Cost per install (CPI) is a type of CPA model. It implies charging for an instance when a mobile app copy is installed on a smartphone or tablet computer. To calculate the cost per install total, expenditure on ads to drive app installs should be divided over a total number of installs that were generated with those ads. Currently, the average cost per install is roughly $1.24 / per install.
Featured CPI Advertising Networks
Among all payment models established in mobile advertising, this is one of the most important for app developers, because it allows them to calculate ROI of their investments in-app advertising.
You may be asking, how can I optimize my app’s user acquisition potential? We have a mobile expert team with a playbook of best practices to answer that.
Picture This: Fully-Optimized CPI, User Acquisition at Scale
In this directory, we’ve curated all the best CPI Advertising Networks for you.
CPI formula
Source: The Online Advertising Guide
CPI Benefits
CPI is a model that is largely specific to mobile applications. Primarily, a brand is charged a fixed rate only when the user installs the app. A key benefit of this model is that advertisers can target an app niche’s audience.
For app developers looking to create a quick and reliable buzz around their new app, CPI campaigns are often a great way of achieving fast results for them.
One potential drawback of CPI marketing is that you don’t know how many people are using your mobile app. Just because they installed the app doesn’t always mean they are going to spend money on additional purchases or even stick around for long.
Other benefits include:
- You only pay for results with the CPI model
- App developers will be able to gain visibility on the app stores
Featured CPI Advertising Networks
CPI Rates
Here are some CPI offers along with their platform and country in the table below.
| Platform/Network | Country | CPI Rates |
| Facebook Ads | US | $1.8 |
| Twitter Ads | US | $2.53 |
| Instagram Ads | US | $2.23 |
| Search Ads | US | $1 |
| Average iOS App | US | $2.07 |
Source: Business of Apps
Below we’ve listed the best CPI ad networks and platforms so you can get up and running without a problem.
List of cost per install (CPI) ad networks and traffic sources
Perform[cb] offers advertisers proprietary fraud-fighting software solution PerformSHIELD™. It allows marketers and brands to analyze traffic in real-time and do post-processing analysis of a traffic’s validity.
Learn more about PerformcbHilltopAds
One of the best CPM ad networks for publishers and advertisers from all over the world.
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 10-50 |
HilltopAds is one of the best CPM ad networks for publishers and advertisers from all over the world. HilltopAds is a UK-based CPC/CPM advertising network launched in 2013. The unique feature of HilltopAds is traffic segmentation by QUALITY and ACTIVITY of users.
Learn more about HilltopAds
| Employees | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-50 |
Persona.ly is a mobile-first DSP operating worldwide. Using our proprietary bidder and machine-learning algorithms, we offer transparent, performance-driven, highly-targeted UA and retargeting solutions at scale with access to over 1.5 Million ad auctions per second. We are trusted by Ubisoft, Waitr, Tilting Point, Ilyon, Papaya Gaming, CoinSwitch, Animoca Brands, Kefir!, CoinDCX and many others.
Persona.ly strives to be more than just a vendor for its partners, but a partner that helps generate actual value, growth, and broad marketing insights that can be used across channels.
Learn more about Persona.ly
Moburst is a mobile growth marketing agency founded in 2013 with branches in the US and Tel-Aviv. Moburst’s clients include some of the biggest brands in the world such as Google, Uber, Reddit, YouTube, Samsung, and many other amazing startups, gaming companies, and brands. Its team of growth experts promoted 600+ products in the past seven years and helped many start-ups gain more organic users, boost ROI on paid media and improve their products. Its user acquisition is achieved through a selection of hyper-targeted, remarketing, influencers, and brand engagement campaigns get the right message to the right user, at the right time. Its mixture of media channels are ideal to fit your goals and budget, including RTB/exchanges, social, ad-networks, premium publishers, video, retargeting, influencers and search.
- Services: Mobile Campaigns, Media Management and Optimization, Influencers Marketing, Mobile Strategy, App Store Optimization and SEO, A/B Testing, Product Consulting, Creative Production, Video Production, Social Management and Website Production.
- Offices: New York, San Francisco and Tel-Aviv
- Tagline: Mobile Done Right
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 51 - 100 |
Made for growth, built for app marketers. At RevX, we help app businesses acquire and re-engage users via programmatic advertising to retain and accelerate revenue. We\'re all about taking your app business to the next growth level! We help you build sound mobile strategies, combining programmatic UA, app re-engagement, and performance branding to drive the results you need to scale your business: with real users, high retention, and incremental revenue.
Learn more about RevX
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 101 - 200 |
Appska is a full-service performance marketing agency specializing in In-App advertising, Influencer Marketing, Media buying, and Affiliate marketing. It provide partners with a continuous flow of users and can promote mobile apps in any GEO and vertical.
Learn more about Appska
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 51-200 |
Zoomd is dedicated to helping advertisers and publishers achieve their key performance indicators (KPIs) through a patented, performance-based advertising platform. The Company’s User Acquisition platform unifies more than 600 media sources under one dashboard including Google, TikTok, Samsung premium inventory and much more.
- Business Models – Choose your preferred business model CPC/CPI/CPO/CPE/CPA
- Fraud – Detection as part of the platform, adding you an extra layer of safety
- Measurement – integrated to all major 3rd party mobile measurement solutions
- Cost-efficiency – Save countless resources by managing all campaigns under one screen
- Data Play – Enjoy machine decisions based on more than 500Million data points a day
PubMatic delivers superior revenue to publishers by being an SSP of choice for agencies and advertisers. With our leading programmatic mobile advertising platform, publishers and app developers can leverage the open exchange as well as advanced deal models to maximize their monetization and gain access to brand budgets.
- Mobile platforms: Android, IOS
- Campaign types: CPA, CPC, CPI, CPL, CPM
- Ad formats supported: Banners, In-App, Interstitial, Native, Rewarded Video, Rich Media, Video
- Targeting: Publisher, Geo, Audience Segment, Ad Format, Platform, Domain / App, Viewability
- Key markets: Global
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 101-200 | - | 37k | 1.5m |
Adsterra is a world-renowned ad and CPA-network with Partner Care approach, serving over 30 billion ad impressions per month worldwide (70% of traffic is mobile). It works with 21K+ direct publishers and 13K+ brands, affiliates, media agencies, and ad networks dealing with mainstream and non-mainstream verticals.
Learn more about Adsterra Network
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 51 - 100 |
AdMaven - the premier ad network that brings together cutting-edge technology and unrivaled expertise to catapult your online advertising endeavors to new heights. AdMaven provides diverse ad formats and solutions for advertisers and publishers.
Learn more about AdMavenPropellerAds
PropellerAds is a multisource advertising platform that covers 195+ GEOs with 12 billion advertising impressions per day
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 500 |
Propeller Ads is an online advertising company, founded in 2011. It maintains one of the biggest ad networks on the market, with over 1B daily advertising impressions across the globe. PropellerAds has more than 150,000 premium publishers’ sites registered in the network. In addition, PropellerAds offers such solutions as: performance based marketing for agencies & CPA networks, mobile app monetization with SDK integration, buying traffic via Real-Time Bidding model and more.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android
- Campaign types: CPM, CPA, CPL, CPC
- Ad formats supported: Push Notifications, Interstitials, Popunder, Native Ads
- Targeting: Language, OS, GEO, 3g/WiFi, Device type, Browser, Mobile Carrier, Day & time, User Activity (new)
- Key Markets: Global
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
Hitapps focuses on your success as a whole. Perhaps you can manage a small-scale campaign but, if you want to develop an impactful ads campaign, it’s better to let us take over.
- Performance based marketing
- RTB solution
- Apps development and publishing
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 50-100 | - | 3k+ | - |
Bidease is a mobile DSP platform for mobile marketers. Its built on a foundation of proprietary programmatic advertising technology, Machine Learning, and first party data. Bidease team optimizes campaigns across all major mobile formats for desired post-install behaviors at no risk to its clients’ bottom line.
- Mobile platforms: iOS, Android, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPI, CPA, CPM
- Ad formats supported: Banners, Interstitial, Native, Rewarded Video, Video
- Targeting: Carrier, Device, Gender, Geo, Interests, IP, OS
- Key Markets: global
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 500+ |
InMobi is the largest independent mobile ad network with global reach in markets including the UK, Europe, US, South Africa and India. InMobi offers advertisers to reach over 1,5 billion mobile users across more than 32,000 mobile properties to choose from. With InMobile mobile ad network, advertisers can launch brand engagement, user acquisition or remarking ad campaigns. Acquisition of a mobile rich media company Sprout allows InMobi to offer premium mobile ads as well as a huge volume of other inventory. Advertisers include leading brands such as Ford and Levis.
- Mobile platforms: Android, iOS, Mobile Web
- Campaign types: CPC, CPI, CPA, CPX, CPM
- Ad formats supported: Banners, Native, Video, Interstitial, In-Game
- Targeting: carrier, channel, country, device, operator, os, time
- Key Markets: Europe, India, Japan, Kenya, South Africa, UK, United States
Doble Via Latam was born in 2004, with VAS services and in 2011 thinking about advertisers needs, we started with mobile advertising business. Positioned at an international level we have vast experience in mobile and video advertising business.
Learn more about Doble Via LatamEntravision
Entravision is the leading Performance One-Stop-Shop Digital Marketing Company
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | - | - | 20k | - |
Entravision is the leading Performance One-Stop-Shop Digital Marketing Company. We set the beat of digital advertisement.
Get the scale and global footprint you are looking for. Our team is here to boost your campaigns and help you reach the consumers most likely to engage with your brand.
Key Features
- Performance and strategy focus toward UA in mobile devices.
- Mobile-first
- Proprietary tech
- API Integrations
- Partnerships with industry key players
- Renowned Growth Squad
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 11-50 |
FraudScore is an independent antifraud solution that evaluates the quality of mobile and web traffic in advertising campaigns. FraudScore clients are direct advertisers and ad agencies, ad networks & mobile developers from all over the world. FraudScore offers antifraud solutions for all steps of ad campaign funnel: from DSPs, to CPI, CPM, CPA and CPC. FraudScore is well known to be effective in combat against click spamming, bot, malware and adware, click injection, bot farms and many more.
Learn more about FraudScore
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 101-200 |
VEVE is a performance marketing platform from Affinity Global Inc. that offers unique advertising experiences across OEMs, browsers and telcos. With native, high-performing ad formats – Tiles , Notifications, Universal, unique media placements and customization opportunities, the platform is empowering brands to achieve their advertising KPIs such as sales, app downloads, website visits and user engagement. Additionally, it provides creative and operational support across different languages and locations including the US, UK, EU, IN, ID and CN. VEVE also has its proprietary reporting dashboard to access deep data insights to optimize conversions and user engagement. VEVE also unlocks newer monetization avenues for OEMs and browsers while enhancing users’ online journey.
Key Features
• Boost new user acquisition – Reach 500+ MN captive audience beyond search and social media network
• Achieve your advertising KPIs – All inventory bought is on performance KPIs such as CPI, CPA, CPC, CPV, etc.
• Highly engaging native ad experiences – Get high conversion rate with non-intrusive, user-friendly ad formats (Tiles, Notifications, Universal) and unique media placement
• 100% Brand safe environment – Custom reporting dashboards for complete transparency, real-time insights, and optimization opportunities
• End-to-end campaign management – Creative and operational support across different geographies (US, UK, EU, IN, ID, CN) and in multiple languages
Learn more about VEVE
| Employees | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10-50 |
Aragon Premium is a mobile app marketing agency that focuses on cost-per-acquisition marketing. They offer a range of services, including display and paid social advertising, influencer marketing, content marketing, direct carrier partnerships, programmatic advertising, and loyalty and rewards programs.
Learn more about Aragon Premium