Vungle / Liftoff Earnings for Puzzle 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

3.0

Typical session length

11 minutes

Retention day 1 / 7 / 30

40% / 18% / 8%

Typical iOS share

40%

Rewarded video

3 per user / day

Interstitial

3 per user / day

Banner

5 per session

Native

Off by default

App open

Not offered

Puzzle games reward patient, habitual players

Word games, sudoku, jigsaws, solitaire and logic puzzles draw a steady audience who play at the same times each day: over morning coffee, on the commute, in the evening. Those routines make puzzle titles some of the most predictable earners in mobile. We treat the category as the benchmark itself, with a multiplier of 1.0, so the base eCPM tables apply unchanged. What sets puzzles apart is less the price of each impression than how many impressions a loyal player produces across months of daily visits.

The pace of play helps. Puzzles are calm and mostly static, with few frantic taps, so a banner along the bottom causes fewer accidental clicks than it would in an action game, and it refreshes the whole time someone is thinking. Each solved grid gives you a clean pause for an interstitial. Rewarded video works best when it offers help: a hint, a revealed letter, an undo, or a second try at the daily challenge. Players stuck on a hard board are often glad to watch for a nudge.

Because the audience is loyal, mistakes show up slowly. An interstitial that appears too often may not cause a wave of uninstalls; sessions get a little shorter instead, and players drift away over weeks. Watch session length and day-30 retention after any change, not only day-1. Put your own daily users, sessions and format mix into the calculator to see how banners and interstitials compare for a game like yours.

Estimated monthly earnings by audience size

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

Where the money comes from

Split of the $8,806 estimate at 10,000 daily users (blended Android and iOS).

Rewarded video carries 51% 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 2.5.

Revenue per install

Using the category’s typical retention curve, one install produces about 5.2 active days in its first 30 days and 8.7 in 90 days.

Ad revenue per install, first 30 days

$0.15

Ad revenue per install, first 90 days

$0.26

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

How Vungle / Liftoff fits this category

For Rewarded video, the Tier 1 eCPM in our Vungle / Liftoff table is $12.00, close to the middle of the eight mobile networks. For Interstitial, the Tier 1 eCPM in our Vungle / Liftoff table is $8.20, close to the middle of the eight mobile networks. For Banner, the Tier 1 eCPM in our Vungle / Liftoff table is $0.70, about 15% below the middle of the eight mobile networks. Vungle / Liftoff does not offer App open in our model. On networks that do, it carries about 3% of revenue for this category, so that share has to come from other formats here. Modelled fill is 80% for Vungle / Liftoff against an average of 83% across the mobile networks, which trims a little from every format.

Sign up on the publisher side of Liftoff, register each app and create placements for the formats you plan to use. Most developers add Vungle through their mediation platform rather than integrating it alone, which means copying the app ID and placement IDs into that dashboard and installing the matching adapter. Add the app-ads.txt line Liftoff provides, run test mode until ads load reliably, and complete the payment profile. The compare tool shows how it stacks up against other networks.

How Vungle / Liftoff ranks for this category

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

Vungle / Liftoff ranks 5 of 8 here, 47% behind AppLovin MAX.

Practical tips

• Keep a banner on the main puzzle screen but leave clear space between it and any keyboard or grid the player taps.
• Sell hints through rewarded video rather than handing out a generous daily allowance, so help keeps its value.
• Skip the interstitial after an abandoned puzzle and show it only after a completed one.

About Vungle / Liftoff

Vungle, now part of Liftoff, is a video-led network whose demand leans towards performance advertisers paying for app installs. Our tables put its Tier 1 Android rewarded estimate at about $12.00 and interstitial at about $8.20, close to AdMob, with fill of around 80%.

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.