The deal model

Every trade on Switchboard composes a handful of orthogonal dimensions, so a deal is a combination, not one item off a fixed list. Three questions shape any deal: what you pay for, when you buy it, and how you place the order. The named types below are shorthand for common answers; the dimensions cover whatever a seller invents next.

Dimension	Values
Package	Selling-title daypart, program (including tentpoles; event and sports programs may define themselves by occurrence dates), genre, rotator, run of network, custom. Seller-defined, versioned, optionally market-scoped. See Packages.
Currency	Spots (a spot cost), or impressions (a CPM): Household, P2+, standard demo. See Currencies.
Guarantee	Non-guaranteed preemptible (with a clearance tier), guaranteed non-preemptible, audience-guaranteed in the currency. See Guarantees.
Rate	Rate card keyed by advertiser class, creative length, guarantee tier, clearance tier, and market class (upfront, scatter, remnant, opportunistic), within a card scoped open or to an agreement. Negotiated rates are agreement-scoped and political (LUR) is an advertiser class. Price locks at order time. See Rates.
Workflow	Instant book, request-and-approve, negotiated (offer/counter), proposal (audience plan or specs in, plan back), upfront commitment drawn down over time. Wire values: the workflow enum.

What you pay for

Currency and guarantee together decide what you pay for and who is exposed if the audience does not show up. Pay a spot cost and the delivery risk is yours: you pay for the unit whether or not anyone watches. Pay a CPM and you are buying the audience; on an audience-guaranteed buy the seller carries that risk and make-goods cover any shortfall. Four named types fall out of the two axes:

Deal type	Pay basis	Guarantee	Risk
preemptible	Spot cost	Non-guaranteed; a higher-priority buyer can preempt it, priced by clearance tier	Buyer
fixed	Spot cost	Guaranteed to air in position, non-preemptible; the airing is guaranteed, the audience is not	Buyer
audience_as_aired	CPM	Non-guaranteed; you pay for the impressions that actually air, no make-good	Buyer
audience_guaranteed	CPM	Delivery guaranteed in the currency; make-good policy attached	Seller

The wire values live at the deal type enum.

When you buy

The same inventory prices differently by how far ahead you commit. The market class on the rate card names the point on that spectrum:

Market class	When	What it is
upfront	Ahead of the season	Commit a budget early and lock rates, then draw it down order by order. See Upfront commitments.
scatter	In-quarter	Buy at the going rate as the quarter unfolds, no commitment. The everyday market price.
remnant	Near air	Inventory still unsold as air approaches, published at a discount on a standing cadence to clear before it lapses.
opportunistic	Near air	Inventory that opens up late (a cancellation, ratings overperformance, a schedule change), marked down with a signal agents can trigger on.

remnant and opportunistic are near-air discounts on preemptible inventory: cheap, and gone fast. They stay preemptible; whether a unit cleared is only knowable after its air date. For the agent pattern that watches for these windows, see Buy remnant and opportunistic inventory.

How you place it

Send the seller a brief and let them build it, or take what is already published. Both are first-class:

• Proposal. Send an audience plan, campaign specs, or an open brief, no package IDs required; the seller assembles the first pass, mixing published packages with custom ones minted for you, and nothing books until you confirm. It is the natural path when a seller withholds avails or quotes per campaign: the plan is the disclosure. Attach an acceptance_band and a plan within your stated tolerance (the "within 2% of specs" rule) can book without another round; where the seller cannot fill the whole ask, the plan says exactly what it cannot meet. proposal names the request, not the payment. On the wire, the request phase rides deal_type: "proposal" on POST /orders, carrying a proposal_request instead of line items. Accepting the returned plan books it through the normal order path as one or more catalog orders, each with a single pay-basis deal_type (preemptible, fixed, audience_as_aired, or audience_guaranteed); a plan that spans pay bases books as one order per type. See Proposals.
• Catalog order. When the seller publishes packages, prices, and availability, pick them and book: instant where the seller's standing approval rules allow it, or request-and-approve where the deal calls for it. Every order passes the seller's gate: a person, or the rules that person set. See Approve orders.

Sellers declare which deal types and market classes each package supports; buyers filter by them. Political buys are an advertiser_class (LUR-governed) that overlays any compatible deal type rather than a type of its own.