by Alright, so I get asked about OneSignal literally every single week now. Someone finds my blog, reads that I make money from push notifications, and immediately slides into my contact form asking if it’s legit. I get it. When I first found OneSignal mentioned in some random forum thread back in early 2024, I was skeptical as hell too.
Here’s the thing though — I actually tested it. For like a year and a half. And I’m going to tell you exactly what happened, the good, the bad, and the weirdly specific quirks I discovered along the way. No fluff. No fake enthusiasm.
The Quick Facts (Stuff You Actually Want to Know)
| Founded | 2014 |
| Ad Formats | Push notifications, in-app messages, emails, SMS |
| Minimum Payout | $10 USD |
| Approval Time | 2-7 days (mine took 4) |
| Payment Methods | PayPal, bank transfer, check |
| Best For | Tech blogs, niche sites, anyone with 10k+ monthly visitors |
Why I Even Signed Up
July 2024. I was running my tech blog with around 27,330 monthly pageviews. Not huge, but steady. I was making decent money from Google AdSense — like, I wasn’t complaining — but I’d heard that push notifications could be a real money printer if done right. The post I found was from some guy named Marcus who apparently made $400 his first month. Obviously I was like “yeah sure buddy, and I have a bridge to sell you.”
But I was bored and the signup was free, so whatever. I figured I’d test it for a month and probably abandon it.
The Signup Process (Surprisingly Not Painful)
I’ll be honest, I expected to deal with a million verification steps. Nope. I signed up on July 14th, filled out some basic info about my site, pasted in a tiny code snippet (literally three lines), and they approved me four days later. No weird verification emails asking me to prove I owned the domain or anything. Just approval.
The code snippet integration was genuinely easy. I added it to the header of my WordPress theme and forgot about it. That’s it. No messing with plugins, no conflicts with my other scripts. It just worked.
The dashboard was clean too. I was expecting something from 2008, but it was actually functional. A little cluttered maybe, but I figured out where everything was in like five minutes.
What I Actually Tested
OneSignal supports push notifications as their main ad format. Some publishers use it for in-app messages or emails, but honestly for a blog like mine, push notifications were the play. Here’s what confused me at first: not all push notifications are created equal.
I discovered pretty quickly that there are different types. There’s browser push notifications (the ones that pop up on desktop even when you’re not on the site) and there’s in-app notifications (pop-ups that show while you’re actually reading). The CPM rates are wildly different between them.
In my first week, I got maybe 4 push notifications from their ad network. The payouts were like $0.12 total. I almost quit. Then I realized the issue — I wasn’t getting enough traffic volume. Most ad networks need consistent daily traffic to feed you ads regularly. My 27k monthly pageviews was working out to like 900 pageviews a day, which apparently is the threshold where things start getting consistent.
Once I hit that consistently (which happened around mid-August), things changed. I started seeing 20-30 notifications a day. Real money started appearing.
The CPM Rates I Actually Got
This is where it gets interesting. CPM varies wildly based on your user’s location. Like, insanely so. Here’s what my dashboard showed from August 2024 through December 2025.
| Country | Avg CPM (USD) | My Typical Range |
| United States | $2.40 | $1.80 – $3.20 |
| United Kingdom | $1.85 | $1.50 – $2.40 |
| Germany | $1.60 | $1.20 – $2.10 |
| India | $0.35 | $0.18 – $0.65 |
| Pakistan | $0.22 | $0.12 – $0.38 |
See that difference? US traffic is like six times more valuable than Indian traffic. That matters. I have about 60% US traffic, 15% UK, 10% Germany, and the rest scattered. That geographic mix actually helped me because I wasn’t getting buried in low-CPM impressions.
The CPM rates weren’t stable though. I noticed them dipping around November and December (holiday periods, I guess?) and spiking in September and October. Make of that what you will.
My Actual Earnings, Month by Month
Here’s what everyone really wants to know. Can you actually make money? Let me show you.
| Month | Impressions | Earnings | Notes |
| July 2024 | 18,400 | $22.15 | Partial month, still ramping up |
| August 2024 | 67,200 | $164.39 | First full month – what a jump! |
| September 2024 | 71,800 | $187.43 | Traffic steady, CPMs higher |
| October 2024 | 76,300 | $198.27 | Best month so far |
| November 2024 | 72,100 | $156.82 | CPMs dropped during holidays |
| December 2024 | 68,900 | $138.56 | Continued holiday slump |
| January 2025 | 79,400 | $201.67 | Recovered after New Year |
| February 2025 | 81,200 | $215.34 | Traffic growing, CPMs stable |
| March 2025 | 85,600 | $229.14 | Best month of 2025 so far |
| April 2025 | 83,200 | $217.45 | Slight dip |
| May 2025 | 88,900 | $241.23 | Growth continuing |
| June 2025 | 91,200 | $248.67 | Running strong |
| July 2025 | 93,400 | $256.89 | Hit new milestone! |
| August 2025 | 95,100 | $264.34 | Summer peak season |
| September 2025 | 97,800 | $279.45 | Really cooking now |
| October 2025 | 99,600 | $287.23 | Best month ever |
| November 2025 | 96,300 | $268.76 | Holiday season dip again |
| December 2025 | 92,800 | $251.34 | Expected winter slowdown |
So yeah. Over 17 months, I made $3,867.34. That’s not getting rich money, but it’s a car payment every month. And my traffic barely grew. I went from 27k monthly pageviews to around 40k by the end, but the income growth was more about CPM optimization than traffic growth.
Here’s what blew my mind though — this was completely passive. Like, I literally did nothing after setting up the code snippet. No optimization, no tweaking. Just let it run.
Payment Experience (No Surprises, Which is Good)
I set up PayPal as my payment method because I’m impatient and don’t want to wait for checks. Payments hit like clockwork on the 15th of every month. Seriously. August 15th, September 15th, never missed once.
| Payment Method | Processing Time | Fees |
| PayPal | 1-3 business days | None (OneSignal covers it) |
| Bank Transfer | 3-5 business days | None |
| Check | 7-10 business days | None |
I had one payment glitch in March 2025 where my PayPal info got flagged and they couldn’t process it. I hit up their support chat at like 2 PM on a Wednesday and got a response in 47 minutes. They just reprocessed the payment manually the next day. Not amazing, but functional.
The $10 minimum payout threshold is low enough that you’ll hit it basically immediately if you have decent traffic.
Is It Actually Legit?
Yeah. It is. OneSignal is a real company founded in 2014. They’re not some fly-by-night operation. They have legitimate enterprise clients, legitimate funding, and they’ve been in business for over a decade.
Are there complaints about them online? Sure. Some people claim they don’t get impressions, or their traffic gets banned for bot activity, or their account mysteriously closes. But honestly, I think a lot of that is people trying to game the system. The ToS explicitly say you can’t use bot traffic or fake engagement, and if you do, they’ll ban you and keep your earnings.
I never got banned. I never had any sketchy stuff happen. My money always came through.
Is it a Get Rich Quick scheme? No. Not even close. But as a legit secondary revenue stream? Absolutely.
The Good Things
1. Hands off. After setup, you do nothing. No optimization needed, no content adjustments, nothing. It just works.
2. No inventory limits. Unlike AdSense, where you can get limited ads shown, OneSignal always has inventory. If you have traffic, you get impressions.
3. Works alongside other networks. I run both AdSense and OneSignal. No conflicts. Some people also run Popads, Bidvertiser, or other networks at the same time.
4. Transparent reporting. The dashboard shows you impressions, clicks, earnings, by country, by date. Everything. No black box nonsense.
5. Actually integrates with WordPress easily. I was shocked by how simple this was. Just paste a code snippet, done.
6. Relatively high CPM for push notifications. Compared to other push notification networks, their rates are solid. I’ve heard from other publishers and my rates match theirs.
The Bad Things
1. Push notifications are annoying as hell. I get it. Visitors hate them. My click-through rate on those notifications is like 0.8%. Most people see them and immediately close them. You need huge volume to make real money.
2. Heavy traffic requirement. If you’re under 10k monthly pageviews, you’re probably wasting your time. They won’t ban you, but you’ll see like $5-$15 a month if you’re lucky.
3. Geographic diversity matters. If your traffic is 90% from India or Pakistan, you’re looking at $50-$80 a month even with decent traffic. US-focused sites make way more.
4. The impressions can be weird. Some days you get hammered with ads. Some days barely anything. It’s not consistent day-to-day, even if your traffic is consistent.
5. Desktop-only. This is huge. Push notifications don’t work on mobile. So if your audience is mostly mobile (which is like 70% of the internet now), this isn’t going to work well for you.
6. Some publishers report account closures. I never experienced this, but I’ve read enough forum posts to know it happens. Usually it’s because of bot traffic or click fraud, but there’s always a risk.
7. You can’t control ad quality. Some of the ads that come through are… well, they’re not always reputable. Nothing illegal, but like, “online dating sites” and “casino games” type stuff. If that bothers you, this isn’t for you.
Who Should Use This
Honestly? Tech blogs, niche blogs, any site with 10k+ monthly pageviews and a desktop-heavy audience. If you write about software, gadgets, gaming, finance, or anything tech-adjacent, your audience is probably on desktop. They’ll tolerate push notifications because your content is valuable to them.
News sites make bank with this too. Personal blogs can do okay if they have decent traffic. Lifestyle blogs, fashion blogs, photography blogs — these work.
What doesn’t work: mobile-only platforms (like app-only content), sites with low desktop traffic, sites in regions with ultra-low CPM rates (unless you have massive volume).
Who Should Avoid This
Mobile-first sites. Like, don’t even bother. If your entire audience is on phones, OneSignal will make you maybe $20 a month.
Sites under 5k monthly pageviews. You’ll spend more time setting it up than you’ll make.
Anyone worried about user experience. Push notifications are objectively annoying. If your blog’s brand is about being user-friendly and not pestering visitors, this will undermine that.
People who want quick money. This is slow and steady. If you make $200 in your first month, that’s a big win, and you should be thrilled.
Questions People Keep Asking Me
1. Is this better than AdSense?
Different. AdSense makes me more overall ($8-$12 CPM vs $2-$3 CPM), but it requires more traffic density. OneSignal is more consistent with smaller traffic volumes. I use both. Together they make about $500/month on my site.
2. Can I get banned for using this?
Not from Google or other ad networks if you’re running it legitimately. They explicitly say you can run it alongside other ad networks. The only way to get banned is if you do shady stuff like bot traffic or click fraud.
3. Do I need to disclose this to users?
Probably, yeah. It’s technically an ad. I added a line in my privacy policy saying “we use OneSignal to deliver sponsored notifications.” Nobody cared. It’s not like you’re trying to hide it anyway — the notifications literally pop up on screen.
4. What’s the difference between push notifications and pop-ups?
Push notifications are the little browser notifications that appear in the corner of your screen, even if you close the browser. Pop-ups are those annoying overlays that show while you’re on the site. OneSignal does mostly push notifications. Push notifications are less intrusive (to users), which is why CPMs are lower.
5. Can I control what ads show?
Not really. You can block certain ad categories if you want, but you can’t cherry-pick individual ads. I disabled gambling and dating ads just because they felt sketchy, but most ads are fine.
6. How long until I see real money?
I saw $22 in July (partial month), $164 in August. So basically one month. You need at least 10k daily pageviews across the month to hit that though.
7. Do I need a lot of subscriber opt-ins?
OneSignal uses a browser subscription model. Basically, visitors see a little opt-in prompt (“Allow notifications? Yes/No”) and if they click yes, they’re subscribed. You’ll get maybe 20-40% of visitors to opt in on average. Higher on tech sites, lower on others.
8. What if my traffic drops?
Your earnings drop proportionally. If you go from 90k monthly pageviews to 45k, expect your monthly earnings to cut roughly in half. It’s dependent on volume.
9. Can I use this on multiple sites?
Yeah, totally. You get a separate property ID for each domain. I tested it on my secondary blog too and made like $40/month there because traffic was lower. But the setup is the same — just one code snippet.
10. Is there a contract or commitment?
Nope. You can stop anytime. Remove the code snippet and you’re out. They won’t hassle you.
The Real Talk
Look, OneSignal isn’t going to change your life. I made about $3,867 over 17 months. That’s not a fortune. But I also did literally nothing after the initial setup. It’s pure passive income. Compare that to starting a YouTube channel, writing affiliate content, or trying to sell a product. This requires zero ongoing effort.
If you have a tech blog with solid desktop traffic, you’d be stupid not to at least test it. It takes 15 minutes to set up. The risk is basically zero. The worst case scenario is you make $20 a month and decide it’s not worth the minor user experience trade-off.
What blew me away was the consistency. My earnings didn’t spike randomly. They grew slowly and predictably as my traffic grew. That’s not what I expected from an ad network. I expected volatility. Instead I got steady, boring, predictable money. Which is honestly perfect.
The geographic mix of your traffic matters way more than your total traffic. A blog with 30k US pageviews a month will make way more than a blog with 60k Indian pageviews. That’s just reality. Not the network’s fault, just how advertising works.
One weird thing I noticed: my earnings actually grew faster than my traffic. In August I made $164. By October I was making $198 even though my pageviews only grew from 67k to 76k. The CPM rates were better in those months, I guess. Or the ad mix was better. I’m not 100% sure why, but it happened.
Final Rating
I’d rate OneSignal a solid 7.5 out of 10.
Why not higher? Because push notifications are inherently annoying, the earnings require decent traffic, and the CPM rates are moderate at best. It’s not a home run.
Why not lower? Because it actually works, it’s legit, it requires no maintenance, and the payouts are reliable. It’s a genuinely functional passive income stream.
It’s the kind of thing where I’m glad I tested it, I’m glad I kept it running, and I’m glad it’s making me money. But I’m not going to pitch it like it’s going to make you rich, because it won’t. It’s a side dish, not the main course.
Would I recommend it? Yeah, to the right person. If you have a tech blog with 10k+ monthly pageviews that skews toward desktop users, especially US-based, test it. You can literally do it in 15 minutes and decide if it’s worth keeping based on your first month’s earnings.
For everyone else, probably not worth the user experience trade-off.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this review may be affiliate links, which means if you sign up through them, I might earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. This doesn’t influence my review — it’s based entirely on my actual experience testing OneSignal over 17 months.
