Local advertising pays writers: one clear loop from business spend to community articles.
Write. Advertise. Get paid. Repeat.
WordTipper is a local journalism platform built around one simple loop: writers cover the stories their neighbours care about, local businesses fund those writers through advertising, and the most-read writers get paid at the end of every month. Everyone wins — and the money stays local.
1
Writers cover their town
Write articles about what's happening where you live — news, history, events, people. The most-read articles each month decide who gets paid.
2
Local businesses advertise
Businesses buy banner, sidebar or sponsored-post packages. 70% of every pound goes straight into that town's monthly pot — funding the writers their customers already read.
3
Top writers get paid
At the end of each month, the three most-read writers in each town split that town's pot. No commission, no middleman — WordTipper keeps 0% of what writers earn.
Follow your town's feed
Pick any town and every new article from that place lands directly in your feed — no algorithm, no guess work. Just the articles happening where you live.
wordtipper.com / taunton
Taunton
♥ Following
News
Saturday market reopens after six-month refit
Sarah H · ♥ 142
History
The mill that powered the town for 200 years
David M · ♥ 98
Events
Summer fête returns to Victoria Park — what to know
Jay P · ♥ 71
Your town, in your sidebar
Follow as many towns as you like — nearby villages, your old hometown, a market town you visit every Saturday. Each one pins to your sidebar and adds its writers to your feed. New articles surface immediately, no refresh needed.
Every writer has a public profile page. Follow the voices that report well on your area and their new articles jump straight to the top of your feed.
wordtipper.com / writer / sarah-holloway
SH
Sarah Holloway
Marrowfield · 312 followers · ranked 2nd this month
+ Follow
Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green
Marrowfield · ♥ 142
New crossing outside Fernhill Primary — timeline
Marrowfield · ♥ 87
Janet Penney: 22 years behind the fish stall
Marrowfield · ♥ 63
A byline you can actually follow
When a neighbour consistently covers the stuff you care about — planning meetings, sports results, the history behind the buildings — following them is one tap. Their profile shows every article they've published, their current town ranking, and how many readers already follow them.
A worked example with a town pulling in £1,000 of advertising revenue across the year. Here's exactly how that becomes a payout for the writers in that town.
Local businesses advert fund£1,000 / yr
The total annual ad spend from advertisers running ads in this town.
70% to the town's pot£700 / yr
£1,000 × 70% = £700. The remaining 30% covers platform, hosting and moderation.
Top 3 writers split it£58.33 / month
£700 ÷ 12 = £58.33. That monthly slice splits 50/30/20 between this month's most-read articles in the town.
A single month's slice (£58.33) — split between the top 3
£29.17 · 1st£17.50 · 2nd£11.67 · 3rd
Most read wins 50%Runner-up takes 30%Third place takes 20%
Hearts reset on the 1st of each month so new pieces are not stuck behind last month's winners. See full payout rules →
Writer packages
Anyone can write, get hearted, and earn from a town's monthly pot for free. Upgrading to Publisher Pro unlocks premium article elements and lets you sell your own private ad space inside your articles.
Free
£0forever
Everything you need to publish, get hearted and share in your town's monthly payout.
Three honest formats with town-by-town pricing. Add more towns and the price multiplies. 70% of every pound goes back to the writers your customers already follow.
Simple Link
£6/month per town
A compact sidebar tile with logo, business name and link to your site.
A quick tour of the platform features that come together to make local journalism actually pay.
Town hubs
Each town has its own home page with a banner, leaderboard and live pot.
Hearts
One tap per reader — the metric that decides who gets paid each month.
Block-based editor
Text, images, slideshows, YouTube, polls and dividers in 1 or 2 columns.
Monthly payouts
Top three writers in each town split that month's slice — paid to your bank.
Local ads
Three formats — sidebar link, in-feed banner, and a full business profile pop-up.
Writer profiles
Public bylines collect everything you publish — followable and shareable.
Analytics dashboard
Hearts, comments and impressions on every article — and ad performance for advertisers.
Comments
Discussion stays on the article — useful for clubs, councils and campaigns.
Moderation
Submissions are reviewed for quality and safety before they reach the feed.
Bank withdrawals
Cash out your earnings whenever you need — paid manually to your bank account.
Follow writers & towns
Curate your own feed by following the writers and parishes that matter.
SEO & sharing
Every article gets clean URLs, OG tags and structured data so it travels well.
Read, write and get paid — all local
WordTipper is built around your town, not a national algorithm. Read articles from neighbours you follow, write about what matters on your street, and earn real money when readers love your work. Every article, heart and comment stays anchored to a real place.
What people write about
News
Local News
Council decisions, planning, schools, transport, crime — what's actually happening this week, written by someone who lives here.
History
Local History
Archives, anniversaries, lost industries, old photos, "this used to be a…" — how this place became this place.
People
Local People
Profiles, obituaries, retirements, achievements, characters — the folk who shape your high street and your village hall.
Business
Local Business
New openings, founder articles, family businesses, closing-down sales — the high street that pays your wages and feeds your town.
Events
Local Events
Markets, fêtes, gigs, fairs, openings, charity nights — what's on, and what to know before you go.
Sport
Local Sport
Sunday league, rugby clubs, swimming galas, cricket fixtures, school athletics — local results, fixtures and the people behind them.
Community
Local Community
Volunteer days, charity drives, youth groups, parish councils — neighbours getting things done, and how to get involved.
Anything else
…and anything interesting
A weird oak, a missing cat, a viewpoint walk you only know about, the chip shop's secret batter — niche articles travel best.
What an article looks like
A proper journalistic page with cover photo, byline, body text, inline images, slideshow, video, polls, pull quotes and private adverts — plus auto-generated SEO meta. The most-read articles each month get paid.
Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green after a six-month, £180,000 refit
SH
Sarah Holloway
Local writer · 312 followers · ranked 2nd in Marrowfield this month
+ Follow
Stallholders returned to Coppice Green at 8am on Saturday for the first market in 27 weeks — and by 9.30am every loaf on the new bakery stand had gone, the cheese counter was a deep queue and the council leader was eating a sausage roll on the steps of Birch Park.
The £180,000 refit, signed off last September, was meant to take three months. It took nine. New canopies, drainage, lighting and a re-laid cobble strip down the eastern edge mean the market can run year-round, without the winter cancellations that used to wipe out every January.
2 / 6
Six photos from Saturday's reopening — bakery queues, the cheese counter, the new cobble strip, Janet at her fish stall, the brass band, and the sausage-roll-eating council leader. Photos: Sarah Holloway
"We thought it would be three months. It was nine. But the new stalls are warmer than my front room and my regulars came back like they'd never left. I was wrong about the council. Don't print that."
— Janet Penney, Penney's Fishmongers (22 years on Coppice Green)
The market will now run every Saturday, 8am–2pm, plus a Wednesday street-food session from June. Stallholder applications opened on Saturday morning and 11 had been received by lunch — including, intriguingly, one from a Brackenhurst seaweed forager who has never traded inland before.
Concerns remain. Three traders raised the price of a permanent pitch — now £42 a week, up from £31 — and the new electrical points only fit the council's preferred socket. But on a sunny April morning, with a brass band the council had not actually booked, none of that was the point.
Sponsored
Marrowfield Bakery
Award-winning sourdough, pastries and seasonal specials. Open Tuesday–Sunday from 7am at 14 Coppice Green. Order online for same-day collection.
Find out more →
0:42
2:18
Marrowfield Town Band, who weren't on the council's running order, played for two hours and refused payment. The hat raised £74 for the Birch Park replant. Video: Sarah Holloway
Council leader Alex Wakeley confirmed the works came in £4,200 over budget — covered, he said, by an underspend on the Old Mill Road resurfacing scheme — and apologised for the delays, blaming a six-week wait for the canopy steel and a "frankly comical" run-around with planning over a single bollard.
Reader poll
Should the council extend Wednesday's street-food session into a full evening market?
Yes — make it a proper night out62%
Only in summer24%
No — keep Saturdays the focus14%
Live · 412 votes · closes Sunday at midnight
142 hearts
18 comments
Share
The article builder
A block-based editor with the toolbar you'd expect. Drop in text, images, slideshows, polls and more — split blocks into two columns when you need to.
wordtipper.com / pages / write● Saved
Cover photo
Headline · Taunton · News
Saturday market reopens on Castle Green after six-month refit
Text block
BIH3🔗"• list1. list
Stallholders returned to Castle Green at 8am on Saturday after Somerset West Council finally signed off on the £180,000 refurbishment.
"It feels like the heart of the town has come back," said Maria Fenton, who has been running the bread stall here for fourteen years.
2-column block
Image — drag to drop a photo
The new layout adds covered seating, two more food vendors and accessible toilets behind the church wall.
Pick an element to drop in
Free
Title
Subtitle
Paragraph
Image
Slideshow
YouTube
Divider
Pro
Poll
Map
Event Card
Pull Quote
Data Table
Before / After
Social Post
Private Ad
+ Add a new block
A block-based editor for real articles
Drop in text, images, slideshows, YouTube embeds, polls and dividers — every block sits in a column, and you can split blocks into two columns to put a quote next to a photo or pair captions with stills. Each text block has its own toolbar for headings, bold, italic, lists, links and pull quotes.
Cover photos sit at the top, drafts auto-save as you type, and headlines, towns and categories are tagged inline so neighbours can find your piece on the right town hub.
Every published article auto-generates a clean Google snippet, an Open Graph share card for Facebook & LinkedIn, a Twitter / X card, a JSON-LD NewsArticle block and a canonical URL. Local journalism that travels well off the platform too.
Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green after a six-month, £180,000 refit
2 hours ago — Stallholders returned to Coppice Green at 8am for the first market in 27 weeks. By 9.30am the new bakery had sold out, the cheese counter was a deep queue and the council leader…
X / Twitter card
wordtipper.com
Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green after a six-month, £180,000 refit
Stallholders returned at 8am for the first market in 27 weeks — by 9.30am every loaf had gone.
Facebook / LinkedIn share
WORDTIPPER.COM
Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green after a six-month, £180,000 refit
Stallholders returned at 8am for the first market in 27 weeks — and by 9.30am the new bakery had sold out.
Anyone can publish, get hearted and earn from their town's pot for free. Upgrade to Publisher Pro to sell your own ad space and unlock premium article elements.
Free
£0forever
Everything you need to publish, get hearted and share in your town's monthly payout.
See exactly where you sit on each town's monthly leaderboard and what your balance is right now — no black box.
wordtipper.com / pages / dashboard
This month
♥ 312
Articles live
14
Balance
£68.20
April leaderboard · Taunton
1 · You — Castle Green refit£35.00
2 · D. Morley — Riverside path£21.00
3 · J. Patel — School badge article£14.00
Hearts, articles & balance at a glance
Track this month's hearts across all your articles, see how many pieces you have live, and watch your balance grow as readers heart your reporting. When you're ready, request a withdrawal — admin pays it manually to your bank.
A simple toolset designed for real reporting — not viral content farms.
Block editor
Text, images, slideshows, YouTube, polls and dividers — in 1 or 2 columns.
Cover photos
Upload a hero image that travels with your article in feeds and social.
Drafts auto-save
Step away from the kitchen table without losing a paragraph.
Town & category tags
Pick where your piece lives so neighbours actually find it.
Quality moderation
Submissions are reviewed before they hit the feed — no spam in the way of real reporting.
Public writer profile
A shareable home for your bylines. Readers can follow everything you write.
Article analytics
Hearts, comments and impressions — see how each piece is performing.
Real bank payouts
Top-3-by-hearts model means a standout month becomes real money — paid to your bank.
Town hubs
Each town gets its own home page with a banner, live pot, leaderboard and the latest reporting from the community.
Taunton♥ Following
847 articles3,210 followers£142.50 pot
This month's leaderboard
1. Sarah Hughes — Saturday market♥ 142
2. David Morley — Riverside path♥ 98
3. Jay Patel — School badge♥ 71
One home page per town
Banner photo, the live monthly pot, the latest articles, and a leaderboard showing who is currently in line for a payout. Share it in WhatsApp groups, parish newsletters, or pin it to your phone so new neighbours have an easy answer to "what's happening here?"
Every reader and writer can see how a town is performing: total article views, monthly hearts, and exactly which articles are currently leading the leaderboard. Nothing hidden, nothing behind a paywall.
Marrowfield · town statsApril 2026
Views this month14.2k↑ 18% vs March
Hearts cast831across 34 articles
Writers active127 published in April
Daily views · April
1591317212527
Top articles this month by hearts
1Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green
♥ 142
2Riverside path lighting approved
♥ 98
3Primary school wins county art badge
♥ 71
Real numbers, publicly visible
Views, hearts, active writers and a daily traffic chart are available to any visitor — no login required. The current month's article leaderboard is visible on every town page so readers know exactly what's competing for the payout, and writers know what they're up against.
If you publish in a town, your own article's performance breakdown is also visible in your personal analytics dashboard.
Three small actions add up to a town that funds its own writers.
Heart what you love
One tap per article. Show your support for writers covering your town.
Comment in context
Discussion stays on the article — useful for clubs, councils and campaigns.
Follow towns
Pick the parishes and market towns you care about — they pin to your sidebar.
Follow writers
When someone consistently reports well on your area, their byline becomes part of how you stay oriented.
Search by town & writer
Search uses display names so you find your favourite reporter without surnames.
Categories that help
News, events, sport, history, people, community — colour-coded pills on every card.
Easy social sharing
One tap to share an article on Facebook, X or anywhere else.
Privacy-first accounts
You control your display name, photo, and what's public on your profile.
Ads that feel local
You are not buying a spray of anonymous impressions. You are buying presence next to articles that people read because they care about the area — and you are helping fund the writers who produce them. Three honest formats, town-by-town pricing, and 70% of every pound goes back to the writers your customers already follow.
Where the ads live on a town feed
Two placements — the article sidebar and an in-feed banner slot — surfaced on every town feed and article page. Highlighted areas below show exactly where each format appears.
wordtipper.com / town / marrowfield
News
Saturday market reopens on Coppice Green after a six-month refit
Sarah Holloway · 2 hours ago · ♥ 142
Community
Volunteers replant the riverside path after winter floods
David Morley · Yesterday · ♥ 98
In-feed banner · Simple Banner / Business Profile
OB
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"We pinched the school badge from a 1971 jumper" — meet Brookside's new head
Jay Patel · 3 days ago · ♥ 71
History
The forgotten quarry that built half of Old Mill Road — and one stubborn carving
Margaret Ash · 5 days ago · ♥ 64
Dashed blue boxes mark where each format appears on the live site — both placements are available across every town feed and every article page.
The three formats up close
These are the real ad components — pixel-for-pixel the same as what readers see on the highlighted slots above.
Simple Link
A compact sponsored tile in every article's sidebar — your logo, business name, one-line tagline and a link to your site. Brand presence next to every article in the towns you choose.
Choose your format, choose your town(s), and pay only for where you actually want to be seen. Add more towns and the price multiplies — full transparency at checkout.
Simple Link
£6/month per town
A compact sidebar tile with logo, business name and link to your site.
Most ad spend disappears into a faceless network. Here, the lion's share goes straight back to the people writing about your town.
70% to writers in your town30% platform
For every £8/month Simple Banner sold in a town (£96 across the year), £67.20 lands in that town's writer pot — split into 12 monthly slices and shared with the top three articles by hearts each month. See terms →
Why advertise on WordTipper
A simpler, more honest local ad product than the generic display network you've been talked into before.
Town-targeted
Choose exactly which towns your creative runs in. Spend matches geography.
Alongside editorial
Your brand sits beside reporting people actually read — not buried in a network.
Self-serve checkout
Pick a package, pay, upload creative — no ten-email sales dance.
Live analytics
Click & impression numbers per ad — see exactly what you're getting.
Edit anytime
Change creative, swap call-to-action or pause an ad from your dashboard.
70% back to writers
Most of your spend funds the journalism your customers actually read.
Pay monthly per town
Predictable monthly billing — start with one town, expand when it works.
Quick approval
Creative is reviewed for safety before it goes live — usually within a day.
Simple, honest pricing
Free for writers, Publisher Pro at £2.50/month (£30/year), and local advertising from £6/month per town. No hidden fees, no surprise renewals — what you see is what you pay.
Writer plans
Anyone can publish, get hearted and earn from their town's monthly pot for free. Upgrade to Publisher Pro to sell your own ad space and unlock premium article elements.
Publish unlimited articlesWrite as much as you like. No quotas, no walls.
Block-based article editorTitle, Subtitle, Paragraph, images, slideshows, YouTube, dividers — single or 2-column layouts.
Earn from your town's monthly potTop 3 most-read articles split each town's monthly slice.
Public writer profile & followersA shareable home for your bylines that readers can follow.
Bank withdrawalsCash out your balance to your bank when you're ready.
Article analyticsHearts, comments and impressions for every article.
Basic
Advanced
Town analyticsViews, hearts, writers active and top articles for any town — live data from the town hub.
Private ad block in articlesDrop your own sponsor's logo, name and link directly into a piece — or a clickable card that opens a full business profile pop-up.
Keep 100% of private ad revenueAnything you charge your sponsors directly is yours — WordTipper takes 0% from private ads.
Private Ad ManagerManage all your in-article sponsorships in one place — set expiry dates, swap creative, see clicks.
Premium article elementsPoll, Map embed, Event Card, Pull Quote, Data Table, Before/After photo slider, Social Post embed, and Private Ad — Pro-only blocks.
Pro badge on your profileStand out on town hubs and writer searches.
Switching is easy — start free, upgrade whenever you want, cancel any time.
Advertising plans
Three honest formats with town-by-town pricing. 70% of every pound goes back to the writers your customers already follow. Add more towns and the price multiplies — full transparency at checkout.
