What changed
- First published. Reflects AppLovin Ads pricing after the June 22, 2026 opening to all advertisers.
What is the minimum budget for AppLovin ads?
AppLovin says you can launch with a budget as low as $10 a day. That is the floor to switch a campaign on, not the budget a campaign needs to learn.
- Minimum daily budget to launch
- $10/day
- AppLovin consumer-brands page
- Published rate card or CPM
- None
- AppLovin buys on outcomes
- Average annualized revenue per new advertiser
- $70K+
- AppLovin Q1 2026 earnings call
- A typical first test: $1,000/day for five days
- $5,000
- Agency guidance, pilot era
The $10 a day minimum is official and new: until June 22, 2026 the platform, then called Axon Ads Manager, was referral-only. Today any business can sign up. The number worth anchoring on is a different one. On the Q1 2026 call, CEO Adam Foroughi put average annualized revenue per new customer at "well over $70,000". That is roughly $6,000 a month of AppLovin revenue per new advertiser, and it says more about a working budget than the floor does.
How does AppLovin charge advertisers?
You set a goal and a target, and AppLovin bids in an auction to hit it. Web advertisers choose ROAS, cost per purchase or cost per lead; apps add in-app events and installs.
| Goal | What you set | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| ROAS | A return-on-ad-spend target | E-commerce with a purchase value on every order |
| Purchases (CPP) | A cost-per-purchase target | Stores that want predictable acquisition cost |
| Leads (CPL) | A cost-per-lead target | Services and lead-gen, the newest goal |
| In-app events (IAE) | A cost per in-app action | Apps and games optimizing past the install |
| Installs (CPI) | A cost per install | Apps and games buying users |
AppLovin's launch post puts it simply: every advertiser on the platform buys based on measurable performance. Axon, the recommendation engine, decides which impression to bid on and how much, so there is no audience or placement to price yourself.
What is the AppLovin CPM?
There is no official AppLovin CPM. You do not buy impressions, so your CPM is an output of the auction, different for every campaign, and any single CPM figure quoted online is an estimate.
On Meta or a programmatic exchange, CPM is the price you pay. On AppLovin Ads it is a number you can compute afterwards: spend divided by impressions, times a thousand. It moves with your bid, your creative, your category and the week.
For apps, the closest public reference is industry-wide cost per install. Business of Apps puts global gaming CPI at $2 to $5 on iOS and $1.50 to $4 on Android in 2025. Those ranges span every network, not AppLovin alone.
How much should you budget for an AppLovin test?
Agency guidance from the pilot was $1,000 a day for five days with a starting cost-per-purchase bid near half your average order value. Common Thread Collective suggests testing once paid social spend passes $50,000 a month.
Two pieces of practitioner guidance frame a test. A pilot-era agency guide recommended launching at $1,000 a day for five days, a starting cost-per-purchase bid of roughly half the average order value, and about 48 hours of relearning after any bid change. Common Thread Collective recommends a 30-day test for brands spending more than $50,000 a month on paid social. Both are agency guidance, not AppLovin policy.
| Average order value | Starting CPP bid (half AOV) | Daily budget for 20 purchases | Five-day test |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40 | $20 | $400 | $2,000 |
| $80 | $40 | $800 | $4,000 |
| $120 | $60 | $1,200 | $6,000 |
| $200 | $100 | $2,000 | $10,000 |
Twenty purchases a day is a working assumption for giving the model enough signal to learn; fewer conversions means a slower, noisier read. If the table puts your test above what you can lose, AppLovin is a later channel, not a first one.
Where to spend before AppLovin
AppLovin works best when you arrive with creative that already converts. Meta, Google and TikTok are where most brands find those winners first.
Before you put $5,000 behind AppLovin, study what wins there: the AppLovin ads library has real creatives from the network, playables included, free to play in your browser.
Sprites is an AI ads agent that runs Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and Reddit campaigns and reads competitors' ads from the Meta, Google and LinkedIn ad libraries. It does not run AppLovin campaigns. It makes the channels that fund your AppLovin test work harder, and finds the creative worth porting.
Keep going
The rest of the AppLovin guide, and the library of real AppLovin ads behind it.
Every ads library on Sprites
Search any advertiser by name, or open the library for the platform you are buying on.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum spend on AppLovin Ads?
AppLovin says you can launch with a budget as low as $10 a day. Agencies recommend a larger first test, often $1,000 a day for five days, so the model has conversions to learn from.
What is the average CPM on AppLovin?
AppLovin publishes no CPM. Advertisers bid on outcomes such as ROAS or cost per purchase, so CPM is a result of each campaign rather than a price, and any average quoted online is an estimate.
Does AppLovin charge per click or per impression?
Neither is how you bid. You set an outcome target: ROAS, cost per purchase, cost per lead, an in-app event or, for apps, an install. The auction prices impressions to hit it.
How much does an AppLovin install cost?
AppLovin does not publish one. Industry-wide, Business of Apps puts 2025 gaming CPI at $2 to $5 on iOS and $1.50 to $4 on Android, across all networks.
Is AppLovin cheaper than Meta?
There is no like-for-like price to compare, because AppLovin bids on outcomes. Advertisers in a Jefferies Q2 2026 survey ranked it top three by ROAS, which is the comparison that matters.
How long should an AppLovin test run?
Agency guidance ranges from a five-day launch burst to a 30-day test. Allow about 48 hours for the model to relearn after any bid change before judging results.
Do I need a referral code to advertise on AppLovin?
No. Since June 22, 2026 any business can sign up for AppLovin Ads without a referral code or an existing relationship.
Fund the test with channels that already work.
Sprites runs your Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and Reddit ads and shows you what competitors run, so the creative you take to AppLovin is already proven.