RPM Benchmarks for Gaming Sites: What to Expect in 2027

Every gaming publisher wants to know: is my RPM good? The answer depends on your traffic mix, game genres, ad formats, and monetization partner. But having benchmarks helps you identify where you are leaving money on the table.

Below are typical industry ranges, adjusted from our experience with the gaming sites we work with, heading into 2027. Illustrative, not a forecast for your site. Unless stated otherwise, every figure is page RPM: revenue per 1,000 pageviews, in US dollars. (Session RPM, revenue per 1,000 sessions, is a different and much larger number on gaming sites, because each session spans several pages.)

Overall RPM by Geography

Geography is the single biggest factor in RPM. A US pageview is often worth roughly 10× a Southeast Asian pageview, because advertiser budgets are concentrated in Tier 1 markets.

"All-format page RPM" includes display, interstitials, rewarded video, and adhesion units combined. A well-optimized gaming site with a global traffic mix typically lands around $4–10 blended. If you are only running display, expect the display column rather than the all-format one.

RPM by Game Genre

Game genre affects RPM because it influences session behavior, audience demographics, and advertiser interest.

Card and board games tend to produce the highest page RPMs because their audience skews older, which usually means lower ad-block rates and strong advertiser interest. RPG and adventure games come close, and their deep sessions make them the strongest genre on revenue per session. Keep the two units apart: session depth raises revenue per session far more than it raises page RPM.

RPM by Device

Mobile RPMs have been closing the gap with desktop, but desktop still commands a premium for gaming sites.

Desktop RPMs are higher because desktop ad slots are larger (728×90, 300×600) and viewability is higher (players are focused on one screen). That premium holds even though desktop users block ads more often than mobile users: mobile Chrome does not support extensions, so mobile blocking is mostly limited to browsers with built-in blockers.

However, mobile represents the majority of traffic. Optimizing mobile layouts and formats (adhesion, interstitials, mobile rewarded video) has a bigger impact on total revenue than chasing desktop-only improvements.

What Moves RPM

If your current RPM is below the benchmarks above, here are the most impactful levers, ranked by the uplift we typically see. The percentages are rules of thumb for total revenue, not promises; your results depend on your starting setup.

1. Add Header Bidding (+30–60%)

Switching from a single demand channel (like AdSense) to header bidding with a starter set of 6–8 well-chosen demand partners (and grow from there) is the single biggest RPM improvement most gaming publishers can make. More bidders means better price discovery for every impression.

2. Add Rewarded Video (+15–25%)

If you have any game with lives, retries, power-ups, or virtual currency, rewarded video is high-CPM inventory that players prefer over interruption. This is additive revenue; it does not replace display.

3. Implement Ad Refresh (+10–20%)

Gaming sessions are long. Refreshing viewable, in-focus display ads no faster than every 30 seconds during active gameplay adds impressions without adding pageviews. The lift on display revenue alone is larger than the +10–20% on total revenue, because refresh only applies to display units and refreshed impressions usually clear at lower CPMs than the first view.

4. Deploy Ad-Block Recovery (roughly +11–16%)

Gaming audiences typically block ads at 30–45% rates, against 15–30% on the general web. In our experience, recovery (Acceptable Ads plus user messaging) recovers part of the revenue lost to blocking, often 20–30% of it. On a site where 35% of pageviews are blocked, that works out to roughly 11–16% on top of current revenue.

5. Optimize Floor Prices (+5–15%)

Dynamic floor pricing adjusts minimum bid requirements based on time of day, geography, and demand levels. It prevents your premium inventory from selling at remnant prices during high-demand periods.

6. Add Interstitials (+10–15%)

Between-level interstitials at appropriate frequency (every 3–5 levels) typically earn $8–15 CPM with minimal player experience impact. They are especially effective on mobile.

The Compounding Effect

These improvements compound. Here is an illustrative progression for a US-focused gaming site starting at a $6 page RPM, well below the US range above. It shows how the levers stack; it is not a forecast for any particular site.

In this example, going from $6 to $16 page RPM is a 167% improvement. On a site with 2M monthly pageviews, that is the difference between $12,000 and $32,000 per month, or an additional $20,000.

How to Benchmark Your Own Site

To know where you stand relative to these benchmarks:

1. Segment your RPM by geo. Your blended RPM is hard to interpret if you do not know what each market is contributing. US RPM should be at the top of the ranges above.
2. Measure by format. If you are only running display, you cannot compare against all-format RPM. Track display RPM, rewarded video RPM, and interstitial RPM separately.
3. Account for ad-block rate. Ad server RPM is often calculated only on pageviews where your ad tags loaded. If 35% of your pageviews are blocked, your true revenue per 1,000 total pageviews is 35% lower than that reported figure.
4. Compare against genre peers. An IO game earning a $12 US page RPM is performing well. A card game at the same RPM is underperforming.

If your numbers sit well below these ranges, there is often room to improve through better monetization setup rather than more traffic. To see how other gaming publishers closed that gap, see publisher results, or get a revenue estimate for your own site.