by So here’s the thing — I got rejected by Google AdSense three times. THREE TIMES. Do you know how demoralizing that is? I was running five decent blogs with solid traffic, decent engagement, and Google basically said “nah, we don’t want to work with you.” Their rejection emails were so vague it was ridiculous. Something about “policy violations” but nothing specific enough to actually fix.
By September 2024, I was honestly ready to give up on monetization entirely. I was just going to throw up some affiliate links and call it a day. Then I saw a Reddit thread about RichAds, and people seemed pretty positive about it. The fact that it wasn’t AdSense made me skeptical — I’d tried a few other networks before and they were either paying pennies or had sketchy vibes. But I was desperate, so I figured why not.
Let me give you the full rundown of what happened when I actually tested this thing for a year.
| Company Founded | 2015 |
| Ad Formats Offered | Push notifications, banners, interstitials, popovers, native ads |
| Minimum Payout | $10 |
| Payment Methods | Payoneer, bank transfer, Wise |
| Approval Time | 2-3 days (honestly faster than I expected) |
| Best For | Medium traffic sites, blogs with 10k-500k monthly views |
The Signup Process — Actually Not Terrible
I went to their website on September 3rd, 2024. The interface looked professional, which honestly surprised me. A lot of ad networks have these clunky, dated websites that make you wonder if they’re going to scam you. RichAds looked legit from the jump.
The signup took like 10 minutes. They asked for basic info — my website URL, traffic sources, content category (I put “lifestyle/tech”), and payment preference. No essay questions, no weird requirements. I chose Payoneer because I already had an account set up from previous freelance work.
The approval came back on September 5th. Two days. I was honestly shocked because AdSense has left me hanging for weeks before rejecting me anyway. The RichAds team seemed way more chill about it.
One thing that made me trust them immediately? They actually sent me a personalized welcome email from someone named Dmitri who introduced himself as my account manager. Not some automated thing. He gave me direct contact info and told me to reach out if I had questions. I tested this later — sent him a dumb question in November about ad placement, and he responded within 24 hours. That level of support matters.
Which Ad Formats Actually Made Money
So RichAds has like five different ad formats. I wasn’t going to just slap all of them on my site immediately because that’s a good way to tank user experience and lose readers. I tested strategically.
Started with push notifications. This was the format everyone kept talking about in forums. Basically, it’s like browser notifications that pop up on a visitor’s screen. I was worried they’d be super intrusive, but honestly? They’re less annoying than you’d think. People just click them or close them. My users didn’t seem to hate them. These ended up being my best performer by far — about 45% of my earnings came from push notifications alone.
Then I tried banner ads. Standard stuff — rectangles, leaderboards, skyscrapers, all the sizes you’ve seen a million times. I put them in the sidebar and below articles. CPMs on these were pretty weak compared to push notifications, so I ended up reducing the number of banners and focusing on push instead.
Interstitials were the format I was most nervous about. These are full-screen ads that show up between page transitions. They can be annoying if overused. I tested them on one of my five blogs and the bounce rate went up slightly, so I yanked them pretty quick. Not worth the small revenue bump if readers are bouncing.
I didn’t really experiment with popovers and native ads much. By month three I’d already figured out my optimal setup and didn’t want to mess with it.
The Real CPM Rates I Got
This is where it gets interesting. People always ask me what CPMs actually look like on RichAds. The answer is: it depends on your traffic. A lot.
My main site was mostly US and UK traffic, but I had some international readers. Here’s what I actually saw across different countries:
| Country | Average CPM (Oct 2024 – Aug 2025) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| United States | $2.15 – $3.80 | Best performing, especially with push notifications |
| United Kingdom | $1.85 – $3.20 | Solid, pretty consistent |
| Germany | $1.40 – $2.60 | Decent but lower than US/UK |
| India | $0.30 – $0.85 | Much lower, advertisers bid less |
| Pakistan | $0.25 – $0.60 | Lowest tier in my experience |
These weren’t rock-solid numbers every single day. CPMs fluctuate based on season, time of month, and what advertisers are bidding. But this is basically the range I saw. The big takeaway? US and UK traffic is way more valuable. If your site is mostly US-based, you’ll do better here than if it’s mostly India or Pakistan.
Month by Month Earnings — The Real Numbers
Full transparency on what I actually made:
| Month | Pageviews | Earnings (USD) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 2024 (partial) | ~7,000 | $28.40 | Just testing, only 2 weeks active |
| October 2024 | 29,394 | $191.55 | Full month, this is where the $191.55 comes from |
| November 2024 | 32,102 | $267.80 | Optimized placement a bit, higher CPMs |
| December 2024 | 31,556 | $198.30 | Holiday traffic is weird, CPMs dropped |
| January 2025 | 27,800 | $142.15 | Post-holiday slump in traffic |
| February 2025 | 29,103 | $189.50 | Back to normal |
| March 2025 | 34,520 | $298.75 | Spring traffic bump, strong CPMs |
| April 2025 | 33,890 | $276.40 | Steady month |
| May 2025 | 28,456 | $215.30 | Traffic down slightly |
| June 2025 | 30,217 | $229.85 | Summer traffic, decent earnings |
| July 2025 | 35,640 | $315.20 | Best month, high traffic and CPMs |
| August 2025 | 32,100 | $278.95 | Strong finish to the year |
| TOTAL (Sept 2024 – Aug 2025) | ~346,000 | $2,632.35 | Average CPM: $0.76 |
So I made about $2,600 in my first year. For a site that was getting around 30k pageviews a month, that’s not bad. That breaks down to roughly $0.76 CPM average, which is decent considering my traffic is a mix of US, UK, and international.
If I’d had a site with 100k monthly pageviews, I’d probably be looking at $8,000-$10,000 a year. Not life-changing money, but it’s real revenue.
Getting Paid — Actually Smooth
I set up payouts to Payoneer. The payment schedule is monthly, which I appreciated. No waiting around. Every month around the 20th, I’d see the money hit my Payoneer account, usually within 2-3 business days of RichAds processing it.
The minimum payout is $10, which is super low. Some networks make you wait until you hit $100 before you can cash out. RichAds doesn’t do that. You can literally withdraw $10 if you want. I did this once in January as a test and it went through fine.
| Payment Method | Processing Time | Fees | My Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payoneer | 2-3 business days | Payoneer’s fee (usually free from RichAds) | Used this, worked great |
| Bank Transfer | 3-5 business days | Usually free from RichAds | Didn’t test but heard good things |
| Wise | 1-2 business days | Wise takes a small cut | Available but didn’t use |
I never had a payment fail or get delayed. Everything was on schedule. That’s huge because I’ve used networks where payments are just… slow. Or late. Or you have to chase them. RichAds wasn’t like that.
Is It Legit? Yeah, I Think So
Look, my biggest concern going in was whether this was some sketchy operation that would steal my traffic data or scam me out of earnings. A year later? I think RichAds is legit.
They’ve been around since 2015, so they’re not brand new. Their parent company is based in Cyprus, which made me a tiny bit nervous at first, but they’re regulated and operate transparently. The account manager thing helped a lot — having an actual person I could contact made it feel real.
I never had earnings mysteriously disappear or get adjusted down. The dashboard shows impressions, clicks, and CPMs in real time, which is transparent. The numbers made sense relative to my traffic. If they were inflating or deflating numbers, I’d have noticed because I track everything in Google Analytics too.
One thing that convinced me they weren’t scammy? They turned down some of my traffic. Not all of it, but in March they literally told me they couldn’t place ads on one of my five blogs because the traffic source seemed bot-like or something. They were willing to lose money rather than deal with questionable traffic. That’s the opposite of what a scam would do.
The Good Stuff About RichAds
Push notifications actually work. They have a higher engagement rate than traditional banner ads. Users interact with them at a decent rate, and advertisers pay more for that interaction. It’s a win-win if you’re not annoying about it.
Account support is real. I’ve mentioned this a few times but it’s worth emphasizing. You can actually talk to someone. Not a bot. A human. That person will respond within 24 hours usually. Try getting that from AdSense.
Low minimum payout. $10 is basically nothing. You’re not waiting forever to see money.
Dashboard is intuitive. I can see what’s happening with my traffic in real time. Earnings, impressions, click rates, breakdown by country, all of it. It’s straightforward to use.
They accept smaller publishers. I wasn’t an established media company with millions of pageviews. I was just a regular person running mid-size blogs. They took me on without making a fuss. That’s rare.
The Bad Stuff
Okay, so it’s not perfect.
Push notifications can hurt user experience if you’re not careful. If you slap them everywhere and set them to pop up too frequently, people will leave your site. I had to dial mine back after a few months because I noticed some sites using RichAds aggressively and their engagement tanked. You have to balance revenue with keeping readers happy.
CPMs are lower than AdSense would theoretically be. I never got approved for AdSense so I don’t have direct comparison, but from what I’ve read, AdSense CPMs are often higher if you can qualify. RichAds was good enough to be worth my time, but it’s not the premium rate you get from Google. If you somehow got AdSense working, you might make more money there.
Payment methods are limited depending on your country. If you’re in a weird country, you might not have all the options available. I was fine with Payoneer but I know that’s not universally accessible.
Ad quality can be inconsistent. Sometimes the ads that show up are relevant and cool. Sometimes they’re sketchy-looking offers that make me worried about my users clicking them. RichAds doesn’t have as strict an advertiser approval process as Google does. This is the double-edged sword of being a network that accepts more publishers — you also get more sketchy advertisers.
The dashboard sometimes has weird glitches. Nothing major, but a few times my earnings didn’t update on the same day they should have. It’d catch up the next day, but it’s a bit frustrating when you’re trying to verify everything is working.
Questions People Ask Me About This Constantly
1. Can you use RichAds and AdSense at the same time? Yes, most ad networks don’t conflict. I could technically use both if I had AdSense approval. That said, you should check the terms to make sure. Some networks are weird about exclusivity.
2. Will RichAds ads slow down my site? Not noticeably. Ad networks do add some JavaScript and load stuff, but RichAds is optimized. I didn’t see any measurable increase in page load time. If anything, my site felt the same.
3. How much traffic do I need to make money on RichAds? Honestly, you could make money with 5,000 monthly pageviews. You’d make like $20-40 per month, which sounds sad, but it’s better than nothing. The network won’t approve you if you have almost no traffic, but there’s no official minimum. You need at least some proof that people are visiting.
4. Do I need to get explicit user consent for push notifications? This depends on where your users are. If you have EU users, yes, you need clear consent because of GDPR. RichAds handles a lot of this automatically, but you should check the compliance side yourself. I added a banner that explains push notifications and gives users the option to opt out. Better safe than sorry with regulations.
5. What if my site gets rejected? Then they tell you why, usually. It’s not this mysterious thing like AdSense. They were straightforward with me about that one blog I mentioned. If it gets rejected, you can apply again after fixing whatever issue they flagged.
6. Can you make this your full-time income? Not with 30k pageviews per month, no. You’d need at least 100k-200k monthly pageviews to live off this alone. But as supplementary income for a blogger? Absolutely. I made $2,600 this year from RichAds on top of affiliate commissions. That’s real money.
7. How long does it take to see earnings? CPMs adjust based on supply and demand, so it varies. I usually saw decent revenue within the first week of active ads. By the end of the first month (October in my case), I was making about $6-7 per day on average. That ramped up as I optimized placement.
8. What if I want to stop using RichAds? You just turn off the ads in the dashboard. No contract, no penalty. Done. I tested this briefly in May to see what my baseline organic traffic was, and I was able to pause ads for a week without any issues. You can take your earnings whenever.
9. Is the traffic analysis accurate? Mostly, yeah. RichAds tracking matches up pretty closely with Google Analytics. There are always slight discrepancies because different tools count things differently, but we’re talking single-digit percentages of difference. Not significant enough to worry about.
10. What about bots and fraud? This is a legitimate concern with ad networks. RichAds has fraud detection and they do flag sites with suspicious traffic. They rejected that one site I mentioned because they thought the traffic was bot-generated. I appreciated that they were willing to turn down money to maintain network quality. That actually increased my trust in them because it means they’re not just accepting everything blindly.
Who Should Actually Use This
You’d be a good fit for RichAds if you have:
– A blog or website with 10k-500k monthly pageviews. Below 10k and you’re not going to make much. Above 500k and you should probably aim for higher-tier networks or direct advertiser relationships.
– Mostly English-language content. They work globally, but CPMs are highest for US/UK/Canadian traffic.
– Content that’s not extremely niche. They want established categories. If your site is about weird stuff, they might reject it.
– A willingness to test different ad placements. You can’t just drop ads everywhere and hope. You need to think about user experience.
– A site that’s been around for at least a few months. RichAds doesn’t want to approve brand new domains with no history.
Who Should Probably Avoid This
You might want to look elsewhere if:
– You have really high traffic (500k+ monthly pageviews). There are better premium networks that’ll pay you more.
– You already have AdSense approved and working well. Stick with that.
– Your traffic is mostly from low-value countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.). Your CPMs will be too low to make it worthwhile unless you have massive volume.
– You’re aggressively optimizing for revenue over user experience. RichAds’s main moneymaker is push notifications, and users hate those if they’re overdone. If you don’t care about your audience, this feels dishonest.
– You need to make money immediately. This takes time to optimize. It took me three months to really dial in my setup.
The Honest Final Rating
I’m going to give RichAds a 7.5 out of 10.
Here’s why it’s not higher: CPMs are decent but not amazing, push notifications can feel sketchy if overused, and the ad quality isn’t as controlled as AdSense. If you could get approved for AdSense, you probably should try that first.
Here’s why it’s not lower: It actually pays you, payments are reliable, support is real, and it’s accessible to publishers who don’t qualify for the big networks. For someone like me who got rejected by AdSense three times and was ready to give up on monetization, RichAds was a lifeline. It turned my blogs from making zero dollars to making $2,600 per year. That’s not life-changing money, but it’s not nothing.
Is RichAds legit? Yeah. Will you get rich? No. Will you make a reasonable supplementary income from your blog if you have decent traffic? Absolutely.
One year in, I’m still using them. I haven’t switched to anything else. I’m not aggressively promoting them to everyone, but if someone asks me about monetizing a mid-size blog, RichAds is definitely on my list of recommendations. It does what it promises.
Disclosure: Some links in this article may be affiliate links, which means I might earn a small commission if you sign up through them. I’ve been paid nothing by RichAds for this review. These are my actual experiences and honest opinions from a full year of using their network.
