Chili on spaghetti. Cincinnati said so.
Every city has a dish outsiders question and locals defend with their whole chest. Cincinnati's is chili over spaghetti with a mountain of cheddar, and the defense is part of the charm, like Over-the-Rhine's brick blocks, Findlay Market on a Saturday and the river always in the background. SIGNL is forming its Cincinnati founding roster now: local creators who post that city, and local businesses ready to comp them.
The post is the job.
SIGNL is free for creators. Always. Businesses pay the platform. You never pay to join, to list, or to get booked.
Comp visits are the core. Paid bookings sit on top: set your own rate, the business pays it, and the platform fee is 6 percent total, split evenly, so you keep 97 percent of your rate. Paid bookings are held by SIGNL until your post is live. Headliners (15,000+ followers) are also first in line for featured paid campaigns when businesses run them.
A river city with strong rulings
The chili constitution
Three-way, four-way, five-way, cheese coneys at midnight: Cincinnati chili parlors are civic institutions, and the order you grew up with is the correct one. Institutions with loyalists are SIGNL fuel.
Over-the-Rhine, rebuilt by locals
One of America's great historic districts came back through independent restaurants, breweries and shops, block by block. That comeback is the exact energy a founding roster amplifies.
Two states, one night out
The river is a bridge, not a border: Covington and Newport across the water are part of the same evening. Creators here post a two-state metro without thinking about it.
Northside does its own thing
Cincinnati's proudly independent streak runs strongest in Northside: record stores, taverns, kitchens with cult followings. Cult followings are the point of the whole platform.
How it works for Cincinnati creators
Claim your founding spot
Sign up free with Cincinnati as your market and finish your profile: your handles, your neighborhoods, what you post about. Founding creators are reviewed in sign-up order, and your tier is set automatically by your total audience.
Go be a customer
Show up, redeem the comp in the app, and experience the business for real. Bring a guest when the offer covers two.
Post within 48 hours
The Standard Visit: 1 post or reel plus 1 story that shares the post, posted to a 48-hour standard with a week as the outside limit, honest and clearly disclosed as comped. The platform tracks the post, so the business gets proof and you get credit for the visit.
Chili parlors to OTR patios
Restaurant meals are the start: chili parlors, Over-the-Rhine restaurants and brewery taprooms, Findlay Market vendors, Hyde Park cafes and Northside taverns. Salons, barbershops, tattoo studios, fitness studios and shops run comp offers too.
Students count here. If you are at the University of Cincinnati or Xavier, name your school when you sign up or finish your profile: your profile carries your campus, so businesses near your school can find you first. A Standard Visit fits between classes, and alcohol offers are 21+ only.
Where do you land?
Tiers are set automatically by your total audience across platforms, and they rise as you grow. A small, genuinely local audience beats a big, scattered one.
- Everyday people with a local following
- Comp visits, and paid bookings at your own rate
- Perfect first step into local posting
- Regular local posters, the roster's sweet spot
- Comp visits, and paid bookings at your own rate
- Priority access to new businesses
- Established local creators
- Comp visits, and paid bookings at your own rate
- First pick of grand openings and launches
Under 500 followers, or just starting out? Apply anyway. Your tier is set by your follower count, and it moves up as you grow. What matters most is not the number, it's that your audience is actually local and actually engages. Nobody picks their own band.
Cincinnati businesses: be the room locals post about
Cincinnatians are loyal to the rooms they grew up in and curious about the ones locals post about. Founding businesses get that post: real local creators, comped at your cost, posting honestly to the followers who fill your tables.
Ads reach everyone except the people who live nearby. SIGNL puts Cincinnati creators who live here inside your business, posting to neighbors who can walk in this week.
Join the founding business list
Apply in a few minutes. Your category spot in your trade area is held in application order, and nothing is charged today.
Founding pricing, held for you
$199 a month for Self-Service (up to 5 creator visits a month, about $40 per creator visit), $349 a month for Growth (up to 10 creator visits a month, about $35 per creator visit) or $699 a month for Managed (up to 20 creator visits a month), with a 3-month minimum and then month to month. Founding businesses get $100 off the first month. Visits you don't use roll into the next month, then expire. The only other cost is the comp the business chooses to offer, provided at its cost, not retail. Founding businesses keep founding pricing while they remain subscribed, and the plan begins when the Cincinnati market opens.
Activate when Cincinnati opens
Pick creators from the founding roster, offer a comp at your cost, and get honest, tracked posts delivered in 48 hours* of each visit.
*Creators have up to one week to post. 48 hours is the standard they are held to, and hitting it earns their Momentum. If a week passes with no post, the visit is replaced and does not count against your plan.
If a booked creator does not show up or does not post, that visit does not count against your monthly visits. It is replaced.
How content rights work: on a comp visit, you can share the creator's post natively with the creator credited, and nothing more: no downloads, no reposting the file, no ads. On a paid visit, you can also repost the content on your own channels and run it as an ad for 90 days under the standard license included in the booking. The creator always owns the content. Rights follow the visit, never the plan.
Neighborhood by neighborhood
The founding roster lives where Cincinnati actually eats, drinks and gathers, on both sides of the river.
- Over-the-Rhine
- Hyde Park
- Northside
- Downtown
- The Banks
- Oakley
- Mount Adams
- Clifton
- Covington (across the river)
- Newport (across the river)
Questions, answered straight
Is SIGNL live in Cincinnati yet?
Not yet. Founding sign-ups are open now, the founding roster is forming, and founding businesses are joining the founding list. Offers begin when the Cincinnati market opens, and founding creators see every offer first.
Does it cost anything to join SIGNL as a creator?
No. SIGNL is free for creators. Always. Businesses pay the platform. You never pay to join, to list, or to get booked. Your compensation on standard visits is the comp itself: the meal, service or experience the business provides.
What would I actually post about in Cincinnati?
Real Cincinnati nights: a chili ruling at your parlor of choice, a Findlay Market Saturday haul, an Over-the-Rhine patio dinner, a Covington night across the river. The Standard Visit is 1 post or reel plus 1 story that shares the post, posted to a 48-hour standard with a week as the outside limit, honest and clearly disclosed as comped.
I am a student at UC or Xavier. Can I join?
Yes. Name your school when you sign up or finish your profile and your profile carries your campus, so businesses near your school can find you first. The Standard Visit fits between classes, and alcohol offers are 21+ only.
How does a Cincinnati business join, and when is it charged?
Apply for the founding business list and your category spot is held in application order. Nothing is charged today. Your plan begins when the Cincinnati market opens, at founding pricing: $199 a month for Self-Service (up to 5 creator visits a month), $349 a month for Growth (up to 10 creator visits a month) or $699 a month for Managed (up to 20 creator visits a month), with a 3-month minimum and then month to month. Founding businesses get $100 off the first month. Visits you don't use roll into the next month, then expire.
Which parts of Cincinnati does the roster cover?
The whole metro, neighborhood by neighborhood: Over-the-Rhine, Hyde Park, Northside, Downtown, The Banks, Oakley, Mount Adams, Clifton, plus Covington and Newport across the river. If your followers live here, your audience counts as local here.
This page is the Cincinnati founding story: why this city, and what founding means here. The Cincinnati market page carries the directory view: founding terms and roster details for this market.
Cincinnati's founding roster is forming now
Creators join free and are reviewed in sign-up order. Businesses join the founding list at founding pricing, charged nothing until the market opens.