We contact guaranteed customers multiple times after their contests end to let them know they need to award a winner.
If the guaranteed customer decides they don’t want to choose any of the designs as the winner, we’ll distribute their prize money evenly among the contest's finalists.
If there aren’t any finalists, the prize is distributed evenly among all participating designers who’ve won at least 1 contest. Any designers who are suspended during the time of a prize distribution automatically forfeit their share.
In both cases, the prize is automatically distributed 61 days after the contest has locked, unless the customer contacts 99designs and requests further time.
Why do we do it this way? We want to reward not only our loyal designers, but our best designers too.
Note: In Bundle Contests the distribution will be modified to distribute the prize for logo only.