INTRODUCTION

Over the years dozens of apps in Google Playstore claim that their applications are either “play to earn” nor “watch to earn”. I tried it for myself so the others don’t.

Personally, I made an analysis here in the article proving what my title claims. And the data are from the southeast asia

CONTENTS AND ANALYSIS

Hello, I tried many and many earning apps from play store apart from survey apps

One time, after I got another disappointment from applications that are mentioned above, I questioned myself and had a deep thought of; why no applications can truly pay and this is where my analysis had begun. It began with “how much do ad revenue pay?”

After that thought I searched through the web on how ad monetization works?

I had these results. The first result is; CPM and CPC and their cost per thousand and user activities. We will discuss what CPM and CPC mean further in this paragraph.

FOR CONTEXT: CPM means click per mille (mille is a latin word for thousand) and CPC means cost per click which both pay differently.

CPM pay is based on per one thousand while CPC pay is based on Clicks and they both have different calculations.

CPM = CPM (Impressions)/1000 = revenue

That formula means the payment will depend on how many times do the ad had been shown they called it “Impression”

CPC= CPC(clicks) = revenue

METHOLOGY:

INTRODUCTION

Before we go further, I’ll showcase what calculation that I'm going to use and the calculation is:

RevenueCPM+RevenueCPMx30 Days = RevenueSUM-Expected per user payout-Operating cost

Before we go further; the materials and value that I used for this analysis are average and estimation based on south east asia due to unavailability of locked value since the payment is uncertain. So here is the problem; the app promised to pay 8.75 dollars after approximately 30 days. Let us assume that the application participants are 20,000 people. That is an average for niche applications and the program began from the first of the month to the last day of the month.

Users = 20,000(can be lower to higher up to 50k)
Impressions = 3 * 20,000 = 60,000

CPM * impression = 60,000 / per thousand = Revenue..

Example:CPM = $0.05, Impression = 60,000, per thousand = 1000

0.05 × (60,000 ÷ 1,000)=$3.00

Let us set the value for 60,000 impressions via removing the decimals from 60,000 to 60

60 x $3 = $180

And for pay per Click ads it's;

CPC * Clicks * Users = 20,000 (approximate)

CPC = $0.05, Clicks = 3 (approximate) (per individual)

$0.05 * 3 = $0.15 (approximate per individual) * 20,000 = $3,000 (the price range may vary from active user count)

The sum is;

$3,000 + $180 = $3,180 per day

$3,180 * 30 days = $95,400 per month

If all the 20,000 users had to cash out at the end of the month and they promised 500 pesos which is $8.70.

$8.70 * 20,000 = $174,000

$174,000

Theestimated total cost is: $174,000 per month which is 9,918,000 in pesos.

Conclusion; the calculation applied the realistically possible values due to the uncertainty of payments, users, and ads activities; it's shown that a dev cannot pay all the users according to what his application promised.

• If they obey what the application promised the dev will still lose $174,000 - $95,400 = 78,600 dollars per month.

Let's assume that the company is entitled for 50% of $95,400 revenue since it needs to pay server, tax, third party service like banking, third party security, employee payroll and more.

• The commission tax In the Philippines is 25%, that's $23,700 deduction plus another 25% for the estimated operating cost.

Leaving us only $47,700...

$47,700 / 20,000 users is equal to $2.36 per user (~162 per peso)

• In order for the company to run ethically the dev must pay each user 2.36 dollars is ~162pesos per 30 days. In comparison we can earn 500 pesos in one service of mowing someone's yard.

• some users might quit before 30 days due to high grind low reward causing the revenue to drastically fall. Even if they cut it in half by just making the deadline by 15 days, the app becomes undesirable, since more ads will appear.

Don't waste your time hoping like I did..