We are excited to introduce Kodular Monetize, a new way to monetize your apps directly from Kodular Creator.
This new system will replace the old commission-based model with a transparent, usage-based pricing that gives you more flexibility and lower costs. Instead of sharing a percentage of your earnings, you simply pay for the events that happen in your apps, like ad impressions or clicks, while keeping full control over your ad networks.
Some other key takeaways are:
Google AdMob components will be back
Google Ad Manager components can be used without our parent network (the existing invitation-based system will get deprecated)
No ad approvals required: your apps can show ads without any additional review
No user limit applies, everyone will be able to sign up and use it
We no longer retain earnings or distribute them: you receive them from the ad network directly
You will receive an invoice in the following month for the ad usage
With the move from a commission model to usage‑based pricing, creators will effectively pay a lower commission overall. In other words, monetizing your apps with Kodular Monetize will be cheaper than before.
Kodular Monetize is launching in Public Preview with limited access during the first weeks. If you want to try it out, you can join the waiting list here:
Kodular Monetize is now available for all users to sign up!
We encourage everyone to report any issues or suggestions in the community to help us refine the system before its full release. The first invites will start rolling out by the end of this week.
You can read more details in this page:
We’re thrilled to see how you’ll grow your apps with Kodular Monetize!
I didn’t understand this system. Why one would go for it with existing premium charges plus one time monetization activation charges plus ad usage billing invoices, I would rather just continue with premium subscription and use external ads extension.
We are still evaluating pricing, and one of the options we still have on the table is to actually remove the Premium subscription requirement.
That being said, the main benefit is having official components. We have seen some fake advertising extensions, or extensions replacing “your” ad units with some other (probably from the extension developer). With official components, we aim to remove that piracy.
The balance here is more about “how much free allowance to provide”. The main purpose of “bundling” it with Premium is to provide a quite generous amount of free ads.
Right now, the free allowance could allow to waive up to 62.25 EUR in charges, while Premium is 3.99 EUR (or even less with Yearly plan). And we can actually do that thanks to the, let’s say, guaranteed Premium subscription.
I will still evaluate which options are on the table, but let’s open a poll for now:
Premium + No Activation Fee + Higher Free Usage
Free + Activation Fee + Lower Free Usage
0voters
EDIT: This new poll actually also considers removing the Activation Fee.
Well i think going with free plan and adding activation charges would be great, as from point of view that many new users who recently join kodular don’t know much about kodular and hesitate to buy premium to use all features.
But if its free they learn and create and if they want to utilise their apps to earn some income they need to pay activation charges !
That way i think most people will be satisfied with their kodular experience.
This feels like a disaster. Every feature or update Kodular calls a “masterstroke” turns out to be a blunder.
The Google Ad Manager invite was the best possible thing, but it had two issues: a low fill rate, no video ads, and a high commission. Kodular also punished its users because some random user didn’t update their app and kept using it.
Now, even this is going away.
Also, what is stopping users from using ad extensions? Are they even allowed? Is the AdMob ad extension allowed in Premium, given that you are also offering it and users will have to pay every month again, whereas current users buy from an extension developer for a one-time fee and use it for at least one year? Please clarify this.
You should not track user activity in the app. You should also mention that the data policy must be updated on the Play Console after using this feature, or the user might miss it.
Rather than increasing premium prices and launching these kinds of features, focus on fixing bugs.
Also, has Kodular hired new people? If not, then how will you make sure that it receives updates on a regular basis?
Previously, Kodular never kept its promises, even with things that were mentioned in the premium table.
As you mention, the two issues (actually three) are being fixed with this update:
Low fill rate: after some discussions this Google, this could be related to how Google Ad Manager worked with parent accounts. There was only “one network”, and users misplacing ads and getting invalid traffic could end up impacting everyone else using Kodular with Google Ad Manager.
By moving away from that shared network, and letting people manage their own networks, this ensures that your fill rate stays isolated from other users.
No video ads: they should be available in Google Ad Manager as “Rewarded Ad”. We are also bringing App Open ads in Google AdMob.
High commission: as mentioned, the new system will make the “effective commission” way lower than before.
Constant updates: the new rates do not depend on Kodular versions anymore.
Even if you don’t update your app in several years, the “commission” will be the same.
As of now, nothing changes related to this. From my message above, we are actually evaluating moving Kodular Monetize out of Premium, and granting access to it using just the “one time fee” model.
No personal data is collected, and all data is anonymized. From data collection and privacy legislation, the usage of ads is “way more aggressive” than the data we collect from to track and measure those events.
To keep it clear:
No personal information, or even device identifiers, are collected nor used.
Only “generic” information about the device (i.e., brand, model, Android version) are transmitted.
No data is shared across apps. If a single user has installed two Kodular apps, they are completely unaware of each other, and they are treated “as two different users” from our side.
That being said, I understand the concern around privacy. We will publish a page which can be linked with further technical details.
Despite not fully visible, there has been a lot of work in the background. One of the issues in App Inventor ecosystem is automated testing, and things breaking when releasing updates. Over the past few weeks, we have worked in being able to automatically detect regressions.
Although, there are old crashes which have been fixed and will be released along the Target SDK update, adding AAR support for extensions, and a couple of other fixes.
We try our best to keep up with all the required updates. It’s true that some bugs have not been fixed in a while, but I will DM you to get a list to get them prioritized.
I am using @JEWEL admob extension. Do I have to enroll my self in Kodular Monetize to keep using admobe extension and pay commission(new name pay as you go) for each impression and click on extension or it’s optional and we can use monetization extension like before(just need to be premium). Also please an extension IDE with dependency resolution system like Gradle. Here are some features
Push Notifications feature is a must
Full androidx libraries support.
Chat bot component from MIT App inventor and other data science components.
Firebase analytics and Crash reporting along with messaging. (@vknow360 also has a nice extension and is support is just great.)
You can continue to use that extension, but under Premium plan (as it currently is, “a monetization extension”) and at your own risk. We understand there is a functionality gap as of now between our native components and the offering in the extensions, hence it doesn’t make sense to prevent the usage of those extra capabilities. If we provide all the functionalities you need, then you can migrate to Kodular Monetize.
We are going to create a new OneSignal component, and we also have Firebase Cloud Messaging in the backlog.
We are removing the Kodular Premium requirement to avail for Kodular Monetize. You will be able to monetize your apps without a Kodular Premium subscription, only paying the activation fee upfront.
The activation fee remains the same price as announced, and it will grant access to all the components as also stated before.
We are also going to keep the free allowances as they are, at least during Public Preview, to evaluate better the usage patterns.
If as a backup option and as now price is low, I enrolled into kodular Monetize. Will kodular Monetize features will be automatically added to my apps when I build them even if I don’t want to use them with certain apps and want to continue with traditional third-party monetization. Can you please clarify on this? @Diego
No, we do not modify the content of your apps. If you don’t place ads, we will not insert them either (doesn’t matter if Free, Premium or Monetize).
There is nothing related to Monetize in that screenshot, I don’t really understand what do you mean. Can you please elaborate or explain?
Google AdMob is currently unavailable, and Google Ad Manager is currently “free with commission”. With Kodular Monetize, Google AdMob will be back, and GAM moves from commission to Monetize.
Extensions remain unchanged. We will remove the approvals requirement in the next Kodular Creator update.
