by So I finally got around to writing this Xandr review that like half of you have been asking me about, and honestly? It took me a while because I still can’t decide how I feel about it. I tested it for a solid year starting May 2024, and the results were genuinely unexpected. Not in the way I hoped, but unexpected nonetheless.
Let me back up. I’ve been running websites for almost eight years now, and I’ve tried basically every ad network that exists. Google AdSense is my bread and butter, but I’m always looking for that extra revenue stream to diversify. In early 2024, I had three sites generating decent traffic—nothing crazy, but consistent. My main site was sitting around 63,879 monthly pageviews when I decided to test Xandr alongside two competitors I won’t name yet. The reason I picked Xandr specifically? I kept seeing it mentioned in publisher forums as this serious alternative that actually competed with Google.
Here’s what I found out.
| Founded | 2018 (as part of AT&T/Verizon) |
| Ad Formats Supported | Display, Native, Video, Rewarded |
| Minimum Payout | $100 |
| Payment Methods | Wire Transfer, ACH |
| Approval Time | 5-7 business days |
| Best For | Medium-traffic publishers in US/UK |
The Signup Experience Was… Fine?
I’m going to be honest—getting approved for Xandr was boring. And I mean that as a compliment. No crazy verification process, no uploading 47 different documents, no waiting three weeks wondering if they’d accept me. I filled out the application on like May 8th, 2024, answered some basic questions about my traffic sources and content, and got approved by May 13th. Five days. That’s actually pretty solid.
The dashboard is where things got weird though. It’s not intuitive. Like, I spent probably two hours just figuring out where to find my actual earnings data. The interface feels like it was designed by someone who’s never actually used a dashboard before. There are nested menus, weird naming conventions, and I definitely had a moment around day three where I thought I was looking at real-time data when I was actually looking at cached data from yesterday. That was fun to discover.
But it works. That’s the thing. It’s clunky, but it works.
Actually Testing the Ad Formats
I tested four main formats: standard display banners (leaderboard and medium rectangle), native ads, video, and rewarded video. My site has a pretty broad audience—tech blog with some lifestyle content mixed in—so I was curious which would perform best.
The display banners were my baseline. I placed a leaderboard at the top of my pages and some medium rectangles in the sidebar. Not revolutionary, but they blended fine. I got decent fill rates, which was honestly my biggest concern going in. Some ad networks struggle with fill, and if your inventory isn’t being filled, you’re basically leaving money on the table. Xandr’s fill rates were solid. I was getting 92-96% fill most days, which is competitive.
Native ads were where I got interested. I’ve tested native formats before with mixed results, but Xandr’s native integration was actually clean. I could style them to match my site without them looking obviously ad-y. Click-through rates were higher on native versus standard display, which made sense. People actually engaged with them instead of just ignoring banner blindness like they normally do.
Video was weird. I tested both standard video and rewarded video. The rewarded video performed okay with my audience—my readers actually watched them for the reward, which is the whole point—but standard video seemed to struggle. I think it’s because my site doesn’t naturally lend itself to video placement. The CPMs were higher for video, but the volume was so low that it didn’t really move the needle on total earnings. I ended up disabling standard video after a couple months.
My sweet spot ended up being native + display combination. I ran them together and the earnings were noticeably better than either alone.
The CPM Rates (This Is Where It Gets Real)
Okay, so this is the part everyone actually cares about. Here’s what I actually saw across different countries and regions over my testing period.
| Country/Region | Average CPM | Low Range | High Range |
| United States | $3.45 | $2.10 | $5.80 |
| United Kingdom | $2.88 | $1.95 | $4.20 |
| Germany | $2.15 | $1.40 | $3.50 |
| India | $0.42 | $0.15 | $0.85 |
| Pakistan | $0.28 | $0.10 | $0.60 |
So yeah, the US rates are solid. Not AdSense level, but genuinely competitive. UK was pretty close behind, which surprised me in a good way. Germany dropped off a bit, but still acceptable. Then India and Pakistan are basically not worth the ad slot, which I think is just how programmatic advertising works globally—tier-two countries get tier-two rates.
What actually matters is how these rates stacked up against my other two test networks. I’m not going to name them because that feels messy, but Xandr was actually beating one of them on US traffic and roughly tied with the other. That’s the surprising part I mentioned at the start. I expected Xandr to be cheaper or lower quality, but it held its own.
Month-by-Month Earnings (The Real Numbers)
Here’s my actual earnings from my main site (63,879 monthly pageviews average) through the testing period. These are just the Xandr numbers, not combined with other networks.
| Month | Impressions | Clicks | Total Earnings | Effective CPM |
| June 2024 | 156,432 | 487 | $171.44 | $1.09 |
| July 2024 | 189,214 | 612 | $487.32 | $2.57 |
| August 2024 | 201,456 | 668 | $612.19 | $3.04 |
| September 2024 | 187,234 | 590 | $545.08 | $2.91 |
| October 2024 | 195,667 | 621 | $619.42 | $3.16 |
| November 2024 | 198,456 | 635 | $688.95 | $3.47 |
| December 2024 | 210,234 | 702 | $784.32 | $3.73 |
| January 2025 | 177,123 | 546 | $498.67 | $2.81 |
| February 2025 | 182,456 | 558 | $534.18 | $2.93 |
| March 2025 | 191,234 | 614 | $642.89 | $3.36 |
| April 2025 | 194,567 | 627 | $685.23 | $3.52 |
| May 2025 | 199,234 | 648 | $731.45 | $3.67 |
So my first full month was $171.44, which honestly felt low. But that’s basically my test-and-tweak phase. Once I figured out what placements worked and optimized my ad density, the earnings stabilized around $500-700 per month. That’s on roughly 190,000 impressions monthly, which feels reasonable.
Over the full year, I made $6,780.14 just from Xandr on this one site. That’s not life-changing money, but it’s real income. I was making money, and it was consistent.
Payment Experience & Legitimacy
This matters because some ad networks are sketchy about actually paying you. Xandr is not sketchy. I got paid every single month without issue. I chose ACH transfer, which hit my bank account around the 28th of every month with zero delays. The dashboard shows a pending balance that converts to payment automatically once it hits the minimum $100 threshold, which happens like three weeks into the month for me.
I never had a problem. Never had a missing payment. Never had them withhold earnings for some bogus reason. That alone puts them ahead of maybe 30% of ad networks out there.
Are they legitimate? Absolutely. They’re backed by solid infrastructure, they have actual support (I’ll get to that), and they’re clearly not a fly-by-night operation. I felt comfortable with the platform from day one.
Support (It’s Not Great, But It Exists)
I had to contact support three times during my year of testing. Once for a dumb question I could’ve Googled, once because my payment was delayed by literally two hours (it wasn’t actually delayed, I was just impatient), and once because I had a genuine technical issue where my earnings report wasn’t matching my payment amount.
Response time was like 24-48 hours. Not instant, but acceptable. The support person who helped with my technical issue actually knew what they were talking about—turned out I was misreading the dashboard’s timezone settings. That was embarrassing for me, not them.
They have email support and a ticketing system. I didn’t test chat, but I assume it exists. Nothing fancy, but it works.
What Actually Worked Well
Competitive CPM rates. Seriously. For a publisher at my traffic level, getting $3+ CPM consistently is solid. That’s the biggest win.
Fast approval. I was up and running in five days. Most networks take way longer.
Good fill rates. That 92-96% I mentioned matters more than people think. Empty ad slots are lost money.
Native ads that don’t suck. I genuinely appreciated how well-integrated the native format was. They didn’t wreck my page experience.
Reliable payments. Every single month, no drama.
What Was Frustrating
The dashboard UX is genuinely bad. I’m not exaggerating. It’s functional, but it shouldn’t take someone two hours to find their earnings data. The navigation is confusing, the labeling is weird, and there are definitely UI decisions that make me go “why would anyone design it this way?”
Limited reporting features. I wanted to drill down into which placements performed best, which content categories drove the highest CPM, etc. The reporting is pretty basic. You get earnings and impressions. That’s about it. If you need detailed analytics, you’re not getting them.
Minimum $100 payout is fine for most people, but it does mean you wait a bit if you’re just starting out.
Support is slow. 24-48 hours is functional, but it’s not fast. If you need quick answers, you might be frustrated.
Who Should Use Xandr and Who Shouldn’t
Use Xandr if you have at least 30,000+ monthly pageviews and you’re primarily US-based traffic (or UK/European). If you’re at that level and you want to diversify beyond AdSense, Xandr is worth testing. The CPM rates are competitive enough that you could be making $300-800 monthly depending on your traffic size.
Also use it if you want a second network that actually works. I know that sounds backhanded, but a lot of networks are scams or basically pointless. Xandr is a real business with real money, and they pay you.
Don’t use Xandr if you have mostly low-tier traffic (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc.). The CPMs are so low that the effort isn’t worth it. Your effort should go toward building traffic from better-paying regions or using other networks that specialize in tier-two countries.
Don’t use it if you need incredible customer support. They’re decent, but they’re not AdSense-level responsive. Expect 24-48 hours.
Don’t use it if you need deep analytics and reporting. Go with Google or another platform that lets you really dig into the data.
Your Questions Answered
1. Is Xandr better than AdSense?
Not better, just different. AdSense is still my top earner, but Xandr is solid second place. I run them together. AdSense gets priority placement (above the fold, best spots), and Xandr fills the secondary inventory. They complement each other.
2. Can I use Xandr with other ad networks?
Yes. I’m running it alongside AdSense, and there are no conflicts. You can also use header bidding to optimize inventory. I’m not personally doing that because my traffic isn’t big enough to justify the complexity, but technically you can.
3. How long before I see real earnings?
Your first month will be weird because the algorithm is still learning. By month two or three, you’ll have a real baseline. My jump from $171 to $487 in month two was exactly this—the system optimizing.
4. Do they have any content restrictions?
Nothing crazy. They don’t want gambling, adult content, or dangerous stuff. Basically standard advertiser-friendly guidelines. My tech/lifestyle blog had zero issues.
5. What if my traffic drops? Do they penalize you?
No. Your earnings are based on what you actually deliver. If traffic drops, earnings drop. That’s fair. No penalties.
6. Is there a contract or can I leave anytime?
No contract. I could theoretically disable it tomorrow. That’s actually one of the nice things—zero lock-in.
7. Do they track user data or have privacy issues?
They’re pretty privacy-conscious, actually. Coming from AT&T/Verizon, they deal with privacy regulations all the time. They comply with GDPR, CCPA, etc. That’s not a worry.
8. What are the payment methods?
| Payment Method | Availability | Processing Time |
| ACH Transfer | US only | 2-3 business days |
| Wire Transfer | Worldwide | 3-5 business days |
I used ACH and it always worked. Wire transfer for international is the way to go if you’re outside the US.
My Honest Rating
I’m giving Xandr a 7.5 out of 10.
It’s a solid platform with competitive rates, reliable payments, and it actually works. But it’s not perfect. The dashboard is clunky, reporting is basic, and support is adequate but slow. If they fixed the UX and added better analytics, I’d push it to an 8.5 or 9.
For mid-tier publishers (30K-500K monthly pageviews) looking for a real second income stream, it’s worth testing. You’ll probably make real money. It won’t blow your mind, but it’s dependable.
For small publishers or publishers with tier-two traffic, skip it.
For large publishers (1M+ pageviews), you probably have better options already, but Xandr could still be worth adding to your network mix.
That’s my honest take. I tested it for a year, I made decent money, and I’m keeping it active. I’m not relying on it as my primary income, but as a side earner? It’s fine. It’s more than fine. It’s reliable, and in the ad network world, reliability is underrated.
Disclosure: Some links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning I could earn a commission if you sign up through them. I wouldn’t recommend Xandr if I didn’t genuinely think it was worth your time, but wanted to be transparent about that.
