since Shopify merchants recognise app icons from the App Store. Pitch: the merchant problem it solves, in their words. Pricing line: the free plan and the first paid plan, such as "Free plan, paid from $19 a month." Link: your app's landing page or a guide page, tagged.
A SaaS tool with a dashboard. A billboard with a cropped screenshot of the one screen that sells it, framed so the key number or chart is in the middle of the board. Pitch: the outcome, such as "Turns a long sales call into a one-page summary." Pricing line: trial and price. Link: the sign-up page, tagged.
A free web tool. A $4 to $8 billboard, because a free tool needs reach more than prestige. Pitch: the task it does, such as "Checks your product CSV before you import it." Pricing line: "Free, nothing to install." Link: the tool itself, so the first click is the first use.
Where to send the click
The link is the most important field.
Don't link straight to the Chrome Web Store or the Shopify App Store if you can avoid it. Store listings are fine pages, but they won't show you where a visitor came from in a way you control. Link to your own landing page instead, with tracking tags, and let that page send people to the store.
A tagged link looks like this:
yourapp.com/?utm_source=thepillar&utm_medium=window&utm_campaign=launch
The Pillar keeps your link exactly as you type it, tags included. In your analytics, filter by the source thepillar to see visits from the tower.
Make sure the landing page is ready for visitors arriving from a game. Most will be on a phone or a laptop, and they'll leave a slow page within seconds. Its first screen should say what the app does, show it, and have one clear button. Our free store audit covers the checks for a Shopify store, and RoastWeb scores any website on speed, SEO and mobile.
A launch-week plan for an app
For a new app or a big new version, The Pillar fits into launch week like this.
A week before. Rent the window or billboard. Write the pitch and pricing line. Set up the tagged landing page. Copy the share link.
Launch day. Post your launch on X with the share link, so the preview card does the visual work. One line is enough: "Launched today. It's also on a skyscraper in a 3D city now, floor 8." Add the link to your launch email and your changelog post.
The days after. Reply to people who found your window. Some will tell you they drove past it or found it on the tower, which gives you a natural reason to post again.
End of the month. Check the view counter in your window's panel (it goes up each time someone opens your window, and it counts real opens only) and the tagged visits and sign-ups in your analytics. Keep the spot if the numbers justify it, or release it.
Timing it with your other launch channels
A window works best as one piece of a launch, so line it up with the channels you already use.
On X, post the share link with your launch thread. The preview card shows your app's logo and pitch, and it gives the thread a picture that isn't another screenshot.
In communities with self-promotion rules, such as subreddits for makers or developer forums, read the rules first. Many allow a launch post once, and a post about your app being on a skyscraper in a 3D city is the kind of detail that makes a launch post less dry. Don't post the window link on its own in places that ban promotion.
In your newsletter or changelog, mention it in one line under the main news.
On your own site, there's no need for a badge or a banner. Let the window send people to your site; your site doesn't need to point back at it.
Keep the order simple: rent the spot a week before, test the share link once, then post it on launch day alongside everything else.
What The Pillar won't do for an app
It won't bring thousands of installs. The Pillar went live in September 2026, and its audience is still small and growing. Nobody can promise you a number of visitors from it. If you need volume this month, it's the wrong tool.
It won't target. Every visitor sees the same city, so you can't aim your billboard at developers in one country or at people who use a competing app.
It won't replace your own channels. Windows work best when your own posts point at them. On its own, it's a small sign in a big city.
It won't give you a dashboard. You get the view counter on your spot and whatever your tracking tags record. That's enough to decide whether to keep a $9 window, but it's not an analytics product.
What it does do: keep your app's name and icon in a place people explore, for a fixed few dollars a month, with a link and a preview card you can use in every launch post.
How to judge the money
At these prices, the judgment is simple. Work out what one new user is worth to you. For a paid app, that's roughly the profit from a few months of their subscription. For a free app with paid upgrades, it's your average revenue per user over a few months.
If one new paying user is worth $20 to you, a $9 window needs one new user every two months to pay for itself, and a $4 billboard needs one every five months. Those are low bars, which is why the bottom of the tower and the billboards are the right place to start. Up on floor 50, a $78 window needs about four new paying users a month at the same value, and that's a number to reach only after a cheaper spot has shown it can send users.
Free users count too, if you can measure what share of them upgrade. Ten free sign-ups with a 5% upgrade rate are worth half a paying user.
Billing, renewals and cancelling
Each window or billboard is a monthly licence charged through Stripe. It renews at the same price every month until you cancel, and the price you see on the pane is the price you pay, to the cent. If The Pillar ever changes a price, the change applies only to future renewals, and you're told first.
You can cancel any time by releasing the spot from your desk on The Pillar while signed in, or by email. Your logo stays up until the end of the month you already paid for, then the pane goes back to the pool and someone else can rent it. There are no refunds for part of the current month, unless the law requires one.
One safety net worth knowing about: if you pay and your spot can't be lit because of a problem on The Pillar's side, the payment is refunded automatically and the subscription is cancelled. You don't have to chase it.
Who it suits, and who it doesn't
It suits makers with a finished product, a clear one-line pitch, a public price and a landing page that works on phones. It suits makers who already post about their work, since the share link multiplies what the spot does. It suits anyone who wants a fixed cost they can forget about for a month.
Skip it for apps that are still in private beta with no public page, products that need an age check before anyone sees an ad for them (anyone can open The Pillar without signing in), or teams that need guaranteed reach for a fixed launch date.
Rules for what you can show
The Pillar's rules are short. Your name, logo and link must be yours to use. No malware, nothing illegal and no pretending to be another person or brand. The Pillar can remove a mark or dim a window that breaks the rules. For an app, check that your logo isn't a lookalike of a bigger product's icon.
The short version
Indie apps need a fixed-price way to keep their name in front of new people, and The Pillar sells exactly that for $4 to $9 a month at the low end. Pick a window for a strong icon or a billboard for a strong screenshot. Write a plain pitch, put your real price in the pricing line, link to a tagged landing page that works on phones, and post the share link on launch day. Judge it after a month on the view counter and the tagged sign-ups.
The full price table, billing rules and setup guide are in The Pillar's advertiser guide. For how the city itself got built, read why I built The Pillar.