Rewarded vs Interstitial: Pick the Right Game Ads

On paper, rewarded video wins. It pays more per impression than almost any other format, and players choose to watch it. Interstitials pay less per view but can be shown far more often, so the spreadsheet answer is rarely the whole answer.

The real question is what each format does to the people playing your game. An interstitial that fires at the wrong moment can send a new player straight to the uninstall button, and no eCPM makes up for a player who never comes back.

Here is how the two compare on earnings, sentiment and retention, where each belongs in a game, and how to test your own mix instead of trusting anyone's rule of thumb. All dollar figures are estimates from our benchmark tables, the same ones behind the revenue calculator.

What each one pays per view

In our tables, a Tier 1 Android audience on AdMob sees a rewarded video eCPM of about $12.00 and an interstitial eCPM of about $8.00. On AppLovin MAX the same pair reads $14.50 and $9.80. In both cases rewarded earns around 1.5 times as much per impression. In Tier 3 countries the pair falls to roughly $1.40 and $0.90 on AdMob, and the gap stays similar.

Rewarded videos tend to be longer, more engaging and shown to a player who already opted in, which is why advertisers bid more for them. Treat all of this as a band, not a fixed price: our range runs from 0.7x to 1.35x around those central figures, and iOS adds a 1.3x multiplier. The mobile eCPM benchmarks give the full set by format and region.

How players feel about each format

A rewarded ad is a trade. The player gets an extra life or a bonus, so they feel in control, and complaints about rewarded ads tend to be rarer than complaints about forced ones. Interstitials are interruptions. People forgive them when they land between levels and resent them when they cut across play, hide a tiny close button, or arrive twice in a row.

That difference matters for the review score, and the review score matters for installs. Opinion is not a measurement, though, so check your own reviews and your own funnels. Some audiences, particularly in hypercasual games, accept frequent interstitials as the price of a free game. Others do not.

What it does to retention

Retention is where interstitials can get expensive. A rewarded video is optional, so players who dislike ads can skip it, and it rarely hurts retention directly. Interstitials hit everyone, including people who would never have tapped an ad.

Here is a way to weigh the cost. Suppose heavier interstitial use lifts revenue per player-day by 20%. That gain is cancelled if you lose about 17% of your total player-days, since 1 / 1.2 is roughly 0.83. A modest drop in day-7 retention can do that, because lost players take every future session with them. These are hypothetical numbers, so test your own instead.

Frequency capping

Caps are how you keep interstitials from becoming a nuisance. Most mediation platforms and networks let you set them, and common controls are:

• A cooldown, such as no more than one interstitial every 90 seconds.
• A session cap, such as three per session.
• A grace period, such as none before level 3 or during the first session.
• A suppression window, such as no interstitial for several minutes after a rewarded video.

Start strict and loosen only if retention holds (the glossary defines frequency cap and ARPDAU if those are new). Note that a cap also limits your income, so pair it with sensible pacing: if a level takes 20 seconds, a 90-second cooldown means interstitials show roughly every fourth or fifth level.

Placement that works for each

For rewarded video, the placement should offer something the player already wants. Good moments include an extra life after a failed attempt, double coins on the results screen, a free hint when stuck, and a bonus spin on a daily wheel. Show a clear button that says what the reward is. Never trick the player into watching, and always deliver the reward.

For interstitials, wait for a natural pause: level complete, return to menu, game over. Avoid mid-action, avoid the first seconds after launch, and avoid anywhere a finger is likely to be moving, which causes accidental taps. A good test is whether you would mind seeing the ad at that exact moment as a player.

Why most games use both

The formats barely compete. Different players like them, and they sit in different spots in the game. Take a game with 10,000 daily users, in Tier 1, using the AdMob figures above:

• Interstitial only, 2 per user per day: 20,000 impressions at $8.00 earn $160.
• Rewarded only, 1 per user per day: 10,000 impressions at $12.00 earn $120.
• Both: $160 + $120 = $280 a day.

Here the volume of the interstitial beats the price of the rewarded, but the combination beats either. In practice, rewarded usage depends on your economy: if currency is hard to come by, players watch more; if it is plentiful, they skip. Many studios also let a rewarded view switch off interstitials for a few minutes, which rewards engaged players. Compare formats on the home page's format cards, and adjust the frequency sliders in the AdMob calculator, AppLovin MAX calculator or Unity Ads calculator.

A test plan you can run

Pick one change at a time, such as a cooldown from 60 to 120 seconds. Split new users, not existing ones, randomly into a control and a test group. Existing players have habits that muddy the result.

Run it for at least 14 days so day-7 retention is measured. Aim for a few thousand new users per group at minimum, and more if you want to detect small differences. Track revenue per user, day-1 and day-7 retention, sessions per user, session length, rewarded opt-in rate and crash rate.

Choose the winner on total revenue per installed user over the test window, with a retention guardrail: a variant that earns more but loses retention beyond a limit you set beforehand does not ship. Document each result, because the next test builds on it. Our eCPM explainer will help you separate impression changes from price changes in your data.

Pairing the formats with your ad stack

The more networks bidding, the better both formats tend to pay. If you are still on one network, read mediation or a single network before tuning caps. Once your stack is stable, the other levers in earning more from the audience you have work well alongside format tuning. Check each network's documentation, such as the AdMob developer guides or the Unity docs, for the format-specific rules on placement and rewards.