Guides

Survivor pool rebuys

A rebuy lets an entry that loses early buy back in. Inside the rebuy window a loss costs the rebuy fee, not your season, so the early weeks are the cheapest time to use teams you will not need later. Save the teams with strong late weeks for after the window closes, when a loss is final.

What a rebuy is

Some survivor pools let an eliminated entry pay again and keep playing, but only during the first few weeks. That stretch is the rebuy window. After it closes, a loss ends the entry for good. Pools differ on how many weeks the window lasts and how many times you can buy back, so check your pool's rules first.

Why it changes your picks

Without rebuys, every week carries the same penalty for losing: the season. With rebuys, an early loss is a fee. That changes what an early pick should do. It should still win, but it should win cheaply, using a team you would have little use for later. Burning a team with three strong December weeks to survive a week you could have bought back into is the classic mistake.

How the Survivor Board optimizer handles the window

• Inside the window it spends the team worth least later that still clears a minimum win chance. It does not simply take the biggest favorite of the week.
• It lets several of your tickets sit on the same team inside the window. A window loss costs rebuys, not seasons, so spreading those weeks out buys little.
• From the first week after the window, a loss is final. The optimizer then weighs this week's win chance first, with a light tilt away from the most popular picks and a cost for using teams worth more later.

What rebuys cost over a season

In our 2014 to 2025 backtest, with rebuys open through week 4 and every ticket on a different team, this is how many rebuys a book bought on average and how often one of its tickets reached the final week:

Walk-forward backtest. Full tables on the Methodology page.