Hi azn310,
Thank you for your questions.
The default contest duration is two weeks, and there are extensions available for up to two additional weeks. All of the durations are based on what has worked well in the past for contest holders and for designers. If a contest were to run for a long time, you would not necessarily see more entries or designers. More than likely, you would receive the bulk of entries in the last 2-4 weeks of your contest. Also, 2-3 months is quite a long time and designers will, understandably, get restless without a winner for such an extensive period.
To answer your second question, please refer to our refund policy (see
Terms of Service). What you'll see is that it's based on the amount of effort put into a contest. If the effort is low at the time of the deadline, then you are entitled to a sizeable refund. If the effort is high, then naturally we would expect someone to be rewarded, given all of the work put into the contest.
Again, thanks for your inquiries and we hope you find DC useful for your own contest!