Are you attempting to identify which measure is most crucial for app marketing? Do you want to conduct research on CPI Application marketing? Are you interested in learning more about cost per install, or CPI, and how to use it?
Are you curious about the best practices for CPI marketing? Alternatively, are you trying to figure out how CPI might help your marketing and who uses it for what kinds of products?
In order for a mobile app owner to create a long-lasting app business, marketing is necessary for every app to reach potential customers. App marketing is necessary to attract new clients, even in the case of mobile apps for e-commerce companies, when the app is merely a new route to reach customers.
Many business models are currently the foundation of mobile app marketing. There are several models available for mobile app marketers to select from when starting an app’s advertising campaign, ranging from one-time payments to costs-per-metric. One of these is CPI or cost per install.
You will learn about the specifics of the CPI payout model otherwise known as the pay per install network, in this guide, as well as what CPI marketing and advertising are and how they stack up against other measures. additionally, how much it costs to promote app installations on Facebook, TikTok, Google Ads, and other platforms.
It will make sense to define the Cost Per Installation and explain how to calculate it before getting into the specifics.
Cost per install (CPI): an explanation and calculation
The clearest explanation is this:
“Cost Per Install (CPI) is the price paid to get a single mobile app install.”
The name of the formula suggests that it is quite easy to calculate:
You can calculate the Cost Per Install by using the Cost Per Install Calculator which is given below:
your total ad spends divided by the number of installs.
So from the above-given information, we get to know that your average CPI formula depends on your total ad spends and the number of installs.
After establishing this fact, let’s examine what a Cost-per-stall campaign entails and its significance.
Why is a CPI campaign vital, and what does it entail?
One of the various indicators used by app marketers to monitor how much of their mobile app marketing budget is being spent is cost per install. Known as the CPM, or Cost Per Mille, model, the advertiser does not pay the online ad network or platform until the app is loaded, not until the advertisement is viewed. This places the responsibility for placing the advertisement in mobile apps and websites with high conversion rates as well as for properly targeting the advertisement to the right audience on ad networks. Ad networks have a direct motive to maximize the effectiveness of mobile app install campaigns.
The cost per install for an app is more than that of just viewing the advertisement, sometimes reaching $5, while the cost per thousand (CPM) can vary greatly, ranging from $0.78 to $7.00, depending on the platform (iOS/Android) and the type of advertisement (interstitials, banners, etc.).
Why is the CPI a reliable measure?
Major mobile marketing business Fiksu (formerly BidMind) removed CPI numbers from their main set of Index reports back in May 2016. The company argued that the “app craze” was fading, as evidenced by the growing number of reports, and so stated that “although it still has a role, CPI should no longer be the central metric to measure app marketing success.” Because fewer people are downloading and opening apps than in the past, a “mere” app install is no longer a reliable indicator of an app’s performance. This disproves the idea, as does the reality that the most popular apps are free to download and generate revenue through in-app purchases or online sales.
Having said that, if you’re advertising the app itself rather than an eCommerce item, CPI is still more significant than CPM. Even so, it’s a really useful indicator for games, particularly if you can design the payout to occur only after a certain in-game milestone, which is significantly more representative of player engagement than mere downloads.
iOS vs. Android game in costs per install, broken down by genre:
In order to compare the cost-per-install of iOS and Android games, let’s compile the data and stack data points for the following game categories: casual, mid-core, hardcore, puzzle, strategy, action, RPG, sports, simulation, and arcade.
iOS wins this race with an average CPI for casual games that is $1.5 compared to $2.5 for Android. This is a considerable gap between the two platforms’ average CPIs. Since iPhone customers have historically tended to spend more on mobile apps as well as on Apple items or services in general, this disparity can be explained by the higher lifetime value of iOS users. The CPI rises as a result of advertisers being encouraged to spend more money to recruit these app users due to their increased value.
In fact, the average cost to develop a single install of an iOS Mid-Core game is $4.5, whereas the same game on Android costs $3.25. Installing a Hardcore game costs $6 on iOS but just $4.5 on Android; puzzle games on iOS cost $3 while those on Android cost $2; and strategy game gamers on iOS pay $5.5 compared to $4 on Android. This trend—higher iOS than Android CPI—is also evident in every genre of games.
Global average cost per install (CPI) for mobile games broken down by platform and genre
From the price per install of mobile games to the expense of acquiring app users through platforms for sponsored advertisements on all the main social media networks.
Cost Per Install for Facebook Ads
Social media is one of the main ways to discover new app users in the current digital marketing scene. All of the major social media platforms already offer paid advertising options that enable app marketers to get app installs. These options include Facebook Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, Snapchat Ads, Reddit Ads, Pinterest Ads, and X Ads (formerly known as Twitter Ads). All of these platforms use the information they gather about their users to determine their interests, likes, and behaviors in order to give app advertisers useful data for precise targeting.
We’ll start with Facebook Ads, which is still one of the most effective and established platforms for connecting brands and app developers with particular app user demographics worldwide.
The graph below illustrates how the CPI for Facebook Ads has been rising over time. A number of factors, like market competition, privacy laws, ad quality and relevancy, economic conditions, and more, have an impact on this growth. The GDPR rule, which was implemented in 2018 and obliged app developers in Europe—as well as those outside of it, since the Internet has no true borders—to modify their app users’ data policies, is one of the two main contributors to privacy regulations. The ATT framework, which was unveiled by Apple in 2021, is an additional privacy law that altered the CPI rate environment even more. This time, a private company rather than the government implemented it.
Cost Per Install for TikTok Ads
The TikTok Ads platform, a significant participant in the digital paid advertising market, has been impacted by various issues, including privacy rules, economic reasons, ad quality and relevancy, and other aspects. Let’s concentrate on these.
First, advertising innovation: TikTok introduced a whole new way of creating video content to the video-sharing platforms market, which was previously dominated by YouTube and Instagram. Through the use of this new video ad format, the platform’s tone for advertisements and pricing was established. This led to an increase in app installs. The other, unavoidable reason, is the impending danger of US bans, which finally materialized as a new law requiring Bytedance, the business’s owner, to sell it to a US company or face US bans within a year.
TikTok Ads Cost Per Install began modestly in 2020, charging as little as $0.75 per install up to a maximum of $2. By 2023, this charge had doubled to $1.5 for the minimum value and nearly doubled to $3.5 for the upper limit. It is estimated that the cost of a single app install through TikTok Ads will range from $1.75 to $4 in 2025.
Let’s go back to a paid advertising platform that was popular before TikTok became popular, Google Ads, to encourage the installation of mobile apps.
Cost Per Install for Google Ads
When using Google’s paid ad platform to get mobile app users, we see that there is the largest difference between the lowest and highest price that marketers must pay to install mobile apps using Google Ads. In addition to the previously listed variables that affect changes in CPI rates, we must specifically address the automation that Google introduced to its Google App Campaigns solution in 2019 with the goal of maximizing the effectiveness of UA campaigns free from the involvement of advertisers.
In essence, it involved connecting AI to the platform to handle all of the campaign’s settings, including bidding and creative adjustments, on the fly. Google wants to enable app marketers to make use of its massive viewership on Search, Google Play, YouTube, Discover on Google Search, and the Google Display Network. How does this work?
Having said that, the following charts show the evolution of the Google Ads CPI over time. App marketers could charge between 50 cents and $2 for a mobile app install in 2019. App marketers paid anywhere between $1.5 and $4 for each install using Google Ads UA ads by 2023; for this year, projections indicate that the minimum install cost will remain at $1.5 and might reach up to $4.5.
One change that Google has been gradually implementing in 2025 is its Search Generative Experience, which uses generative AI technology to provide comprehensive answers to queries directly on a search results page. This change has the potential to affect Google Ads Cost Per Install as well as both native and paid traffic from Google.
Google AdWords Install Cost: 2019–2025, $
After examining the CPI rates for the major paid ad platforms from the market leaders, Facebook, TikTok, and Google Ads, let’s move on to the CPI rates for the major mobile advertising networks that aren’t connected to any social media, video sharing, or search engine platforms. These ad networks are Unity, Applovin, ironSource, and Vungle as of this writing.
Cost Per Install for Ad Networks
In the past five years, the same factors have affected the CPI rates of all the ad networks we look at in this section: competition in the market, targeting abilities, ad quality and format, user demographics, app category, seasonal trends, network performance metrics, technological advancements, and economic ones. Except for 2020 and a small portion of 2021, when COVID-19 clearly had a significant impact on the overall economy and, as a result, affected the cost-per-install rates that ad networks had during those years.
Advertiser demand and the availability of ad inventory have the most influence over changes in ad networks’ CPI rates. The more advertisers sign up for the platform, the more competitive the market is and the higher the rates. The low or high Cost Per Installation for a specific ad network can also be attributed to the scarcity of premium ad inventory.
Engagement metrics and conversion rates are also significant contributions. These two factors are really simple: because app marketers are able to acquire app users more effectively and so lower the rates, a greater conversion rate translates into a lower CPI.
Ultimately, these ad networks are now able to offer greater targeting and significantly reduced CPI rates thanks to the integration of AI and machine learning into their technological stack. Programmatic advertising’s rise to prominence made ad buying more automated and efficient, which in turn affected CPIs depending on how well the bidding algorithms worked.
Keeping this all in mind, let’s look at the precise rates for the years 2019 through 2025 and a prediction for 2025. As of 2019, the average installation cost for iOS and Android was between $0.50 and $2.00; by 2020, these amounts had increased to $0.75 and $2.5, respectively. Every year from 2021 to 2023 saw a $0.50 increase in the minimum and maximum CPI rates. According to projections, app marketers will have to pay anywhere from $1.75 to $4.5 for each app installed in 2025.
How to pick a CPI platform or network
You should consider a lot of factors while selecting your CPI campaign provider. Successful CPI campaigns are frequently the result of careful targeting, but as they say, the devil is in the details, so keep an eye out for them.
1. Alignment of the target audience:
It should go without saying that the most important aspect of your user acquisition campaign is to target those who may be interested in your software. Therefore, you should research the user demographics and geographic reach of any network or platform you are thinking about using for your UA needs. By choosing a network or platform with a significant presence in that specific area, you can ensure that you are reaching out to individuals who match your target demographic in terms of gender, age, location, and interests.
2. Creative options and ad formats:
Generally speaking, you should look for ad networks and platforms that provide a range of ad formats and are adaptable when it comes to A/B testing in order to determine the best mix of text, picture, and video creatives to convey the most compelling messages to your target audience.
3. Inventory and platform reach:
You need an ad network with a sizable enough user base if you want to be able to steadily increase the number of people using your mobile app over time. Verifying that the platform or ad network can genuinely supply inventory with premium and pertinent circumstances to make the content of your ads relevant is another crucial factor to take into account.
4. Capabilities for targeting:
Ad networks and platforms with the best targeting capabilities should be your first choice; the more precise and varied the information they use to target your adverts, the better.
5. Analytics and performance monitoring:
You need to have trustworthy attribution tools and real-time data in your app marketing campaign toolkit. Both will provide valuable insights for your advertising strategy and assist you in selecting the appropriate ad channels and app updates.
6. Models of pricing and costs:
Naturally, one of the elements that will enable you to select the ideal partner is the cost per install of the particular ad network or platform. In addition to being able to make daily and lifetime budgets, you also need to consider your budgeting options.
7. Prevention of fraud:
Without taking fraud prevention into account, this list of considerations would not be comprehensive. Regrettably, it’s commonly recognized that fake traffic accounts for a sizable amount of digital advertising budgets. On any platform or ad network you are considering, be sure to ascertain what particular safeguards and instruments are in place to combat fraud.
8. Observance and Confidentiality:
Verify that the network or platform has strong data protection procedures in place and complies with all applicable privacy laws (such as the CCPA and GDPR). Examine the network’s handling of user data and privacy issues, especially in light of the growing regulatory focus.
Conclusion:
Analyzing your marketing efforts is seen to be crucial and has the potential to be significantly more successful than cost-per-click, or CPC, advertising.
The CPI statistic is still used in in-app marketing campaigns even if it has clearly lost some of its initial attraction to mobile app marketers as of right now. CPI campaigns allow app marketers to accomplish a number of objectives. Examples include increasing the number of users for their apps, improving an app’s position in the App Store or Google Play store to give it more exposure, and gaining more users for their apps even though the App Store Optimization they’ve been using hasn’t yet affected their native user acquisition and more.
