For UK media owners tired of watching inventory expire unsold
Turn unsold ad space into business purchasing power.
The poster site that stays blank, the break that airs half sold, the page that closes empty — put that inventory to work and earn Silva to spend across the network.
Every slot you don’t sell is gone the moment the day passes — put it to work and spend it back.
No cash changes hands for Silva · You choose which slots you release · UK members only
Sound familiar?
No media owner goes hunting for a capacity exchange. You want these fixed.
Every media owner feels at least one of these. Almost none connect them to the one asset they’re already sitting on.
Does ad space expire unsold?
The day passes or the edition prints, and that inventory is gone for good.
Discounting remnant space to fill it?
Dumping late inventory cheap quietly erodes your rate card.
Are sales cycles long and slow?
Deals take weeks to close while the calendar keeps moving on.
First budget your advertisers cut?
When money’s tight, marketing spend is the first line to go.
Fixed costs whether it sells or not?
Sites, presses and airtime cost the same empty as they do full.
Buyers holding out for the late rate?
Chronic discounting trains the market to wait for a cheaper deal.
What almost everyone misses
The blank sites, the unsold breaks, the empty pages — that unsold inventory is real value already sitting inside your business. Silvatree is the mechanism that turns that unsold inventory into business purchasing power you can spend.
The idea
One week’s work. Two pots, not one.
The old way: work hard, cash in, cash out, bills paid, nothing left. With Silvatree you generate the same cash, but you also fill a second pot by selling idle capacity to Silvatree members. The two-pot way is: cash in, less cash out, some cash remaining — and Silva in, Silva out, paying the rest of the bills. The second pot is business purchasing power.
Wages, rent and tax drain it. A full week of work — and nothing left to show for it.
Your cash pays the expenses that can only be paid in cash — rent, wages, electricity, leases, taxes. A second pot fills from idle capacity you'd have wasted, and pays for marketing, repairs, printing, accounting, cleaning and tradesmen.
1 Silva = £1 for tax & accounting · spending power inside the network, never exchanged for cash.
How it works
Three steps, from blank space to purchasing power.
You have spare capacity
Blank poster sites, unbooked breaks, empty pages, unsold impressions — inventory that expires unsold the moment the day passes.
Silvatree puts it to work
We match the space you’d otherwise leave empty to members who need to advertise. You get paid in Silva for inventory that earned you nothing before — without discounting your published rate to cash buyers.
You spend your Silva
On the things your title already buys — print and production, professional services, IT, staff perks — keeping your cash in the bank.
New to the idea? What is a Capacity Exchange?
Where the spare capacity hides
Find the spare capacity inside your media business.
If it goes unsold when the day passes or the edition closes, it belongs here.
Unsold poster space
A site left blank earns nothing for the whole fortnight it’s up.
Unbooked spots
The break goes to air with or without your advertiser in it.
Unfilled column inches
The edition prints whether the space sold or not.
Blank ad pages
A page runs empty the moment the issue closes.
Unsold impressions
Today’s run-of-site impressions can never be served tomorrow.
Pre-roll slots
The reel plays to the same seats, sold or not.
Empty listing slots
Space in the run that would otherwise sit vacant.
Unsold sponsorship
Naming and placement that simply lapses if it goes unclaimed.
Why it's safer
Business trading, without the borrowed money.
Most trade exchanges quietly let the owner/operator run up a large negative trade balance it never has to repay — diluting the value of every other member’s credits. Silvatree is built so that can never happen.
We can never owe the network
Silvatree's own accounts have a hard zero floor. We can't hold a negative balance or extend ourselves a line of credit — full stop.
Silva is earned, never printed
A Silva only exists because a real trade happened between two members. It can't be created out of thin air or bought for cash.
A Reserve Fund stands behind you
If a member ever leaves owing, the Reserve Fund absorbs it immediately — so positive balances stay protected whatever happens next.
If we ever wind down, we go last
Our own balance is wiped out first, leaving more in the pot for members. We put the network ahead of ourselves by design.
How we prove it
Our ledger is built so the network always sums to zero.
This isn't a choice — it's how we protect the system, and it's how the ledger was constructed. Here's what that means for your balance.
The network always sums to zero. Every Silva earned is a Silva owed — the whole system balances to nothing, by construction.
No outsized balances. No member is allowed to sit on a large positive or negative position that could destabilise the network.
Silvatree's own accounts are always positive. The company can never hold a negative balance. It can never owe the system. It cannot issue itself Silva — it can only earn it like every other member. Both the rules and the platform architecture enforce this.
These rules are set out in the Silvatree Exchange Terms & Conditions — the rules the whole network runs on.
Straight talk on fees
Three fees. The same for every member.
There are no tiers at Silvatree — no bronze, silver or gold, and no badge attached to how much you trade. Every member pays the same three fees, worked out the same way, and what you pay turns on one thing: how much of your existing spending you decide to route through the network. Charging by size of business would be arbitrary, because a large firm might trade very little and a small one a great deal. A flat fee would mean the smallest members subsidise the largest.
Joining fee
2%
of the spending you declare
- Minimum £200, maximum £6,000
- Paid once, on admission
Monthly subscription
£20
a month, plus 0.2% of your declared spend ÷ 12
- £24.17 a month on a £25,000 declaration
- £20 more in months you put nothing into the network
Transaction fee
6% + 1%
in cash, and in Silva
- Paid by the seller on each exchange
- The 1% in Silva funds the Reserve Fund
That is the whole structure. There is nothing else to pay — no tier to upgrade to, no charge for finding you buyers, and no fee for closing your account.
- ✓All fees are exclusive of VAT.
- ✓We never charge interest on Trading Headroom, and never take security or personal guarantees.
- ✓If a full year of genuine engagement has not delivered, we refund your joining fee.
What members say
From members
“I joined Silvatree 2 months ago and have already accumulated three new clients for my digital marketing services.”
I have been able to go from operating at 50% capacity to 75% and have subsequently been able to use my Silva to pay for a business coach who is helping me to scale my business and attract more clients, as well as paying for my accounting services and bookkeeping.
“As accountants we have experienced a great influx of new clients that we would never have previously had.”
This has increased our bottom line, and enabled us to help many who would otherwise not have had the cash to pay for our services — which means we can pay for many business expenses in Silva that we would otherwise have paid for in cash.
Questions
Media & outdoor: common questions
- What counts as spare capacity for a media owner?
- Inventory that expires the moment the day passes or the edition closes: blank poster sites, unbooked airtime, empty pages, unsold impressions and lapsed sponsorship. It can never be re-sold, which is what makes it worth putting to work instead of dumping cheap.
- Do we have to release all our unsold inventory?
- No. You choose which slots, sites and pages you release, so you can protect your rate card with cash buyers and only put the remnant space that would otherwise go unsold onto the exchange.
- What can we spend the Silva we earn on?
- On what the title already buys from other members — print and production, professional services, IT and staff perks. Silva is a unit of account (1 Silva = £1 for record-keeping) and is spending power inside the network, not cash you withdraw.
- Won’t trading remnant space erode our published rate?
- No — because you're earning Silva rather than discounting to cash buyers, your rate card stays intact. You fill inventory that would otherwise expire unsold, and spend the Silva on real business costs at 1 Silva = £1.
Silvatree works across sectors
One model, told through the spare capacity in each industry.
- Hotels & staysMidweek rooms, off-season nights and unsold spa slots.
- RestaurantsQuiet midweek covers and dark private dining rooms.
- Salons & clinicsUnbooked chairs, quiet treatment rooms and slow mornings.
- RetailSlow-moving stock, quiet hours and empty shelf space.
- Print & productionIdle press hours, quiet studio and finishing time.
- Trades & servicesGaps between jobs, cancelled bookings and quiet weeks.
- Professional servicesUnbilled hours, bench time and quiet post-year-end weeks.
Find out if Silvatree is right for your business.
Book a free suitability call. We run an expense analysis, share a capacity & profit report, and tell you honestly whether it's a fit — we'll be the first to say if it isn't.
Not ready to join? No pressure. Go on our standby list and we'll get in touch whenever there's business we can send your way.
Not sure yet? Take the 2-minute readiness test.
Short of time? Talk it through with our AI capacity adviser — available 24/7. It'll cover most of what we'd discuss on the call.