Understanding Drops

Drops are the unit buyers use to claim your offers. Understanding how they work — and how to price with them — makes you a more effective merchant.

How buyers acquire Drops

Buyers purchase Drops with cash. That’s the only primary path — Drops are not free, and they are not earned by browsing, completing a profile, or logging in. A buyer who has Drops has spent real money to acquire them.

Buyers purchase from predefined bundles (Starter, Everyday, Power) rather than at a per-Drop rate. This keeps the focus on access rather than conversion math. After purchase, Drops sit in the buyer’s wallet until they find an offer worth claiming — or they expire one year after purchase.

This matters for your business. When someone claims your offer using Drops, they’re not an impulse visitor who stumbled in from an ad. They’re a buyer who has already committed cash to be in this ecosystem. That is a structurally different buyer relationship than you get from most platforms.

How buyers spend Drops on your offers

When a buyer visits your Stream and finds an offer they want, they evaporate the required number of Drops to claim it. The transaction is immediate — Drops are consumed, the MBO is claimed, and you receive a fulfillment notification.

Buyers can see their current Drop balance at any time. If a buyer doesn’t have enough Drops for a particular offer, they’ll see clearly how many more they need — and can top up in one click from the claim screen. Offers are never obscured from buyers who can’t yet afford them. Browse access is always open.

Setting Drop prices competitively

Drop pricing is one of the most important decisions you make as a merchant. There’s no single right answer, but there are useful frameworks:

• Value alignment — price Drops proportional to the real-world value. An offer worth $200 in the open market should require meaningfully more Drops than one worth $20.
• Scarcity signaling — high Drop prices create a sense of exclusivity. If you have a limited-quantity offer, a higher Drop price helps ensure it reaches buyers who are most committed.
• Accessibility — lower Drop prices maximize the pool of eligible buyers. If you want volume, price accessibly.
• Consistency — buyers notice inconsistency. If similar offers have wildly different Drop prices with no clear reason, it erodes trust.

Drop economy analytics

Analytics showing how your Drop economy performs — including Drop price conversion rates by offer, and how your pricing compares to similar merchants — are coming in a future release. For now, the best signal is your claim rate: if offers sit unclaimed for extended periods, the Drop price may be too high for your current audience.

Why Drops create loyal buyers

Buyers who have purchased Drops are buyers who intend to spend them. They return to Streams they trust. They follow merchants whose offers align with their interests. They are not passive platform users — they have skin in the game.

The Drop economy gives you a mechanism to build genuine repeat relationships — not through discounts or email blasts, but through consistent value delivery that keeps buyers engaged with your Stream. A buyer who has claimed three offers from you and had all three fulfilled well is a fundamentally different relationship than a one-time checkout. That’s the mechanic Drops create.