Mobile App Monetization Models

Miranda, Head of Growth at Runna (+1M app users): 'I was on a call chatting through different tax thresholds & I was like… This is just not the life I need to live.' Imagine you've built a super successful app like Runna (millions of runners from +180 countries, growing like crazy, just acquired by Strava)... Then, as their global user base exploded, they faced significant limitations with their app-store-only monetization strategy: - Customer acquisition was becoming costly - Attribution and measurement became very difficult - Waiting on App Store release cycles slowed them down In search of a better way forward, they landed on the Web2App approach: 'A lot of our marketing is app-focused, but we realized by adding web monetization we could reach an entirely new audience.' And like with most apps, Web2App solved these growth challenges (c. acquisition, attribution, speed)... But, it also introduced new, billing & tax compliance responsibilities: - Handling sales tax compliance (in 175 countries!) - Dealing with chargebacks - Processing refunds - Preventing payment fraud - Owning buyer support - Managing delinquent payments In this realm of billing & tax compliance, they had two options: 1. Go with a traditional payment processor, become responsible for all the above billing & tax compliance matters 2. Go with a Merchant of Record model, let Paddle handle all of the billing & tax compliance matters for them After a lengthy search, Runna chose Paddle as their web monetization partner, sold on the Merchant of Record (MoR) model. One joint Runna + Paddle team run & a week of implementation later, Runna team now doesn't have to worry about billing & tax compliance, but they've also seen: - 15% higher retention on the web - Faster pricing, onboarding & checkout experimentation - Unified data & support (w/ RevenueCat + Paddle integration) Best of all, the Merchant of Record model means Runna can focus entirely on product development and customer acquisition, on their mission to make running accessible and enjoyable for everyone. ...while Paddle handles all compliance, invoicing, and tax remittance across their +175 country footprint. Runna, thank you for this awesome partnership and giving us an excuse to make running dad jokes like 'run billing ops' & 'Runna now runs even MoR fast with Paddle'.

How Cup Heroes Monetizes Its Success 10M+ downloads and $1.7M in monthly revenue (https://lnkd.in/eyg_hWaK) Cup Heroes is a masterclass in hybrid-casual monetization.  Here’s how they do it: I. Core-Gameplay Ads Monetization: • 🛡️ Watch ads to unlock skills like boosting damage or crit rate. >>>> Skills last for only one chapter, so players keep watching. • 💀 Revive your character once per chapter by watching an ad. • 🎁 Double your rewards at the end of each chapter with another ad. II. Progression IAP Monetization: • 🎉 Starter packs offer hard and soft currency, plus bonuses. • 🏆 Season passes keep players engaged with rewards and daily quests. • 💎 Hard currency packs let players fast-track progress for a premium price. • 🎲 Gacha chests offer upgrades and characters with a bit of surprise. • 🔓 Unlock new characters by collecting fragments or buying them with diamonds. III. Other Monetization Options: • ⚡ Speed boosts make long battles quicker. • 🚫 A small fee removes interstitial ads permanently for smoother gameplay. Results? • 60/40 split between in-app purchases and ads.   • 40% Day 1 retention, 14% Day 7, 3% Day 30.   • Average daily playtime: 54 minutes. Cup Heroes finds the perfect balance between player engagement and monetization. Data Source: AppMagic

**Monetisation Series Part 1: The Basics** In-game monetisation is a vital part of the mobile games ecosystem. Today, I’ll cover the basics you should know before we dive into more complex topics over the next five days. Monetisation for mobile games can be divided into two main categories: Free to Play and Premium. I will stick to F2P as it's 99% of the mobile games industry today. **Rewarded Video (RV)** This is probably the most common ad unit in our industry. As a developer, you must carefully consider where to place RVs to achieve the desired effect. Understanding user motivations is key to monetisation, especially with RVs. This involves placing RVs in spots where users are likely to engage with them, offering rewards or multipliers (e.g., double rewards) for watching a video at the end of a level. **Interstitial Ads** Interstitial ads implementation varies by game genre, you're more likely to see it Hyper-Casual than Midcore for example. Unlike RVs, which are user-initiated, interstitial ads are system-initiated. Developers set up logic to serve a certain number of ads within a given time frame, known as “Ad frequency.” For example, showing five ads to one user within 60 minutes at specific break points (e.g., end of a level). **Banner Ads** These are small banners or static images typically displayed at the bottom of the home screen. **Offer Walls** A traditional form of monetisation in F2P games, offer walls act as micro-economic stores that provide rewards for completing actions in other games. These are often referred to as “Cost per engagement” campaigns on the UA side. **In-App Purchases (IAPs)** IAPs are the most premium and desired form of monetisation but also the hardest to implement effectively. Developing your game with the economy in mind and ensuring users are motivated to spend real money is challenging. A good casual game typically aims for 4-6% of paying users, meaning 1 in 20 players end up spending money in the game after being acquired. **Subscriptions** This involves users “subscribing” to a weekly or monthly IAP, providing unique in-game content, bonus items, or additional perks and multipliers on currency or rewards. This is the most profitable form of IAP monetisation. **Cross-Promotion** Cross-promotion is an often underutilised monetisation strategy. For developers with large game portfolios or back catalogues, it’s a simple way to move users from one game to another. Timing it correctly at the churn point can potentially double your users’ overall LTV by keeping them within your ecosystem. Remember, the most important aspect of monetisation is balance. Implementing the right strategy and ad units to improve LTV (lifetime value) without reducing retention (notably through ad spamming) is crucial to your success as a developer. The growth loop defines the balance between monetising your game and acquiring users to scale DAU (daily active users) while maintaining your target profit margin.

Supercell’s new Pro Pass in Brawl Stars is an example of how premium design can evolve core monetization systems. Supercell’s new Pro Pass system introduces a hybrid model that blends monetization with deeper player progression. Instead of only gating rewards behind a linear track, Brawl Stars now layers multiple reward paths and premium boosts, creating new incentives for both spenders and non-spenders. Our latest Monetization Report, Miro Board, and Expert Roundtable with Talia Shmuel, Oscar Clark 🔜 PGCKorea, and Ohad Vaizman breaks down how this model changes the retention loop, what it signals for live service design, and how other studios can adapt these mechanics to their own economies. The key shift: Battle Passes are evolving from time-based monetization to engagement-based ecosystems. The Pro Pass shows how Supercell is aligning spend with sustained play, not just purchase timing. Comment “Pro Pass” and I’ll share the Miro board and full teardown report and the free Roundtable content, thanks to Stash, is available in the comments.

🚀 A new monetization method for mobile? 🤞 We all know that the main pillars of mobile monetization methods are IAPs, Subscriptions, Ads, and Offerwalls. The issue is that IAPs and subscriptions are difficult to master, and Offerwalls and ads require many users to engage heavily with ads. BrightSDK is a new method to monetize your users via their bandwidth. ⚙️ How does it work? Bright SDK works with the largest e-commerce, travel, and social companies in the world to help them make decisions about products and pricing by analyzing Public Web Data. Turns out that large companies are willing to pay to know for example the average review score of a product in different geos and how an airline ticket between London and New York is priced in different geos. To do this at a large scale you need crawlers to get the data that the companies need. But as the web is built for people most of these programs are blocked. By using some of your users' bandwidth Bright SDK can get the data. 👏 How does it look in an app or game? Users can’t share their bandwidth without giving consent on iOS or Android to stay compliant—but incentivizing users to opt in is fair game. In Outlets Rush by Supercent, for example, players see a tempting pile of gems (premium currency) on the floor, which they receive if they agree to share a bit of their phone’s bandwidth while playing. Other approaches include offering fewer ads to users who opt-in or gifting a bundle of “skip” tickets as a reward for their consent. 💸 What’s the revenue potential? As Bright SDK is only active while users are playing a game thus earning potential depends on your session lengths, sessions per day, and the location of your users. If we take an app that has 50k DAU with 40% in the USA and 30% in T1 geos and around 10-minute session lengths per day this app would earn about $720/day or $21,600/month. 🧨 Keen to learn more about this new monetization method tune in to my conversation with Ofir Meir on two & a half gamers. 🎥 Youtube: https://lnkd.in/eZyaQMC3  ✉️ Ad Monetization Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eRWRFiGf #MobileMonetization #BrightSDK #AdMonetization #MobileGames #growth #GameDev #RevenueGrowth #MobileGaming #AppGrowth Matej 🦩Jakub #monetization #mobilegames #mobileapps #new