Revenue share defines how advertiser spend is divided. The advertiser pays for a conversion, the platform retains a percentage for running demand, fraud screening, and settlement, and the publisher receives the rest as a payout.
How it works
An advertiser paying $10 for a conversion against an 80% share produces an $8 payout. The platform's 20% covers the demand relationships, the tracking infrastructure, fraud detection, and the reconciliation of reversals that nobody wants to handle themselves.
Why the headline percentage can mislead
A share means nothing without knowing what it applies to. A 90% share of a weak gross payout pays less than a 75% share of a strong one, and a platform with thin demand may quote generously precisely because there is little revenue to split. The only comparable figure is realized eCPM or EPC on genuinely similar traffic.
What else to check
Payment terms. Net 30 and net 60 are materially different for a publisher managing cash flow.
Minimum thresholds. A high minimum payment can strand earnings for months on smaller apps.
Reversal handling. Whether reversals net against future earnings or are invoiced back matters a great deal at uneven volume.
What the percentage is taken from. Gross advertiser spend and post-deduction revenue are not the same base.
Fill and demand depth. A strong share on inventory that rarely fills earns less than a modest share that always does.
Revenue share and the reward economy
The publisher's share is not profit. Out of it comes the cost of the virtual currency granted to the user, set by the currency conversion ratio. A publisher on an excellent share who rewards too generously can still run the wall at a loss, which is why the two numbers have to be tuned against each other rather than separately.
Revenue share and scale
Most agreements step with volume, so the rate a publisher starts on is rarely the rate they end on. That makes the entry percentage a poor basis for choosing a partner, particularly for an app expecting growth. Worth establishing up front: at what volumes the rate steps, whether steps are calculated monthly or cumulatively, and whether a drop in volume moves the rate back down. A partner unwilling to put the schedule in writing is telling you something.
Common misconceptions
A higher share is not automatically a better deal. Realized earnings per user are what matter, not the percentage.
Revenue share is not the publisher's margin. The reward granted to the user comes out of it.
Shares are not always fixed. Many agreements step with volume, so the effective rate differs from the quoted entry rate.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Is a higher revenue share always a better deal?
Q: Is the publisher's share the same as profit?
Q: What else should be checked besides the percentage?
Keep reading
Metric
eCPM (effective Cost Per Mille) is a publisher's estimated earnings per 1,000 impressions across any pricing model. It is the standard way to compare how much different ad units, networks, or placements actually earn.
Concept
A currency conversion ratio is the exchange rate between real-world money and a platform's virtual currency, or between two virtual currencies. It sets how much in-app currency a user receives for a given amount of value, for example $1 of offerwall revenue converting to 100 gems.
Role
A publisher is the individual or company that owns a mobile app or website and makes its ad inventory available to advertisers. In mobile, publishers are typically the app developers and studios that monetize their audience.