Mobile Game Monetization Statistics 2026 (Sourced)

Mobile game monetization statistics 2026: the key numbers

Mobile games earned in-app purchase (IAP) revenue “approaching $82 billion” in 2025, up 1.3%, according to Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile 2026, and over $12 billion from ads across 19 markets, according to Sensor Tower’s ad monetization report. Only a small share of players pay: Unity’s data shows a median of 0.5% of daily active users paying in 2023. Most players leave fast, with GameAnalytics reporting a median day 7 retention just under 4% in 2025.

Every number on this page is public, comes from the named source, and carries the date of the data. We did not estimate, combine or round any figure beyond what the source published. Where public data is thin, we say so. Sources were checked on November 4, 2026.

Market size: how big is mobile game revenue?

The two most quoted trackers measure different things. Sensor Tower estimates spending in the App Store and Google Play. Newzoo publishes its own market model with a different scope and method. Their totals will not match, and they should not.

A note on data.ai: the former App Annie was acquired by Sensor Tower in March 2024, so current app market estimates from that lineage are published under the Sensor Tower name. Newzoo’s own site did not load for us, so the Newzoo figures above are as reported by PocketGamer.biz.

In-app purchases vs ads: where the money comes from

IAP still brings in most of the money in mobile games, but ads reach most of the players. Sensor Tower’s Gaming Deep Dive: Ad Monetization report gives the clearest public picture of the ad side:

Do not divide the $12 billion ad figure by the $82 billion IAP figure to get an “ads share”. The ad figure covers 19 markets and the IAP figure covers the App Store and Google Play worldwide, so the scopes differ.

The long-tail line matters most for small studios. In Sensor Tower’s data, games outside the top 1,000 take a far larger slice of ad revenue (29%) than of IAP revenue (9%). For a smaller game, ads are often the more reachable revenue line.

Hybrid monetization data

AppsFlyer’s 2024 State of App Monetization (data from Q3 2024, published December 3, 2024) compared models directly. For Android mid-core games, day 90 return on ad spend was 146% with hybrid monetization, against 93% for IAP only and 58% for ads only. For hypercasual games, day 90 ARPU was $0.60 with a hybrid model against $0.47 for ads only. The same report shows the opposite on iOS mid-core, where IAP models reached 215% and hybrid 73%, so hybrid is not a universal win.

On the studio side, Unity’s 2026 Unity Game Development Report surveyed 300 developers between September 16 and October 3, 2025. Asked which strategies their teams use to grow revenue, 57% named in-app purchases, 39% in-app advertising and 25% offerwalls. Hybrid monetization covers how to combine them.

Payer conversion: how many players pay?

Payer conversion is the share of players who make at least one purchase. Public figures are rare, and the few that exist come mostly from Unity, measured in different ways:

The two Unity figures are not in conflict. One counts payers among a day’s active users; the other counts everyone who ever paid over their lifetime. Either way, the large majority of players never buy anything, which is why monetizing free users matters as much as the store. ARPPU explains how to measure what payers spend.

Retention benchmarks

Retention drives every revenue line, because a player who leaves on day 2 sees no more ads and buys nothing. The largest public game benchmark is GameAnalytics’ 2026 Mobile and PC Gaming Benchmarks, based on 16,262 live mobile games with at least 1,000 monthly active users, using data from January 1 to December 31, 2025:

The same report puts median daily playtime at around 12 minutes and median session length at 3.1 to 3.5 minutes in 2025.

Adjust’s Gaming App Insights Report: 2026 Edition (data from January 2024 to January 2026) gives a higher day 1 figure: 27% for all gaming apps in 2025, stable year over year, with hybrid casual and hyper casual both at 27%. The gap is expected. Adjust’s dataset mixes its top 5,000 apps with all apps it tracks, while GameAnalytics reports the median of a much wider set of games. App retention benchmarks explains why reports disagree, and what retention rate means covers the formula.

ARPDAU benchmarks

Average revenue per daily active user is the number most teams watch day to day, yet public ARPDAU benchmarks for mobile games are scarce. The most recent one we could verify on the source page is Unity’s 2024 Unity Gaming Report, with 2023 data:

• In-app ad ARPDAU: $0.038 in 2023, up 26.7% from $0.030 in 2022.
• IAP ARPDAU: the median fell 13% from 2022 to 2023.

We did not find a public 2025 or 2026 ARPDAU benchmark with a clear method that we could check on the original page, so we do not quote one. Figures circulating in blog posts without a named dataset are not included here. What is ARPDAU shows how to calculate yours.

Rewarded ads adoption

Rewarded ads, where a player chooses to watch an ad in exchange for an in-game reward, are one of the main ad formats in games. Public adoption data:

• Engagement trend: global engagement with rewarded video rose 3.2% year over year in 2023, according to Unity’s 2024 Mobile Growth and Monetization Report, based on LevelPlay data.
• By genre: in the same report, word games (38.4%), role playing (37.6%) and casual games (36%) had the highest share of daily active users watching rewarded ads.
• By placement: the “resource ran out” placement reached 38.1% of users as ad watchers, against 23.8% for a placement between levels.
• Revenue share of the format: in TopOn’s Global Mobile Games Monetization Report, 2025 H1, based on its partner games from January 1 to June 30, 2025, rewarded video was 39.35% of ad revenue in casual games (interstitials 44.25%) and 51.77% in midcore and hardcore games.

The format, its rules and its pros and cons are covered in what rewarded ads are. For the full set of rewarded and offerwall figures, see rewarded ads and offerwall statistics.

User acquisition cost context

Monetization only works if it pays back what you spend to get players. Three public reference points:

• Spend: AppsFlyer’s State of Gaming for Marketers 2026 (published January 14, 2026) puts global gaming app user acquisition spend at $25 billion in 2025, up 3.8%, across 9.6 thousand gaming apps and 24.8 billion installs.
• Cost per install: Adjust’s 2026 gaming report puts global gaming CPI at $0.56 in 2025, up 30% year over year, and US CPI at $1.71.
• Payback: Liftoff’s 2025 Casual Gaming Apps Report highlights (July 28, 2025) say average day 30 ROAS for casual games in 2024 reached 47% on iOS and 15% on Android.

For country-level CPI, see cost per install by country.

How to use these numbers

1. Check the scope first. Before you quote a figure, note the markets, platforms, genres and years it covers. A 19-market ad figure and a worldwide store figure are not the same thing.
2. Compare like with like. A median across 16,000 games includes many tiny projects. If your game has real marketing behind it, the top 25% line may be the fairer comparison.
3. Mind who collected it. Most data here comes from companies that sell analytics, measurement or ads. That does not make it wrong, but each sees only its own customers.
4. Benchmark against yourself. Your own cohorts by install week, country and source tell you more than any industry median. Use the LTV calculator to turn your retention and ARPDAU into lifetime value.
5. Never present a benchmark as a promise. If you show these numbers to investors or partners, keep the source and date next to each one.

How to add Moonetix to your mobile game

If the numbers above point you toward more earning paths for players who never pay, here is how to add the Moonetix offerwall to a game.

1. Apply as a publisher at moonetix.com. Every application is reviewed by hand, and once you are approved, apps you add are live right away.
2. Add your game in the dashboard and set the currency name and icon to match your soft currency, then the conversion rate, user split, rounding and wall design.
3. Pick the integration for your engine: the Unity plugin (offerwall in a Unity game), the Android SDK, iOS SDK, Flutter plugin or React Native package. For Godot, Unreal or GameMaker there is no dedicated SDK; your server builds the signed offerwall link and the game opens it in a browser or WebView, as the Godot guide shows.
4. Credit currency only on your server from the signed postback, and remove it when a reversal arrives.
5. Before launch, use Open as a test user and Send a test postback, as described in test your app before launch.
6. Place the wall where players run out of currency, next to your store and rewarded video button; offerwall placement has ideas.

See the whole setup for games, including the platform rules and an earnings estimate, on Moonetix for games.

Frequently asked questions