Beyond the festivals. Post the real Montreal.
The postcard city is a festival stage and a basilica. The Montreal people actually live in is hand-rolled bagels in Mile End, terrasses that fill the minute the snow melts, Jean-Talon Market hauls and Plateau dinners that run long into the evening. SIGNL is forming its Montreal 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.
Montreal runs on seasons and regulars
Terrasse season is sacred
The minute the snow melts, every terrasse on the Plateau fills until October. Creators who post that first warm evening are trusted all summer.
Neighborhoods over the festival grounds
Visitors crowd Old Montreal and the festival stages. Locals eat in Mile End, gather in St-Henri and celebrate in Griffintown. SIGNL creators post that second city.
Bagels are a debate here
Hand-rolled and wood-fired, sesame or poppy, which counter does them right and who is pretending: Montreal argues its food shop by shop. Creators with real opinions are the ones who move a dining room.
The calendar keeps feeding the feed
Sugar shack season in spring, terrasse season all summer, Jean-Talon Market at its peak: a new reason to post every month, and founding creators get first pick.
How it works for Montreal creators
Claim your founding spot
Sign up free with Montreal 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.
Comps across Montreal
Restaurant comps are the start: bagel counters in Mile End, poutine spots with real opinions behind them, Plateau bistros, Old Montreal dining rooms, Jean-Talon Market stalls and St-Henri cafes. Salons, barbershops, spas, fitness studios and experiences from Griffintown to Rosemont run comp offers too, and sugar shack season brings a spring wave of maple comps.
Students count here. If you are at McGill, Concordia or UQAM, 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.
Montreal businesses: be the room locals post about
Montreal diners choose the corner bistro over the festival food truck, and they choose it because someone they follow ate there. Founding businesses get that someone: 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 Montreal 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 Montreal market opens.
Activate when Montreal 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 Montrealers actually eat, drink, shop and get their hair cut.
- Plateau Mont-Royal
- Mile End
- Old Montreal
- Griffintown
- St-Henri
- Little Italy
- Verdun
- Rosemont
- Outremont
- Le Village
Questions, answered straight
Is SIGNL live in Montreal 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 Montreal 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 Montreal?
Real Montreal weekends: a hand-rolled bagel run in Mile End, poutine with your honest verdict, a terrasse evening on the Plateau, a Jean-Talon Market haul. 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 McGill or Concordia. 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 Montreal 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 Montreal 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 Montreal does the roster cover?
The whole city, neighborhood by neighborhood: Plateau Mont-Royal, Mile End, Old Montreal, Griffintown, St-Henri, Little Italy and beyond. If your followers live here, your audience counts as local here.
This page is the Montreal founding story: why this city, and what founding means here. The Montreal market page carries the directory view: founding terms and roster details for this market.
Montreal'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.