Project Wonderful alternative: how Perch compares

Project Wonderful closed in 2018 and people are still looking for a replacement. Here is what Perch does the same way, and what it does differently.

Side by side

NetworkMinimum to join Publisher sharePayout thresholdSelf-serve
Project Wonderful None — closed August 2018 70% (took 30%) Not published Yes
Perch None 75% $65.00 Yes

Sources, checked 2026-08-26: Project Wonderful (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Wonderful) · Post-mortem by Matthew Skala (ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/345)

Choose Project Wonderful if…

Nothing — it closed in August 2018.

Choose Perch if…

You are looking for what replaced it. The model here is the same one: time on a site, bought by auction, with no traffic minimum.

What Project Wonderful does better

Nothing any more; it shut down in 2018. It is here for the reader who is looking for what replaced it.

Where Perch is weaker

Nobody finds your advertiser for you. There is no demand pool to fall back on — the slot fills when one of your own readers, or a business you approach, buys it. On a site with no local or niche connection to its audience, that is a real disadvantage against a matched network.

The differences that actually matter

Who decides the price?

On Project Wonderful the rate is an outcome — set by an auction, a matched advertiser, or a managed partner, and reported to you afterwards. On Perch you type a number: what one advertiser pays for one day in your slot. Nothing sells below it.

Who is the advertiser?

Project Wonderful's advertisers were, very often, other people in the same community — which is exactly the pattern here. The slot invites whoever is reading it.

What does the visitor's browser do?

No behavioural tracking — the position it was known for. Perch's embed sets no cookies and writes nothing to the visitor's device, so it does not itself create a consent-banner requirement. The full detail is on the security page, including the exact byte size the script adds to your page.

When do you actually get paid?

Project Wonderful does not publish a payout threshold. Perch pays out at $65.00, into your own Stripe account. For a site earning a few dollars a month, that gap is the difference between money arriving and a balance that only ever grows on a screen.

Can you run both?

Not applicable here.

Other comparisons

Google AdSense

No published traffic minimum, but every site goes through an approval review

Self-serve

Mediavine

$5,000+ in annual ad revenue for the main programme; the Journey tier starts at 1,000 sessions

No self-serve sign-up

Raptive

25,000 monthly pageviews

No self-serve sign-up

EthicalAds

50,000 monthly pageviews, and developer-focused sites only

No self-serve sign-up

The full comparison table covers every network here with sources, or work out the numbers for your own site with the earnings calculator.