What is a verified scan?
A verified scan is a real person, on a real phone, scanning a Lidquid sticker for the first time. It's the only kind of scan that earns money for the laptop owner and gets billed to the brand.
- Counted: a new device scanning your sticker.
- Not counted: repeat scans from the same device, your own phone, bots and suspicious bursts.
What exactly is a verified scan?
A verified scan is the first scan of a specific sticker by a specific real device, one that passes Lidquid's checks for bots, self-scans and unusual activity. Each one represents a real moment where a stranger saw your lid, got curious and pulled out their phone.
Every Lidquid sticker carries its own unique QR code. When someone scans it, the scan is recorded against that sticker, checked, and then either approved as a verified scan or set aside. Only approved scans are credited to the owner and charged to the brand.
What doesn't count as a verified scan?
Anything that doesn't represent a new, real person showing genuine interest is filtered out. The main categories are:
- Repeat scans from the same device. If someone scans your sticker on Monday and again on Friday, only the first one counts. Ten scans from your friend's phone still count once.
- Self-scans. Scans from the owner's own phone, or from devices Lidquid can reasonably link to the owner, don't count.
- Bots and automated traffic. Link checkers, crawlers and scripted requests that open the QR link without a person behind them are rejected.
- Anomalies. Patterns that don't look like real-world curiosity, such as a sudden burst of scans at 3 a.m. or dozens of near-identical requests in a minute, are held back for review rather than paid automatically.
Does everyone on the same café Wi-Fi count as one person?
No. Sharing a network isn't treated as a reason to reject a scan, because in a busy café, library or campus, dozens of genuine strangers really are on the same Wi-Fi.
This is a deliberate design choice. A cruder system might say "same IP address, so it's a duplicate" and throw away most of the real scans a café laptop earns. Lidquid looks at the device itself and at the overall pattern of activity, not just the network. Two different people at two tables, both on the café's Wi-Fi, can each produce a verified scan.
What's the difference between raw scans and billable scans?
Raw scans are every time the QR code was opened. Billable (verified) scans are the subset that passed the checks. Brands see both numbers side by side, along with why scans were rejected.
| Scan type | What it includes | Earns for owner? | Billed to brand? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw | Every open of the sticker's QR link, including repeats, bots and self-scans | No | No |
| Rejected | Raw scans that failed a check (duplicate device, self-scan, bot, anomaly) | No | No |
| Verified / billable | First-time scans from real devices that passed every check | Yes | Yes |
Showing the rejected column openly is the point. A brand can see exactly how much was filtered, so it doesn't have to take the verified number on trust.
Why does verification help laptop owners?
Because brands only keep paying for advertising they trust, and verified numbers are what make that trust possible. If scans could be inflated, brands would pay less per scan or stop buying altogether.
Think of it as protecting the rate. A strict definition of "a scan" means the price per scan can stay meaningful, which is what makes your lid worth anything in the first place. It also keeps things fair between owners. Your earnings reflect where your laptop actually goes, not who's best at gaming a counter.
Why does verification matter to brands?
It means a brand pays for measurable attention from real people, not impressions that may or may not have happened. That's the core difference between laptop sticker advertising and most traditional out-of-home media.
A poster or bus shelter ad is priced on estimated footfall. Nobody knows how many people actually looked. A verified scan is an action someone took on purpose. Brands interested in that model can read more in cost-per-scan advertising explained.
What does the person scanning learn about me?
Nothing personal. Lidquid is designed so the person scanning your sticker sees the brand's content, not your name, profile or contact details.
It works the other way too. Owners aren't given the personal details of the people who scan their sticker. You'll see how many verified scans you earned, not who made them. The goal is simple: a stranger can be curious about your lid without either of you giving up any privacy. If someone wants to say hello in person, that's up to them.
How do you get more verified scans?
You get more verified scans by putting your laptop in front of more new people, not by scanning more yourself. Where and how often your lid is out in public matters far more than anything else.
- Work in busy places. Cafés, libraries, campuses and coworking spaces with lots of new faces beat a quiet corner you share with the same three people every day.
- Vary your spots. Regulars at one café will only scan once each. Rotating between two or three places reaches more first-time scanners.
- Face the room. A lid pointed at a wall earns nothing. Sitting where the back of your laptop faces the room does the work for you.
How do verified scans turn into money?
Each verified scan is credited to you at the rate per scan the brand set, which you saw and approved before the sticker shipped.
earnings = verified scans × rate per scan
As an illustration only: three verified scans a day, five days a week, at $0.50 a scan comes to roughly $32 a month. Lidquid is still in pilot and hasn't published real earnings yet, so treat that as a worked example, not a promise. The earnings guide walks through what pushes the number up or down.