Announcement Bar With a Countdown: Schedule Sales on Your Bio Page

To add an announcement bar with a countdown on QKAP, open Dashboard → Appearance → Announcement bar, write one line of up to 140 characters, add an optional button and choose top or bottom. Then set start and end times, which use your own timezone, and switch on Countdown. The bar shows on every page of yours or just your profile, displays "Ends in…" while it runs, and disappears by itself when the end time passes. It's available on every plan, including Free.

Key takeaways

• The announcement bar is one line of news, up to 140 characters, pinned to the top or bottom of your pages, with an optional button of up to 24 characters.
• Start and end times use the timezone in your account settings; the countdown needs an end time.
• The bar stays hidden until its start time and disappears at its end time, even for someone who already has your page open.
• Visitors can close it, and it stays closed in their browser until you change the text.
• Only count down to real deadlines. A timer that resets or a "sale" that never ends misleads your followers.

What an announcement bar is

An announcement bar is a thin strip across the top or bottom of a web page that carries one short message: a sale, a launch, a delivery note. On a link-in-bio page it's the first thing a visitor from Instagram sees, which makes it the right place for time-sensitive news and the wrong place for anything permanent.

Announcement bar vs announcement block vs product deal countdowns

QKAP has three tools that look similar but do different jobs:

Use the bar for news that applies to your whole page and has a deadline. Use a block for a lasting note in a fixed spot, as explained in our page layout builder guide. Use product countdowns for one deal on one item, which our guide to deals, coupons and countdowns walks through.

Step 1: Write the line and pick an icon

Turn on Show an announcement bar and type your message in Announcement. It's plain text on one line, up to 140 characters, and emoji are welcome. Lead with the news and the deadline: "Diwali sale: 20% off all presets until Sunday" beats "Big news!!!".

Pick an icon or none. There are 12: megaphone, sparkles, tag, flame, gift, clock, truck, percent, bell, heart, star and zap. A truck suits delivery notes, a tag or percent suits sales, and a clock pairs naturally with a countdown.

Step 2: Add a button

The button is optional; leave the link empty for none. For the link you can use:

• A page of yours, such as /p/12 for post 12 or /shop/... for a product. These open in the same tab. If you paste your full handle path, QKAP tidies it to the short form.
• An https:// link to another site, which opens in a new tab. Plain http:// links aren't accepted.

Button text can be up to 24 characters. If you leave it empty, visitors see "Learn more" in their own language. Short verbs work best: "Shop the sale", "Join the waitlist", "Watch Part 3".

Step 3: Placement, sticky or scrolling, all pages or profile only

• Position: Top or Bottom. Top gets seen first; bottom sits near the thumb on phones and leaves your header clear.
• Stay on screen while scrolling: on by default. Switch it off and the bar scrolls away with the page.
• Pages: All my pages covers your profile plus your post, shop, series and collection pages. Profile only keeps it to your main page.

If you use a floating contact button as well, it moves up to clear a bottom bar.

Step 4: Style it

• Style: Solid, Gradient or Soft. Gradient has six presets (Berry, Sunset, Ocean, Mint, Gold, Night), or you can pick both colours yourself. Soft is a light tint that uses your page's text colour.
• Colour: your page's accent or a custom colour.
• Text colour: leave it on Auto and QKAP picks black or white, whichever reads best. If you pick a colour that's hard to read, it's corrected.
• Size: Small or Medium. Alignment: Centre or Left.
• Scrolling text: long text glides across the bar. It pauses when touched or focused, and stays still for visitors who've asked their device to reduce motion.

Keep it readable on a small phone. If your line needs scrolling text to fit, it's probably too long.

Step 5: Schedule it and add the countdown

Open Schedule, countdown and closing:

1. Starts: leave it empty to start right away, or pick a date and time.
2. Ends: leave it empty to run until you turn it off, or pick a date and time. It must be after the start and can't be in the past.
3. Countdown: available once there's an end time. Visitors see the time left, like "Ends in 2d 04h 10m 09s".

The editor shows which timezone you're using, with a link to change it in Settings. Visitors don't need to do any maths: the countdown shows time remaining, so a buyer in Dubai and one in Delhi see the sale end at the same moment.

Before the start time, visitors don't see the bar, and the editor shows a "Scheduled: shows from…" note so you can double-check the dates. When the end time passes, the bar disappears on its own, including for anyone with your page already open. Your settings stay saved, so next time you only change the text and dates.

Mistakes to avoid:

• Wrong timezone. If you set up a sale while travelling, check the timezone shown under the date fields.
• Midnight confusion. An end time of 00:00 on the 20th means the very start of the 20th. If the sale runs through the 20th, use 23:59 on the 20th.
• Countdowns for start times. The countdown always reads "Ends in…", so it suits deadlines like the end of a sale, not "Live starts in…". For launches, put the time in the text instead.

Step 6: Let visitors close it

Visitors can close it is on by default. A closed bar stays closed in that visitor's browser until you change the text, link, button text or schedule. That's polite: someone who has read your news doesn't need it on every visit. It also means editing the message brings it back for everyone, so make edits that are real updates, not a way to nag.

Keep countdowns honest

A countdown is a promise that something ends at that moment. In India, ASCI's advertising code expects claims to be truthful and not misleading, and the Central Consumer Protection Authority's 2023 guidelines on dark patterns name "false urgency" as one of them. Consumer protection rules in many other countries take a similar view. This isn't legal advice, but the practical rules are simple:

• Count down only to a real deadline: the end of a sale, the last day of a price, the close of pre-orders.
• Don't reset the timer when it hits zero. If you extend a sale, say so plainly: "Extended until Tuesday."
• Match the bar to the offer. If it says 20% off, the products it links to should be 20% off.

Our guide to sharing deals without misleading your followers goes deeper. For timing your bars around big sale events, the Indian sale calendar for affiliates helps you plan ahead. For product launches with real limits, limited spots and deadlines count from actual orders and close sales automatically.

Settings for common situations

Need more wording? Our list of announcement bar ideas has lines for sales, launches and drops.

How other link-in-bio tools handle time-limited news

Most link-in-bio tools can show time-limited news, but in different ways. As of October 2026, per each tool's own pricing or help pages:

• Linktree: a Text link app for "headlines, announcements, or context between your links" is listed on all plans, and scheduled links that go live and disappear at set times are listed on Starter and above.
• Beacons: a timer can make a link clickable only from a set time, with "a live countdown on the link button itself", and links can be scheduled to appear and be hidden.
• Taplink: a countdown timer is listed on the Business plan, and scheduled display of blocks on Pro.
• QKAP (our product): a dedicated bar across the top or bottom of every page, with a schedule, an "Ends in…" countdown and a close button, on every plan including Free.

One honest difference: QKAP's countdown only counts down to an end time. If you specifically want a "starts in" countdown on a button, Beacons' link timer is built for that. QKAP is our product, so read our criteria-based ranking of link-in-bio tools with an announcement bar with that in mind.

Set your next sale's bar up a few days early with a start time, check it in the preview, and let the schedule do the rest.

Frequently asked questions

What happens when the end time passes?

The bar disappears automatically, even for visitors who already have your page open. Your text and settings stay saved in Appearance, so you can reuse them by changing the dates. You can't save an end time that's already in the past.

Whose timezone does the schedule use?

Yours: the timezone in your account settings, which the editor shows under the date fields. The countdown displays time remaining, so the deadline is the same moment for every visitor, wherever they are.

Can visitors close the bar?

Yes, if Visitors can close it is on, which is the default. The bar stays closed in their browser until you change the text, link, button text or schedule. Switch the option off if the message must stay visible, such as a delivery delay.

Is the announcement bar free?

Yes. It's included on every plan, including Free. The pricing page lists what Premium adds elsewhere.

Can I show two announcements at once?

Each page has one announcement bar. For a second, lasting message, add an announcement block in your page layout, which sits between sections on your profile.

Sources

• Linktree, pricing and plan features, checked October 2026
• Beacons Help Center, Links block, checked October 2026
• Taplink, plans and features, checked October 2026
• QKAP: page layout, limited spots, coupons and deals, pricing