Monetization & Earnings

Every published game earns from the first qualified play. Pre-start ads are on by default — opt out per game if you want it ad-free, opt into the in-game Ad API for a bigger share.

Mediation, consent, fraud detection, and payouts are handled on our side. You decide the ad moments and build the game.

How the money flows

There are three revenue surfaces. Two of them share with you, one funds the platform:

• Pre-start ad — a single full-screen ad shown right before your game loads, if you opt in. No code to write. You earn on every pre-start that runs on your game.
• In-game Ad API — your game calls retipie.ads.showRewarded() or showInterstitial() at natural break points. You earn a larger share than pre-start because you designed the moment. See Ads SDK reference.
• Feed layer — while players scroll between games, RetiPie runs its own ads in the feed chrome. This layer funds distribution — hosting, moderation, reconciliation, payments, the infrastructure that gets your game in front of people. It does not share with individual creators.

You never pay RetiPie a fee. The feed layer is how the platform covers its own cost; every other placement credits you.

Your share grows as you grow

Every creator starts earning immediately. Your share of ad revenue goes up as your reach and track record grow — we want every creator on the platform to have a clear path to higher earnings, not hit a ceiling at 100 plays.

Starting out

Every published game earns a solid baseline share on pre-start and on in-game Ad API calls from the very first play. No application. No threshold. No delay. The platform takes on ad sales, mediation, fraud detection, legal compliance, and payment rails; you build the game and keep making it better.

Verified — automatic when you prove traction

Your creator profile unlocks the Verified tier automatically when you hit any one of these lifetime thresholds:

• 50,000 qualified plays across all your games, or
• 5,000 fans, or
• $500 in earnings

There's no application, no paperwork, no waiting. The system moves you up the moment you cross the line and your revenue share bumps across every placement going forward. We tell you in the dashboard when it happens.

Beyond Verified

As you continue to grow, we keep looking out for you. Creators who consistently deliver quality work become a bigger part of what the platform is, and the platform recognises that. We'll reach out when the time is right.

Payout schedule

• Impressions — every time an ad runs through a placement that credits you, a row is written to your earnings ledger in real time with an estimated revenue number.
• Reconciliation — the ad network reports authoritative revenue with a delay of T+1 to T+3 days. A nightly job syncs that number into your dashboard. Reconciled numbers are the authoritative ones.
• Monthly calculation — at the end of each calendar month, your reconciled earnings are summed.
• Settlement hold — we hold each month's earnings for 30 days past month-end to absorb chargebacks and ad-network clawbacks. April earnings go out around early June.
• Minimum payout — $25. Balances below roll forward until you cross the threshold.
• Methods — Payoneer or PayPal (you choose during payout onboarding). More coming.

What counts as a qualified play

• The player stays at least 30 seconds, and
• The game actually runs (bridge reports ready, not just the page loaded), and
• The traffic passes fraud checks (self-play by the creator is filtered server-side; suspicious patterns are quarantined)

Self-plays — you playing your own game while logged in or from your own device — do not generate billable impressions. This isn't a penalty; it's a fraud safeguard that protects the platform's integrity and, by extension, every creator's progress.

Clawbacks

Ad networks can retroactively invalidate impressions flagged as fraudulent, up to 30 days after the fact. If this happens on your game, it appears as a clawback on the impression and reduces your pending balance. It's rare, but it does happen, and we pass it through transparently.

Enabling monetization on your game

1. Open your game's detail page in the creator dashboard.
2. Under Monetization, toggle the placements you want:
   • Pre-start ad — no code needed.
   • Rewarded / Interstitial / Banner — requires SDK calls in your game. See Ads SDK reference.
3. Save. Changes apply on the next game load.

You can mix placements differently per game. A meditative puzzle might only enable pre-start. A frantic arcade game might add rewarded video for "extra life" moments and skip pre-start to protect flow. Your call, per game.

Guardrails you don't have to think about

The platform enforces sensible pacing automatically: session caps, per-placement cooldowns, daily limits, per-creator spam guards. If a call is blocked by a cap, the SDK returns { reason: 'rate_limited' } — no error, no crash, just wait and try at the next natural moment.

You also don't have to worry about:

• Consent — GDPR, TCF 2.x, iOS ATT, COPPA. All handled by the platform. Non-consenting users see non-personalized ads; you still earn a smaller amount. Under-13 users see non-personalized regardless.
• Ad network choice — mediation runs a real-time auction across the major ad networks. The highest bidder wins each impression. You get a better blended rate than any single-network integration could give you.
• Payouts and taxes — payout infrastructure is ours. Tax reporting in your own country is yours (covered in the payout terms you accept before first earning).

Questions

When do I see my first earnings? Estimated revenue appears within seconds of each impression. Authoritative numbers reconcile within 72 hours. Your first payout goes out once you cross the $25 minimum and the 30-day settlement window closes.

Can I choose which ad networks run in my game? No, and this is on purpose. Mediation pays materially more per impression than any single network. You get the best bid available each time without negotiating with ad networks yourself.

My game is brand new. Should I wait for a bigger audience before turning ads on? No. There's nothing to wait for. A game with 100 plays earns on those 100 plays. There's no minimum traffic, no audience gate, no "come back when you're bigger" filter. That's the entire point of the platform.

Why do you take 100% of feed ads? Because feed ads run between games while players are scrolling, not inside your game. They fund distribution — the infrastructure that carries your game to players who've never heard of you. Every in-game placement credits you.

What if I just want my game to exist without ads at all? Don't opt into any placement. Your game still appears in the feed, still gets distributed, still counts plays. You just don't earn from ads. Some creators release their first few games this way while they're building an audience. That's fine.