Unity Monetization Plugins – 2014 Update

By
Yaniv Nizan
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(1200x600) Unity Monetization Plugins

As of today, Unity is the biggest eco system for mobile game developers with about 1/2 of the developers claiming they are using Unity and about 1/3 of the game apps in the market place built with it. Unity has 2.5M registered developers and 600K active ones. However, as much as Unity can help you make your game, you still have to turn revenue. For that purpose you can add plugins that will help you monetize your mobile game. There are two main categories:

    • Advertising
    • Selling virtual goods via In-App Purchase (IAP)

If you are monetizing your game with ads it’s important to get visibility to what drives your revenue stream and analyze ad ltv per cohort. Check out SOOMLA TRACEBACK – Ad LTV as a Service.

Learn More

Top Unity In-App Purchase Plugins

Anyone that tried to implement IAP in Unity on their own will tell you it’s a huge mistake. There are great plugins that will help you do that and save you about a month’s work and endless amounts of headache. There are some differences between them so we created a simple table to help you compare. The differences are along these attributes:

  • Type – some plugins include just the IAP library while others also includes a framework to help you set up your virtual goods and ingame economy
  • Platforms – some vendors offer a cross platform plugin while others requires you to purchase a separate plugin for each platform and there are also differences around which platforms are supported
  • Popularity – popular plugins are more battle tested and are more likely to offer future versions and extensions
  • Support – some plugins are supported by the vendor while others allow you to get direct support as well as community support
  • Price – range from free to $175 per plugin
Vendor Type Platforms Popularity Support Price
Highly popular vendor offering virtual economy framework and in-app purchase plugin that is free and open source. support is offered by the team and the community.  Virtual economy + IAP library Cross platform: iOS, Android and Amazon High Community + Team Free and Open source
IAP plugin to help you monetize your Unity game. Works for both Android and iOS and costs around $70. IAP library Separate plugins for Android and iOS High Direct support (average) $60-$70
Unibill offers a plugin suite for multiple platform. their fee is $175 per plugin. IAP library cross platform: Google + Apple + Windows + Amazon Mid-High Direct Support $175
Codiwans offers plugins for both in-app purchase with iOS and in-app billing with google play. IAP library Different plugins for Android and iOS Mid Direct $30-$35

Best Unity Ad Plugins

The second option for monetizing Unity games is advertising. These plugins work a bit differently than the IAP ones as they all require signing up and some of them even have a qualification process. They differ on a few levels:
  • Ad formats:
    • Offers – value exchange where users are rewarded by coins to see ads – Learn More
    • Video – video ads shown inside your game
    • Interstitial – full page banner ads – Learn More
  • Advertised products – some ads will show other games while other ads can feature brands
  • Payment model:
    • CPM – fixed fee for each 1,000 impressions
    • CPC – fee per click
    • CPI – fee per install
    • CPCV – fee per each completed video view
    • Rev-Share – the ad network pays a ratio of what they are getting from the advertisers
  • Popularity – more popular plugins are usually more tested and proven
Vendor Ad Formats Advertised Products Payment Model Popularity
Chartboost are offering interstitial ads and videos and are loved by the community for their transparency and direct deals option. Interstitial and Video Games only CPI High
Tapjoy is one of oldest networks for reward advertising. their offer walls are used by over 200k apps Reward Ads Mostly Games CPI High
the first vendor to offer video ads for mobile games and a leader of this category Video CPCV Mostly Games Mid-High
sponsorpay are offering a combination of reward advertising options and video ads Video and Offers Games and Brand Rev-Share Mid-High
vungle is a more recent addition in the mobile video ad space. they became quite popular in the last 12 months Video Mostly Games Rev-Share Mid-High
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16 COMMENTS

      • Thanks for the reply. Yes, our plugin is been used by early adopter community right now and we are looking at more developers to join them in giving us feedback. We aim to increase retention and reach through localized and event based assets in game. I would love to keep you updated.

    • Hi Irfan,
      as far as I can give you a valid answer… Yes, our service is reliable. We provide an easy SDK integration, 100% filrate and Facebook support. What are you exactly looking for?

      Best, Sebastian

    • I don’t have this info but that’s an interesting topic. I might research in the future. I do believe Chartboost have the ability to block advertisers but not sure it’s based on the rating system as opposed to one by one.

  4. I’ve been using adtomatik for the last two months and got excellent results, higher fill rates and best ecpm than others ad networks.

  5. Yaniv – We recently launched http://www.StoreFrontSDK.com which is a free service and plugin (Unity3D) that generates shops within mobile apps where devs can sell their custom-designed goods and apparel. It’s been used in the SnorgTees app and several games are implementing it as well. Check it out – it’s certainly a great way to monetize an app 🙂

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