A QQ¯ bound state represents a balance between repulsive kinetic and attractive potential energy. In a hot quark–gluon plasma, the interaction potential experiences medium effects. Color screening modifies the attractive binding force between the quarks, while the increase of entropy with QQ¯ separation gives rise to a growing repulsion. We study the role of these phenomena for in-medium QQ¯ binding and dissociation. It is found that the relevant potential for QQ¯ binding is the free energy F ; with increasing QQ¯ separation, further binding through the internal energy U is compensated by repulsive entropic effects.