7 Adsense alternatives that often pay more

Why these options can outperform adsense

AdSense tends to be straightforward: you place units, ads serve, and you get paid. Alternatives often go further by improving the auction environment behind your ads and by tuning layouts for higher viewability and higher bids.

That usually translates to better earnings per session—especially once you have enough traffic for optimization to matter.

One thing to keep in mind: better monetization partners don’t magically create revenue. They amplify what you already have. If your traffic is inconsistent, your site is unstable, or pages fail to load sometimes, any network will underperform.

Ads can’t earn money on pages that don’t load.

The companies worth knowing

Below are seven well-known AdSense alternatives that are commonly used by “normal content” websites (blogs, guides, niche sites, editorial content). Some are easier to enter; some are premium steps that require clear scale.

Companies mentioned, with a simple advantage and disadvantage

ezoic

Advantage: Ezoic states that AdSense approval isn’t required for most sites and focuses on compliance/quality guidelines, which makes it a common early step for growing publishers.
Disadvantage: Because it adds more optimization logic and scripts, many publishers need to actively tune performance to avoid speed and UX issues.

monumetric

Advantage: Monumetric’s Propel program is explicitly designed for mid-sized sites (10k–80k pageviews/month) and includes structured monetization services before you reach “premium network” scale.
Disadvantage: Propel has clear implementation requirements (platform, layout constraints, minimum ad slots), so it’s not always “install and forget.”

mediavine

Advantage: Mediavine is widely considered a premium step for content sites, and it publicly documents its traffic thresholds and publisher path programs.
Disadvantage: It’s harder to qualify for than entry platforms; Mediavine has historically required 50,000 sessions in the prior 30 days for Ad Management qualification.

raptive

Advantage: Raptive lowered its minimum entry requirement to 25,000 monthly pageviews, opening the door earlier than many publishers expect.
Disadvantage: Eligibility depends strongly on audience quality and location thresholds (for smaller sites, a meaningful share of traffic from key tier-1 countries is required).

setupad

Advantage: Setupad positions itself as a programmatic optimization solution with managed and self-serve options, which appeals to publishers who want more control over their ad stack than AdSense alone provides.
Disadvantage: Multiple sources—including Setupad’s own comparisons and industry reviews—suggest it targets medium-to-large publishers (commonly around 100,000+ monthly impressions/visitors), so smaller sites may not be the best fit.

nitropay

Advantage: NitroPay markets itself as a publisher-first option with control over ad placement and a dashboard-driven approach, which fits “normal content” sites that want flexibility.
Disadvantage: NitroPay doesn’t clearly publish a single universal traffic threshold, and third-party guides commonly cite around ~100,000 monthly pageviews as a typical minimum, meaning smaller publishers may be declined or manually reviewed.

freestar

Advantage: Freestar is positioned as a premium partner for larger publishers, and it explicitly says its typical publisher base averages around one million monthly pageviews, which aligns with higher-scale monetization operations.
Disadvantage: That same scale expectation is a barrier—Freestar is usually not realistic unless you’re already operating at high traffic volume.

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