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Ask HN: Are ad revenue still a viable way to monetize an app in 2022?

19 points by lairv ↗ HN
Do you have examples of app that still make their main profits from ad revenue ? If so, are their better alternatives than AdSense to put ads on a website ?

I guess a typical answer would be "it depends on the app", so I'll give a bit of context, you can skip if you don't care: I'm building an app which fetch and process big amount of data from multiplayer game, and users can check their data and stats (similar to op.gg for those who know). Processing and storing such data is costly, and ads seems like the most natural way to monetize the app, since ideally users would regularly come and check multiple pages

20 comments

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disadvantage
How much traffic will you be getting? Would the traffic bring in substantial revenue, as in, enough to pay rent, eat food, etc?

You could always go AD-free and offer a premium-only app. I prefer this model since ADs invade privacy and I block them anyway with ADGuard.

lairv
Hard to estimate traffic for now. I use ad-blockers as well, but on the other hand I don't like the idea of hiding core features behind a premium-paywall
eimrine
How about gathering as much of personal data as you can for the sake of selling it to Facebook/Google/Bytedance?
lairv
Is that sarcasm ? Anyway I'd like my app to stay account-free (no account required to access any feature) so I don't really know how I could collect data
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j0hnyl
If you make an app that gets a lot of users, advertisers/networks/etc. will find you.
seydor
> will find you.

how?

j0hnyl
Advertisers are hungry for good inventory, if you have users then you stand out in the rankings and they'll send you inbound emails, etc.
cercatrova
Just have both, an ad version and offer an in-app purchase for an ad-free version. That way you can capture both types of consumers.
lairv
True although I have no idea how much people are willing to pay only for the ad-free feature (which they can get with any adblocker)
metadat
How does one install a system wide ad-blocker on mobile? AFAIK, this isn't feasible with iPhone or Android.
lairv
Oh.. yeah I was talking about a web app, should have just said website I guess
cercatrova
It is possible, source: me. AdGuard, Blokada, DNS66 are all system-wide adblockers which block ads even inside apps.
reducesuffering
Pretty sure GasBuddy, for tracking US gasoline prices, is mostly ad-supported.
tmp65535
This app has earned significant money since 2017:

http://driftwheeler.com

Not safe for work. Pornography advertising.

I get a cut of the monthly fees when somebody signs up for MetArt.

urbandw311er
Yes, but only with significant numbers of active users ideally DAUs.

Our app has several hundred thousand MAUs and we make about two cents per month per active user. Margin on this is about 50%.

samspenc
Thanks for sharing some numbers. Assuming 500K MAU, that means around $10000 per month or roughly $120K per year in revenue? And with 50% margin, sounds like you spend around $60K per year to keep the app (and related backend service) up and running?
urbandw311er
Based on 500k MAUs that’s correct. There is seasonal variation in eCPM rates to bear in mind, and any long term trends in eCPM for the territory where your users are based.
lw_seventhree
So you could just use a platform that has money-taking built in (www.salable.app)