InMobi 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

Off by default

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 $7,803 estimate at 10,000 daily users (blended Android and iOS).

Interstitial carries 48% 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 2.1.

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

$0.07

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 InMobi fits this category

For Rewarded video, the Tier 1 eCPM in our InMobi table is $9.00, about 25% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. For Interstitial, the Tier 1 eCPM in our InMobi table is $6.00, about 26% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. For Banner, the Tier 1 eCPM in our InMobi table is $0.65, about 21% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. InMobi 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 InMobi against an average of 83% across the mobile networks, which trims a little from every format.

You register as a publisher, add your app with its store link and wait for the account to be approved. Placements are created per format, and you receive an account ID and placement IDs to enter in your mediation platform or the InMobi SDK directly. Publish the app-ads.txt entry InMobi gives you and keep test mode on while you check each placement. It is worth reading about fill rate before you judge results from a small sample of users.

How InMobi ranks for this category

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

InMobi ranks 8 of 8 here, 82% 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 InMobi

InMobi is a mobile network with long-standing reach in Asia and other emerging markets. Its Tier 1 estimates are lower than most, about $9.00 for rewarded, but its Tier 3 figures hold up comparatively well, with rewarded at about $1.50 and interstitial at about $1.00.

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.