AdMob, AppLovin MAX or Unity LevelPlay?

If your app shows ads from a single network, every impression goes to whatever that one network offers. A mediation platform asks several networks at once and gives the slot to the best offer. Nearly every app that earns real money from ads runs one, and the three most people choose between are Google AdMob, AppLovin MAX and Unity LevelPlay.

Bidding and waterfalls

Mediation used to mean a waterfall. You ranked networks by their average eCPM and the SDK called them one at a time, top to bottom, until one had an ad. The problem, as Google's AdMob mediation guide puts it, is that a waterfall calls sources "based on the average eCPM you set, not what the ad source is willing to pay."

Bidding fixes that. Every participating network bids on each impression in real time and the highest bid wins. All three platforms support bidding, and all three let you add waterfall networks underneath for anything the bidders don't fill.

That shared design is why the platforms end up closer than you'd expect. What matters most is how many strong bidders you connect, not whose dashboard runs the auction.

Google AdMob

AdMob is Google's ad network and mediation platform in one. Setup is the simplest of the three, it ties into Firebase, and Google's own demand is in the auction by default. It's a sensible first choice for non-game apps and for anyone monetizing for the first time.

The common criticism is that Google both runs the auction and bids in it. Some developers see better results when an independent platform runs the auction and Google is one bidder among several. Whether that's true for your app is something you can only find out by testing.

AppLovin MAX

MAX is AppLovin's mediation platform, and game studios use it a lot. It has A/B testing built in: you copy an ad unit's setup, change one thing (add a network, change a price floor) and MAX splits traffic between the two versions. It shows results once the test group passes 10,000 impressions.

There are more settings than in AdMob, so expect to spend some time learning them.

Unity LevelPlay

LevelPlay started as ironSource's mediation platform. Unity completed its merger with ironSource in November 2022, and the platform now sits alongside the Unity engine and Unity Ads. If your game is already built in Unity, it's the most natural fit.

How to pick

Narrow it to two. For a game, MAX and LevelPlay. For anything else, start with AdMob and compare it with one of the others later.

Then connect the major networks as bidders on whichever platform you use. An auction with five serious bidders beats a better-known platform with two.

Then test. Put each platform on a share of your users for a few weeks and compare revenue per daily user. Benchmarks, including the network ranking in our calculator, are averages across apps that aren't yours.

And keep SDK count in mind. Every network you add makes the app bigger and adds updates to maintain. If a network rarely wins the auction, remove it.