Paid placement

Mediators can pay for a Pro or Featured plan. A plan buys labeled placement, earlier places in Get matched, and a few profile features. It never buys a credential or a word on any guide or data page.

How placement is labeled: every Featured listing, paid or complimentary, carries a visible “Featured” label (screen readers hear “paid or sponsored placement”), and results pages carry a note saying Featured listings are paid or sponsored. Separately, every listing shows how it was checked: Court-verified, Credentials reviewed or Self-listed (what the labels mean).

What each plan changes

Where	Free (claimed)	Pro	Featured
County and practice-area pages	Best match order	Best match order	Shown above the other results for the practice area they chose, labeled “Featured”, whatever sort you pick. Limited spots, based on county size: 1 where under 15 mediators are listed; 2 where 15–49 mediators are listed; 3 where 50–149 mediators are listed; 5 where 150–299 mediators are listed; 8 where 300 or more mediators are listed (per county and practice area). Featured members rotate daily among themselves.
“Work online with [State] clients” sections	Listed if they opted in	Listed if they opted in	Up to 3 labeled “Featured” spots in each state section they pick.
Get matched requests	Fill any places left after paid members	Come before free profiles: same county, then neighboring counties, then the state	First for their county and practice area, then the other paid members
Get matched requests from states they serve online	None	Can receive them	Can receive them; first in the states they picked for their online spots
Profile	Photo, bio, fees and details	Adds a booking link, an intro video and FAQ, and a “Member since” year. Paid extras don’t affect the order.	Same as Pro

Get matched sends a request only to mediators who claimed their listing or pay for a plan, never to an unclaimed roster listing. For a court case, mediators on that state’s court roster come first within each group, and online members from other states come last. Plans and prices: pricing.

What paying never changes

Best match. The default order (case type, court-verified first, distance band, profile completeness, daily rotation) has no plan in it, and paid-only extras such as a booking link don’t count toward completeness. No one can pay to change it. How results are ordered.
Credentials and labels. “Court-verified” comes only from an official roster; a plan can’t add, change or keep a credential. How we verify.
Counts and data. Statistics, maps, the annual report and their downloads count every court-verified listing the same way.
Guides and page text. Mediators can’t pay to change, sponsor or appear in the text of any guide, county introduction or data page. Editorial policy.
How we charge. Flat subscriptions only: no fee per request, per client, or share of a mediator’s fees.

Complimentary placement

A small number of Featured placements are complimentary (sponsored) rather than paid. They carry the same “Featured” label and get the same profile features as Pro, and a complimentary placement may appear first on its home state’s pages that fit its practice areas.