Money and pricing
Deposit bonus
Last updated by The PanelCompare editorial team
Why does deposit bonus matter to a buyer?
Read a bonus as what it is — an invitation to prepay more to a stranger. Money leaves your control at deposit time, not at order time, and refunds land in the wallet rather than in your bank account, so a 10% bonus on a $500 deposit is a 10% discount conditional on the panel still existing when you spend it. Deposit what an order costs rather than what a bonus tier rewards.
Timing makes it worse. Sudden aggressive deposit bonuses are one of the recurring behaviours that precede a panel going dark, alongside collapsing support response times, a spike in Partial orders, disabled withdrawal or refund paths, and abrupt catalogue-wide price cuts (PanelCompare domain research, 2026-09-06). None is conclusive alone; a bonus that appears at the same time as two of the others is the clearest warning the market offers.
How does deposit bonus show up in a price list?
Bonuses live on the add-funds page as tiered thresholds, not in the catalogue, and are frequently time-limited to force a decision.
Bonus credit is usually a different kind of money from deposited credit. It is commonly non-refundable and non-withdrawable even where ordinary balance is not, and it sometimes cannot be spent on every service. Read those restrictions before accepting it, not after.
Think this definition is wrong?
Terminology in this market is set by the panels that use it, and it moves. If a panel uses deposit bonus to mean something other than what is written here, send us the listing and we will either correct the definition or record the variant. The process is on the about page.