Tides & Tails is free for anglers, always. Charter captains and local shops pay to be here, and lure makers list for nothing. Every standard rate is published below, alongside the founding rate held for the first partners in — we are new, and the founding rate reflects that. A founding rate is locked for the life of the membership, so there is no price increase waiting for you later. Online checkout launches with the account system; today you apply and we reply personally.
| Tier | Standard rate | Founding rate | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Charter Guide | $79/mo or $790/yr | $29/mo locked for life — first 20 captains | Business profile page; Contact info displayed; Booking button |
| Featured Charter | $149/mo or $1,490/yr | $49/mo locked for life — first 20 captains | Everything in Basic; Homepage spotlight; Priority placement in the charter directory |
Monthly, cancel any time, and no commission on your trips. Start your application, or see how profiles read in the charter & guide directory.
Free. No monthly fee. Unlimited products. Free means free: no listing fee and no cut of your sales. What we bill for is a tap — one angler leaving our page for your store — at $0.75 per angler tap. Billed only once your taps pass $25. Under that, you owe nothing and we carry it forward. On a link-out we never see the order, so we bill the tap we can prove rather than a sale we cannot. Founding vendors: First 100 taps free — founding vendors. Prefer not to meter it? A flat $49/mo per location covers the same listings. A location is one shop address — or, for a brand that ships instead of selling over a counter, one coastal region: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida Gulf, Florida Atlantic. Each location covers up to 100 angler taps a month. Taps past that bill at the per-tap rate, so a location that takes off pays like a location that took off. Three or more locations, or statewide and national coverage: quoted, not listed. Tell us your footprint and we price it against the traffic we actually send you. Quoted for a 12-month term and re-quoted at renewal against the taps you got. Your rate never moves mid-term.
What we do not do:
How it works for vendors, and the application.
| Placement | Standard rate | Founding rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local shop sponsorship | $150–$250/mo | $75/mo, or $500/yr prepaid | Your shop shown to anglers reading the water and region you actually sit on — not a national banner. |
| Lure tool recommendation slot | By application | — | A brand’s lures inside the smart lure tool’s picks. Held back on purpose — we’re not selling this one yet. |
| Category exclusivity | By application | — | One brand owns a category — topwater, redfish, the Gulf. Also held back: it’s the slot we’d regret pricing early. |
| Sponsored field report | $150 each | — | Written with our editors, labelled sponsored, and honest about the gear. |
Two of those carry no price on purpose. The lure tool’s recommendation slot and category exclusivity are the most valuable things we will ever sell, so they stay by application until they are worth quoting — we would rather hold them back than anchor them cheap.
Online checkout launches with the account system. Until then, captains apply at list your business, lure makers and tackle shops at list your lures free, and everyone else can email [email protected] with the rate they are after. No card is required anywhere on this site today.