Figuring out the best strategies to monetize your hyper-casual games can be troublesome. It’s a very common question to ask how you can effectively monetize your hyper-casual game to earn a good revenue stream.

Showing In-app ads is the best and most popular way to monetize hyper-casual games. If ads are shown with the right kind of strategy, it’s possible to earn a lot through ads. There are also other ways to monetize a hyper-casual game such as in-app purchases and cross-promotion. As all games are unique the monetization strategies for each one should be different as well.

As I said, there are several ways to monetize such games but to get the best results, you need some strategies which I will be discussing in this article. So, keep reading if you want to understand how you should monetize your hyper-casual game and maximize the revenue!

The Best Ways To Monetize Your Hyper Casual Game:

You can monetize a hyper-casual game just like any other game. The most common way to monetize casual games is in-app ads. In-app purchases are also common but are very lightweight in nature, hyper-casual games don’t offer much room for in-app purchases, cross-promotion, etc.

Here are four different ways you can monetize your hyper-casual game.

In-app Ads

You can easily provide in-app ads on hyper-casual games. If you think that it will drive away gamers from your game, however, statistics show otherwise. 

According to statistics, in-game ads revenue is expected to increase from $42B to $56B in 2024 and 73% of mobile gamers don’t mind receiving in-app ads.*

However, in-app ads won’t always make you the most money. There are some strategies that you need to follow.

Strategy 1 – Avoid Showing Ads Too Frequently:

Frequently showing Ads can easily drive away most mobile gamers. Although casual gamers are open to receiving ads, they will just uninstall the game if you show too frequent ads.

Let’s say, you are going to show one shorter ad every two minutes; this can be high frequent ads and users might get intimidated by it.

Strategy 2 – Show Longer Ads Less Frequently: 

Showing longer ads in a less frequent manner can easily offer you the best monetization tactics. Much fewer users are going to be intimidated by longer ads less frequently. 

Suppose you are showing 5 – 10 seconds of video ads while leveling up or failing the level on the game can help you monetize properly without losing the retention rate.

Strategy 3 – Sticky Ads:

Sticky ads are also another way to monetize your casual game through ads. Make sure you place the sticky ads at the bottom of the game so the player doesn’t get too distracted with the ads.

Strategy 4 – Offer to watch a video ad for another chance:

If you follow high-earning hyper-casual games, you will see that they show video ads to offer a second chance if a character dies or the player fails the level. 

In this way, any player will watch the video to get another chance or level up. 

Strategy 5 – Offer to watch video ads to gain coins:

If your game has a coin-based strategy, players can purchase a particular item suppose character skin or anything, by gaining more coins. Any player would love to see the video ads to gain more coins.

In-app Purchase

In-app purchases are another way to monetize mobile games but it’s not that common on hyper-casual games due to their lightweight and simple mechanic strategy.

However, you can easily add in-app purchases by offering character skins, coins etc. If you make your in-app purchase for $6 or $7, a very few gamers will purchase it. 

Now, if you make your in-app purchases for $0.99, a lot of gamers are willing to spend their money to purchase the item.

You can also make the in-app purchase much more interesting by offering more items to purchase. 

Here are some strategies that you can follow to best monetize your casual game with in-app purchases:

Strategy 1 – Offer Premium Membership:

You can offer one week, two weeks, or a month of premium membership at different prices. Players can choose any membership according to their convenience.

Now, what do you offer on your premium membership, on your membership option you can offer no ads option, maybe premium coins or skins depending on your casual game mechanics.

Strategy 2 – Offer Premium Levels: 

You can also offer premium levels to your players. For example, if your game has 100 levels, you can make ten premium levels, which a player can gain by using coins or by purchasing.

You can offer to show about 20 video ads to unlock that premium level which will be intimidating, but if your player is hyped, he will do it.

Cross Promotion

Cross-promotion is a very effective strategy to promote and monetize your hyper-casual games. Top hyper-casual game publishers like Voodoo have been following this strategy for a long time.

The concept of the cross-promotion is that if you have multiple games, you can promote one app through another one, which will ultimately increase the number of installs and earn more.

Let me explain this with an example to make things clear. Suppose you installed the Helix Jump game from Voodoo today. 

The next day, while playing that game, you will see a promotion of another game called Spiral Roll, which is also from the same publisher. This will encourage you to install that game as well.

Now, its time to provide you with some strategies.

Strategy 1 – Develop Multiple Hyper-Casual Games:

If you have multiple hyper-casual games, monetize them with the above-mentioned strategies. When you are getting traction from any of the games, start cross-promotion to attract casual gamers to install another game of yours, which will provide more exposure for your games.

Strategy 2 – Cross-Promote Games After 1 to 2 days:

Do you remember the example I have given you of 2 games from voodoo? Spiral roll & Helix jump!

After playing Helix Jump, I had to play spiral roll just because of cross-promotion.

I usually uninstall a hyper-casual game after playing for 2-3 days. So, if you start showing videos about your other games after 1 to 2 days, users will mostly install those games of yours as well. If you have a lot of apps, the process can work well.

Premium App

People tend to buy premium apps and games when they see value in them. You can’t just make a hyper-casual game and ask for money just to install the game.

Hyper casual games do not work that way. But you can still make it work by applying the following strategy:

Strategy 1: Make a lite and a premium version of the same Game:

If your game is fascinating, this strategy will definitely work. Make a lite version of your game. Then make a premium version of the game with better graphics, more functionalities, fewer ads, and more levels.

People who fell in love with the lite version of your game will definitely go for the premium version.

A good example of this strategy would be X construction and X construction lite. It’s a strategic game to construct bridges.

You can play the lite version for free. But to buy the premium version, you have to pay.

Strategy 2: If the Pricing As Low As Possible:

Most people won’t spend a lot on hyper-casual games. So, try to keep the price very cheap. You can charge 1-2 bucks which are perfectly fine and reasonable.

I discussed the X construction game. Do you know how much it costs? Only $1.49.

I won’t spend more than 2 bucks on a hyper-casual game and neither will you! So, keeping the pricing low is an important factor when trying to monetize a hyper-casual game by building a premium app.