Chartboost Earnings for Hypercasual Game Apps

Typical ad setup for this category

These are the modelling defaults for the category, used in every table on this page.

Sessions per user per day

4.0

Typical session length

4 minutes

Retention day 1 / 7 / 30

30% / 8% / 2%

Typical iOS share

30%

Rewarded video

1.5 per user / day

Interstitial

6 per user / day

Banner

10 per session

Native

Not offered

App open

Not offered

Hypercasual games live on volume, not loyalty

Hypercasual players arrive from a short ad, tap through a handful of quick levels and are often gone within a day or two. That shape decides how you earn. There is little progression to sell and almost no in-app purchase revenue, so advertising carries the whole business, and each player has a brief window in which to generate it. We apply a multiplier of 0.8 to this category, the lowest of the nine, because inventory is plentiful and advertisers know that many of these impressions reach people who are only half paying attention.

Interstitials do most of the earning. Levels end every few seconds, so natural breaks are never in short supply, and someone who downloaded a free toy accepts a full-screen ad more readily than a player deep in a strategy campaign. The trap is pacing by level count. If a level lasts ten seconds, an ad after every level becomes an ad every ten seconds, and the uninstall follows. Rewarded video still has a role, usually as a skip-level offer or a cosmetic unlock on the results screen, but opt-in is modest because the economy is too shallow to make rewards feel precious.

With retention this steep, the sums that matter are lifetime ones. A studio buying installs needs each player to return more in ad revenue over their short stay than the install cost, and a small shift in day-1 retention can move that balance more than any eCPM tweak. Track revenue per install across the first week, not only revenue per day; the ARPDAU and LTV guide shows how the two connect.

Estimated monthly earnings by audience size

Monthly estimates for the typical setup above, balanced region split.

Where the money comes from

Split of the $8,231 estimate at 10,000 daily users (blended Android and iOS).

Interstitial carries 50% of the total, so its placement and frequency matter most for this category.

Region makes the biggest difference

The same app at 10,000 daily users with three audience splits:

Moving from an emerging-market audience to a Tier 1 audience multiplies the estimate by about 2.4.

Revenue per install

Using the category’s typical retention curve, one install produces about 2.8 active days in its first 30 days and 3.7 in 90 days.

Ad revenue per install, first 30 days

$0.08

Ad revenue per install, first 90 days

$0.10

Compare these figures with your cost per install before buying users. They exclude in-app purchases.

How Chartboost fits this category

For Rewarded video, the Tier 1 eCPM in our Chartboost table is $10.00, about 17% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. For Interstitial, the Tier 1 eCPM in our Chartboost table is $7.20, about 11% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. For Banner, the Tier 1 eCPM in our Chartboost table is $0.70, about 15% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. Chartboost does not offer App open in our model. On networks that do, it carries about 5% of revenue for this category, so that share has to come from other formats here. Modelled fill is 78% for Chartboost against an average of 83% across the mobile networks, which trims a little from every format.

You create an account, add each app and receive an app ID and app signature for the SDK. Named ad locations identify each placement, and most developers connect Chartboost as an adapter inside their mediation platform rather than running it alone. Turn on test mode while you build, then publish the app-ads.txt entry Chartboost supplies before release. Payment and tax information is completed in the dashboard. Our guide to bidding vs waterfall explains where a network like this fits in a stack.

How Chartboost ranks for this category

All eight mobile networks, same category and audience (10,000 daily users, balanced).

Chartboost ranks 7 of 8 here, 72% behind AppLovin MAX.

Practical tips

• Cap interstitials by elapsed time, for example one every 30 to 45 seconds, rather than by levels completed.
• Hold back full-screen ads for the first two or three levels so new players reach the fun before the first interruption.
• Test a rewarded skip-level button on failure screens, where the urge to watch is strongest.

About Chartboost

Chartboost is a game-focused network that grew up on interstitials and rewarded video, and it also runs its own mediation product. In our tables it covers rewarded, interstitial and banner, at about $10.00, $7.20 and $0.70 respectively in Tier 1 on Android.

All figures come from our benchmark tables: Android eCPMs by tier, category or niche multipliers, modelled fill and the iOS multiplier. They are estimates for planning, not quotes.