Why you see ads, and how to read without them

OutaStory shows advertising, and we would rather explain it than have
you wonder.

Why there are ads at all

Every story on OutaStory is free to read. Nothing sits behind a paywall
and no chapter costs money.

The advertising is what pays for that, and it is also what pays the
authors — a share of what an ad earns next to a story goes to the person
who wrote it. Reading a story with the ads on is a real, if small, way
of supporting its author. See Earning from your
stories.

Where they appear

Beside lists and pages — the home page, category pages, search
results, author pages. Each one is labelled Ad.
In the reader, in the margins beside the text.
Between chapters, as a full-screen break labelled
Advertisement, with a Continue button that becomes clickable
after a short countdown.
Between chapters of an audiobook, as a short audio spot.

The between-chapter break appears every few pages rather than once
per story, so a long chapter may show you more than one. That cadence is
the same for everybody.

Who sees them

Everyone who is not a Premium subscriber, whether signed in or not.
Creating a free account does not remove them — that is worth saying,
because people reasonably assume it might.

Authors can also switch advertising off for their own story when
they publish it, so a story with no ads next to it is that author's
choice rather than a fault.

Reading without them

Premium removes advertising — no banners, no between-chapter break,
no audio spots. It is the only way to switch them off, and it is what
Premium is chiefly for.

What Premium includes, and what it does not, is set out in
What Premium includes. The
Premium section of this help centre covers
subscribing and cancelling wherever you are reading.

Ads and your privacy

Advertising on OutaStory is bound by the consent you have given, and
not by anything else.

On the web, the cookie banner is where you decide. Decline the
advertising category and you still see ads, but they are not
personalised to you. See Cookies, consent and
tracking.
In the mobile apps, your privacy settings include an Ads &
privacy control that reopens the ad-personalisation question. It
changes how ads are chosen, not whether they appear.

Neither control is an off switch. Nothing about your reading is sold,
and no advertiser is told what you read.

If an ad is broken or offensive

It covers the text, or will not close. Reload the page, or close
and reopen the app. If it happens repeatedly, tell us at
/help/contact with a screenshot — the exact ad
matters.
It is inappropriate or misleading. Send us the screenshot too. We
can have specific advertising blocked, but only if we can see what you
saw.
An ad blocker is hiding our consent banner. That has its own
article: The cookie banner or consent badge is
missing.