I admit it – we’ve been skeptical of this whole Ad.ly sponsored tweet model where you literally rent out your Twitter stream for cash. It just smells a little too much like pay per post to us.
But we went ahead and signed up for Ad.ly last year to see what kind of ads might be proposed to us. The price we asked for? $10 million per tweet.
Hey, everyone has their price.
Until today there were no takers. Then, this:
From: Sara Sommer
Date: March 24, 2010 1:29:23 PM PDT
To: TechCrunch
Subject: Interested advertiserHey guys,
I have an advertiser who is interested in advertising through the TechCrunch twitter via Ad.ly. While we aren’t able to offer you the $10,000,000 listed on your profile, I am able to offer you $7K for this one tweet.The message they would like to send reads:
[Ad Removed]Techcrunch eventJoin 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025The product is a smartphone backup that works for all phones except for the iPhone.
Please let me know if you would have any interest!
—
Sara Sommer
Strategic Account Executive l Ad.ly (http://Ad.ly)
(614) 378-xxxx
www.twitter.com/sarasommer
Are we going to do it? Hell yes we’re going to do it. Purely for research purposes, mind you. We want to see if the advertiser actually pays up. The $7k will be donated to the Golden Gate Lab Rescue.
Update: And there it is.
