For everyone · 6 min read · Updated October 2026

How Lunar Chooses Zones: What Counts as a Neighbourhood

Drivers draw 'Where you drive' circles, businesses draw 'Service area' circles, and matching lives in the overlap. How the zone system works, what the caps mean, and why circles beat ZIP codes.

Every Lunar match starts with two drawings. A driver opens a map and circles where their everyday driving actually happens — the school run, the commute, the gym loop. A business opens the same kind of map and circles where its customers come from. When those circles overlap, a sticker on that car is advertising in the right place by default, because the targeting was done before the match existed. This piece explains how the zone system works on both sides: what the circles are, why they're capped at neighbourhood size, how they feed matching and reach estimates, and why we use circles on a map instead of ZIP codes or city names.

The two kinds of circle

• Drivers draw 'Where you drive' circles: honest descriptions of their real routine, not aspirations. Multiple circles are encouraged — one around home, one around work, one around the weekend hockey rink paints a truer picture than a single giant blob.
• Businesses draw 'Service area' circles: the neighbourhoods where customers actually come from, or where you want more of them. Several small, deliberate circles beat one big one here too.
• Both kinds are capped at the same size — up to 10 km radius each in Canada, 5 miles in the US. One cap for both roles, because a 'neighbourhood' should mean the same thing to the driver describing their driving and the business describing its customers.

Why the cap is the feature

• A circle capped at neighbourhood size forces precision: 'everywhere in the metro area' is not a targeting choice, it's the absence of one. Small circles make both sides say where presence actually matters.
• Overlap becomes meaningful: when a driver's 10 km circle and a business's 10 km circle intersect, that intersection is a real shared patch of city — the driver genuinely drives where the business genuinely sells.
• It keeps estimates honest: our estimated impressions model weighs zones by density (a downtown circle counts differently than a rural one), and that only works when a circle describes one kind of place rather than averaging a whole region.

Circles, not ZIP codes

Postal geography was drawn for mail trucks, not for how people live. A ZIP or postal code can lump a dense retail strip with an industrial park, and real neighbourhoods routinely straddle the boundary line. A circle you draw yourself matches how owners actually think — 'we get customers from about here to about there' — and how drivers actually move. It also travels well: the same system works identically in Vancouver and in Phoenix without anyone learning a local boundary scheme.

How zones feed matching

• Matching is done by Lunar's team, offer by offer — zones are the map the team works from, not an algorithm that auto-assigns cars.
• The order of looking: businesses the driver named during signup ('Rep what you love') that are on Lunar come first, then overlap between the driver's circles and the business's service area, then the same city. Naming a business is a preference, never a promise.
• Each offer holds 48 hours and the driver accepts or declines freely — declining is always free. After a driver accepts, the business gets a 24-hour look at the car to flag a real conflict; silence confirms the match.
• Zones don't gate honesty elsewhere: what goes on the car is the business's approved design — drivers never carry anything a business hasn't signed off.

What zones are not

• Not GPS tracking: Lunar never tracks anyone's location. Circles are self-described; the campaign is verified by VIN and the weekly photo-and-odometer check, which confirms the stickers are on the car and the car is genuinely driving.
• Not something money upgrades: no zone is for sale, and neither plan gets better ones. Half Moon and Full Moon differ only in cars and price — 2 cars at $500/month, 7 at $1,500/month — and both use the same zone system. See pricing.
• Not a fence: a driver's car doesn't stop advertising when it leaves a circle. Zones describe the centre of gravity of real driving; the sticker works everywhere the car goes.

Drawing good circles: both playbooks

• Drivers: circle where the car genuinely spends its time, and add a circle per routine rather than stretching one. Honest circles get you offers from businesses your driving actually serves — which makes the weekly checks effortless and the matches durable.
• Businesses: start from your customer addresses or delivery map and circle the two or three neighbourhoods that matter most. You can tile a wider radius with several circles, but ask of each one: would a familiar name on a neighbour's car here plausibly become a customer?
• Both: revisit the drawings when life changes — a new job, a new location, a new target neighbourhood. The circles are editable precisely because routines aren't permanent.

The bottom line

Lunar's zone system is two honest drawings and a team that matches inside the overlap: neighbourhood-sized circles (up to 10 km in Canada, 5 miles in the US) for where a driver really drives and where a business really sells. No ZIP-code guesswork, no GPS, no zone for sale — just targeting settled before the sticker ships. How it works walks the rest of the launch; the map is where it starts.