When I launched my first apps a decade ago, I ran into the same monetization question many developers face: Do I charge upfront? If I do, how many users will I lose who are not willing to pay? Do I offer an in-app purchase to unlock features? If so, how do I incentivize upgrades while still earning something from free users?
Like many developers, I turned to banner ads from AdMob, Meta, and an endless list of other providers.
There was just one problem: the ick.
These providers must work if they are still around, but I cannot imagine anyone feels great about them. Developers get paid — barely — in exchange for cluttering their UI and embedding SDKs that can be heavy, full of method swizzling, privacy-invasive junk, and generally opaque code. Users get stuck looking at janky ads that make apps feel like local news websites, and not in a good way. Apple once tried to solve this with iAd, but that has long since disappeared.
A few years later, I found myself on the other side of the equation. App developers now live in a world of paid acquisition across the App Store, Instagram, TikTok, and more. These channels all have their place, especially for driving downloads to subscription apps, but ASO and SEO alone do not necessarily bring in all the traffic you need anymore. For better or worse, it is a pay-to-play world.
With all of that in mind, I decided to build something that addresses both sides of the problem: a way for app developers to earn more than nothing from free users, encourage those users to upgrade, and help indie developers drive downloads from other similar apps.
I am calling it Guild Ads, and you can sign up for either side — or both — today.
Here is how it works
Every week, the network has a price. That price fluctuates with demand: if the network sells out, the price for the following week goes up; if it does not fill, the price goes down. Advertisers choose how much of the network they want to buy. When inventory is gone, it is gone — though the following week is usually available. If an advertiser buys 10% of the network, then 10% of the time an ad is shown in another app, it will be theirs.
On the publisher side, apps that want to earn money can participate just as easily. They sign up, integrate the SDK, place a banner in their app — probably visible only to free users — and get paid. The SDK is simple, open source, and not creepy. Each publisher’s weekly payment comes from its share of the total advertiser pool, based on how many users it shows ads to.
At least initially, the revenue may not be huge. But it gives developers a way to earn something from free users while also giving those users a reason to upgrade. And personally, I would much rather help drive traffic to fellow indie apps than to whatever random company happens to win an AdMob auction.
The system also creates an interesting possibility: what if you want to earn money and advertise your app at the same time? You can do that too. Guild Ads accounts can act as both publishers and advertisers, and the balances cancel out. I have even added a 10% credit bonus on anything you earn if you put it back into ads for your own app.
This is still an experiment. I have been running Guild Ads in two of my own apps for the past couple of months — effectively having them advertise each other — and it has already driven downloads and upgrades. Now it is time to open it up to a broader world of indie apps.
Sign up for either side, or both, and let me know what you think. Hopefully the future of indie app advertising can be a lot more pleasant than the present.