How to monetize your app without ads

Ads are a common way of monetizing apps — providing a way to extract value from users without making them pay for the app directly. However, due to the scale they require most in-app ads never end up providing enough money to justify the downsides they bring. Additionally the negative effect on user experience and the dependency on ad networks to end up tilting the scale to the negative.

At RevenueCat we aren’t against ads by default, but for most apps asking customers to pay for the app is a better way. This reasoning comes into effect especially when you’re monetizing a new app, where retention is more important than acquiring. That’s why we made this guide to monetizing your app without ads, going through all the other monetization methods you have at your disposal. 

This guide takes an indie developer friendly approach, suggesting methods you can adopt from already before you launch your app, and offering guidance on moving from one monetization method as you scale. 

Why indie developers should not choose adsCopy link to this section

When you’re an indie developer, ads are most likely the worst choice for monetizing your app. Hear me out. You most likely built your app because you yourself had use for it? Or perhaps you wanted to build something cool, or perhaps you just like building apps. Whatever the case is, what you’re predominantly not interested in is money in most cases, but building something people want to use.

There is a certain thrill that you get when you see people using your app that is hard to beat. It can almost become a goal to get more users. At the same time, you wouldn’t mind getting a little bit of monetary recognition for your work. At that point you start to think “I don’t want to restrict my app from anyone, I’ll just put ads”. But ads come with multiple downsides:

• Massive downgrade to user experience and messy looking UIs
• Plenty of privacy concerns due to user data tracking
• Performance issues (draining more battery, more data usage)
• Your personal brand will take a hit

In general, it’s hard to position your app as a serious app with ads. There are plenty of ways to monetizing your app that have way fewer tradeoffs. Not to mention how little money ads usually bring you.

To give an example let’s look at the 1000 true fans hypothesis, an article by Kevin Kelly about how you can build a business or side hustle by just having 1000 true fans who all pay a little bit for the things you’re producing. 1000 people paying just a dollar a month is $12k a year. If you had 1000 users using your app with ads, you would only get a few dollars per month. 

The core non-ad monetization modelsCopy link to this section

Whether you’re targeting iOS or Android, the ways you can monetize your app are the same. Let’s go through all the ways you can monetize your app beyond ads.

Pay to downloadCopy link to this section

Pay for the full version of the app used to be a common model back when software was still sold on CDs (ask your father). Back then developers could release a new every year and capture more revenue from users as they bought the new version of your app.

App Store and Google Play Store still support putting a price on your app, but Apple for example considers this model outdated. As developing and supporting an app is a continuous process, the only time you should consider adopting pay to download is if you’re going to release your app once, and make only very limited changes to it in the future. 

In-app purchases (IAP)Copy link to this section

Once the user has downloaded your app, whether that was for free or for a charge, you can actually ask users for more money. Both Play Store and App Store support payments inside apps for purchasing digital goods inside the app, hence the name in-app purchases. There are few different in-app purchase options: consumables, non-consumables, non-recurring subscriptions, and recurring subscriptions: the latter which we will talk about in its own section. Let’s first go through the other options. 

ConsumablesCopy link to this section

Consumable in-app purchases are payments for things in the app that the user purchases and then consumes, such as extra lives in a game. They grant users the access to contents only until they are used in the app, so they work well for example in games where you can build custom economies based on them.

Non-consumablesCopy link to this section

These purchases never expire and the user is for example able to recover the purchases after uninstalling and reinstalling the app, as the purchase information is stored by Apple and Google. You can make non-consumable purchases unlock features in your app for permanent use. You could almost think of these as a way of moving the pay to download further into the actual app itself.

Non-recurring subscriptionsCopy link to this section

These purchases as the name suggests only grant the user access to features of the app for a certain period of time, for example one month, after which Apple and Google (TK check if google has this type actually) mark them expired. You can build for example limited time 

SubscriptionsCopy link to this section

Of all the mentioned in-app purchases options, only consumable in-app purchases (through repeated use) and recurring subscriptions (through periodic payments) bring you that much needed recurring revenue to continue building your app. Building your monetization around consumable purchases can be difficult, so recurring subscriptions is your best option for monetizing your app if you’re looking for recurring revenue.

The fundamental concept behind subscription is simple: the user pays a periodic subscription fee and has access to all features of your app during the subscription period. If they do not cancel their subscription their access to the app continues, and they keep paying you. 

Both App Store and Play Store provide extensive options for configuring subscriptions with different billing periods, prices, and offers such as free trials. Deciding on the pricing can get tricky, but benchmarking against your competitors is a good way to go. You can learn about these from our State of subscription apps report.

Donations and tip jarsCopy link to this section

Perhaps you don’t want to limit your users’ access to your app or its features, but if they feel like sponsoring you in any way, you wouldn’t say no to that? These types of payments, whether they are sponsorships, donations, or tipping also have to go through Apple’s and Google’s in-app purchase infrastructures.

Donations and tipping and essentially just consumable purchases. If you’re interested in learning more about implementing these in your app, I suggest you take a look at this blog post about building a tip jar in your app.

Virtual currenciesCopy link to this section

Virtual currencies are in-app currencies that allow your users to pay for using features and services of your app, without having to go through the in-app purchase infrastructure. This could be for example something like Duolingo Gems, which allow you to restore your broken streak. Another type of currency could be a second of video generation in an AI video creation app. 

The power of virtual currencies is that you can grant users with virtual currencies either through purchases or by completing certain actions. RevenueCat’s Virtual currencies feature allows you to grant them through both subscriptions as well as consumable purchases, meaning users could receive 500 gems every month for their subscription, but on top of that they can still purchase additional gem packs. Alternatively you could also grant a few gems for watching an ad (if you decide to keep those around).

Games and gamified apps often use some form of virtual currencies, but as mentioned they can also be a flexible monetization method for AI powered tools, where the AI usage can be directly tied to usage. If you’re building an AI-powered app, take a look at this tutorial on monetizing your AI app with virtual currencies.

Hybrid modelsCopy link to this section

Sometimes the best monetization strategy is one that combines multiple different models. Your app could offer both recurring options for monthly and yearly subscriptions, with an extra lifetime subscription that uses a non-consumable in-app purchase to do that. Hybrid models are becoming far more popular and effective than they were in the past. According to the 2025 State of Subscription Apps report, more than 35% of apps now combine subscriptions with consumables or lifetime purchases, and the fastest-growing categories (Gaming at 61.7% and Social & Lifestyle at 39.4%) are leading the shift.

If your app currently has ads, one option is not to transition away from them completely, but instead make it so that the free version of the app has ads, which users can then remove by subscribing. You can learn more about this approach from our building ad-free subscriptions with RevenueCat article.

Virtual currencies is the most flexible option for hybrid models, as mentioned above, since it allows you to add two different recurring revenue models, subscriptions and consumable in-app purchases, without having to manage the complex in-app currencies yourself.

How to find the best model for your appCopy link to this section

Since there are multiple ways to monetize your app, it might not be instantly evident what model suits your app the best. This is also something where RevenueCat can help you

Use State of Subscription Apps report to understand your competitorsCopy link to this section

Every year RevenueCat publishes a report called the State of Subscription Apps, a preview into our insights on in-app subscription performance benchmarks, drawing from the world’s largest and most comprehensive subscription app data set.

The report is a valuable tool for understanding how apps are performing under different monetization scenarios, across both the iOS and Android ecosystems. You can find the latest report here.

Experimentation is the keyCopy link to this section

Once you have a hunch on what kind of monetization method and pricing could work for your app it’s time to get to work by experimenting. RevenueCat allows you to build different paywalls, target specific types of users, build multiple pricing options with offers, and best of all extensively experiment and test which of these changes convert best to paying users. RevenueCat’s blog has articles around price testing your app’s subscriptions and a study guide for building paywalls that you should go through, should run into a wall.

Wrapping upCopy link to this section

Ads promise easy revenue, but for most indie developers they deliver the opposite: low earnings, lower retention, and a worse user experience. Sustainable growth comes from models that align your incentives with your users — and that almost always means asking people to pay for the value you’re building.

Subscriptions remain the most reliable path to recurring revenue, but they’re not the only one. Consumables, virtual currencies, and hybrid approaches let you monetize different user segments without compromising the product experience. As the 2025 State of Subscription Apps shows, the top-performing apps increasingly mix models to boost LTV and give users more flexibility.  

Where you start matters less than how quickly you learn. Experiment with pricing, trials, paywalls, and offers. Use data to refine your approach. And lean on tools like RevenueCat to test, iterate, and scale your monetization without rebuilding infrastructure every time.

Build something people love — then choose a monetization model that helps you keep building.