Mediavine vs Adthrive: Which Platform Is Better for Publishers?

This blog post can contain affiliate links. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Please note that I only recommend products and services that I personally use and trust.

When it comes to choosing an ad network, Mediavine and AdThrive are the most obvious options to earn maximum revenue with your website.

But, what are the main differences between these two awesome platforms?

The most eminent difference between these two ad networks is that for Mediavine you will need to have at least 50,000 monthly sessions whereas for AdThrive you will need to have 100,000 monthly sessions. Also based on research, top bloggers claim that they make more money with AdThrive.

That being said, let’s look at the pros and cons for each, and let’s see which one can be the best choice for you.

Let’s get started.

Related:

Mediavine or AdThrive? The ultimate guide for 2022

Before we get started with the comparison for each, I would like to show you a table that I have prepared on ad networks that can help you understand why these two are the best in the industry right now.

This table will allow you to access all your options so that you can choose the best based on your requirements.

Ad network	Minimum Monthly Sessions	RPM Range	Payment Threshold	Payment Method
Mediavine	50,000	$20-$47	$25	PayPal, Wire Transfer, and Direct Deposit
Ad Thrive	100,000	$20-$37	$25	PayPal, Check, Wire Transfer, and Direct Deposit
Ezoic	10,000	$10-$43	$20	PayPal, Direct Deposit, Cheque, Payoneer
Monumetric	10,000	$5-$15	$10	PayPal and Direct Deposit
Media.Net	5,000	$5-$10	$100	PayPal and Wire Transfer
BuySell Ads	100,000	$15-$30	$20	Paypal, Wire Transfer, and Check
Ad-Pushup	10,000	$4-$12	$50	Paypal, Check, and Wire Transfer
Sovrn	No-Minimum requirement	$5-$10	$10	Paypal, Check, and Wire Transfer
Propeller Ads	No-Minimum requirement	$1-$5	$5	PayPal, Payoneer, Bank Wire, and Skrill
Info Links	No-Minimum requirement	$1-$5	$50	PayPal, Check, and Payoneer

Note: These numbers are only an average estimated based on research. For some niches, both Mediavine and Adthrive can generate up to $50 per thousand impressions. This will happen especially in November and December when advertisers are bidding more for ad slots.

What is Mediavine?

Mediavine is a very well know ad network amongst publishers. It is an ad network that was that works closely with small and big publishers to help them get the best user experience and earn maximum revenue with full transparency.

It is a Google Certified partner and Tag certified which makes it a very reliable ad network. On the other hand, they also work by 3 principles which ensure that you get incredible performance with your ads.

The 3 principles on which they focus are:

Best-in-class technology
Traffic quality
Brand Safety

Requirements to get approved on Mediavine

For you to be eligible for Mediavine, your website must have:

50,000 monthly sessions in the last 30 days. You will need to provide them with a screenshot for your Google Analytics as proof.
Must adhere to Google Adsense’s policies.
Must have original content. Actually, you can be in any niche that adheres to Google Adsense, and you will be accepted.
Your content must be of high quality. Long-form content is a must. So it’s better if you create content that has more than 1,000 words.

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription

How much can you make with Mediavine?

This is a tricky question as your niche and traffic can make a huge difference in your earnings.

For you to understand how earnings actually work, let’s have a look at the survey done by Income School.

After having surveyed more than 100 bloggers, Income school was able to get this data:

Here you can clearly see that both Mediavine and Adthrive have higher RPM (Median RPM) than other ad networks. So, it is easy to claim that both Mediavine and Adthrive are the best when it comes to making money.

But there is a catch:

Since Mediavine and Adthrive only accept high-quality websites, the RPM tends to be higher. This is because those websites have more traffic from countries like the USA, UK, and Canada. Whereas, Ezoic accepts small websites that have traffic from anywhere around the world.

Next, they did another research and compared similar websites that are eligible for Mediavine only and they got this result:

As you can clearly see, the average RPM for all ad networks is almost the same. Based on these findings it makes sense that if you ever choose Ezoic as your ad network you might earn slightly more than both Mediavine and AdThrive.

If you haven’t yet tried Ezoic, give it a try my friend. Especially if your website is still new as they don’t have any minimum traffic requirement.

You can watch the full video from Income School where they compare Google AdSense, Ezoic, Mediavine, and Adthrive below:

Mediavine payment details

Mediavine will pay you on a Net 65 basis. It means 65 days from the end of the month that money was earned. Payments are scheduled on the 5th of the month and if it falls on a weekend you get paid on the closest business day.

Here is the complete schedule for payments for Mediavine:

Now, there are a few ways you can receive your money. Some have a minimum payment threshold and for some, you will have to pay a fee.

Here are the payment methods, thresholds, and fees for Mediavine:

Payment Method	Minimum Payout	Tipalti Fee
ACH- International	$200	None
ACH- US	$25	None
Paypal	$25	None
Wire Transfer US	$25	$15 per transaction
Wire Transfer Non-US, Non-USD	$25	$20 per transaction
Wire Transfer Non-US (USD)	$25	$26 per transaction

Why should you choose Mediavine?

There are a few obvious reasons why you can select Mediavine as your Ad network. Here are a few things that the platform offers to its publishers:

Site Speed – Their lightweight ad tech employs “lazy loading” so that your ads don’t slow down your content.
Quality Ads – The platform only works with premium ad partners and every ad unit comes with an ad reporting button for real-time control.
Date-Driven Dashboard – With the dashboard, you can easily control your ads and earnings. You will get access to metrics such as RPM, top posts, and many more to have full control over your account.
Video forward – Their video player will allow you to easily showcase and monetize your videos.
Community – They have an exclusive Facebook group where you will be able to connect with their team and industry experts.
Dynamic Ad placement – The platform will place ads automatically for optimal viewability, user experience, and adherence to the coalition for better ad standards.

Which Niches are most popular in Mediavine?

Choosing a profitable niche is crucial when it comes to making a significant amount with your website. Though almost every niche can make you a lot of money with ads, there are a few topics that are very popular on the platform.

It means that if your blog is in these niches, you can potentially make more money because your RPM will be higher.

Here are a few niches that tend to perform really well on Mediavine:

Food and Drink
Travel
Personal Finance
Family and Parenting
Home and DIY
Arts and Entertainment
Health and Fitness
Hobbies and Interests
Style and Fashion

Some interesting Testimonials about Mediavine:

What is AdThrive?

AdThrive is another fantastic ad network that is used mainly by publishers who have more traffic. It was founded in 2013 by a husband and wife blogging team. They both had the vision to help creators grow their income by providing the best ads.

It is also a Google Certified partner which makes it a very reliable ad network. They also claim that publishers can get a 67% revenue lift if they use their platform.

Requirements to get approved on AdThrive

For you to be eligible for AdThrive, your website must:

Have a minimum of 100,000 monthly pageviews( Not sessions).
Have the majority of traffic coming from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Have no previous advertising infringements with major ad networks.
Contain unique content that is very engaging and which is a great fit for advertisers.
Be a secure site with HTTPS.

Make sure to meet all these requirements before you apply as they check each application manually.

How much can you make with AdThrive?

The average RPM is around $20-$37 based on the research above. Most people who have 100,000 monthly pageviews choose AdThrive because it tends to perform really well for websites that have a lot of traffic.

So, if your website is getting 100,000 monthly pageviews and the average RPM is 23.06, you will make around $ 2,306 per month.

AdThrive Payment Details

AdThrive will pay you on a net-45 basis. It means 45 days from the end of the month that money was earned. Payments are scheduled on the 15th of the month and if it falls on a weekend you get paid on the closest business day.

Here is the complete schedule for payments at AdThrive:

There are a few ways that you can receive your money with AdThrive and some have a fee.

Here are the different types of payment methods at AdThrive:

Payment method	Tipalti Fee
Direct Deposit – US	None
eCheck/Local transfer	None
Paypal	None
Paper Check	$3
Wire Transfer (US)	$15
Wire Transfer (Non-US) paid in USD	$25
Wire Transfer (Non-US) paid in Non-USD	$20

Why should you choose AdThrive?

There are a few reasons why many top bloggers choose AdThrive as their go-to Ad network. Here are a few reasons why you might be interested to use AdThrive:

Highest display and video monetization – They provide custom ad strategies with ongoing optimization to make sure that you are earning as much as possible.
Advanced proprietary technology – The network is powered by Nucleus which is the most optimized and future-proof ad code system.
Exclusive advertiser demand – The largest ad sales team of any ad management firm which delivers exclusive private marketplace and programmatic guaranteed deals.
They are Google Certified publisher partners.
Industry leadership and advocacy – The ad network has been on the board of Prebid.org and it is an active member of the Interactive Advertiser Bureau and World Wide Web consortium.
They provide the best ads on the market.
They provide an SEO mastermind class to help you generate more traffic for your website.
White-glove service and dedicated support – Their customer service team has won many awards that are proof of their awesome customer service.

How to earn more money with Mediavine and Adthrive?

Now that you know the differences between these two ad networks, it’s important to know that irrespective of which ad network you choose, you should always try to increase your RPM.

So how can you do that?

Well, am glad you asked.

Here is what you should do:

1. Try to get more traffic from the US, Canada, UK, and Australia

If you are wondering how much impact getting traffic from the US, Canada, UK, and Australia can have on your earnings, then let’s do a simple match together.

Suppose your website is getting 10,000 monthly pageviews.

If your traffic is mainly from the above-mentioned countries, you can easily reach an RPM of around $15-$25.

Let’s say your RPM is $15. With 10,000 monthly pageviews, you will earn approximately (10×15) $150.

Now if most of your traffic is coming from India, China, South Africa, or Nigeria, your RPM will be around $1 which means you will earn only (1x$15) $15 per month.

Can you see the massive difference your RPM can have on your overall earnings?

Massive, isn’t it?

Here are a few things that you can do to get more traffic from the US, UK, and Canada:

Get hosting from companies that have their data-Centre servers located in these countries. For Instance, you can use Namecheap as their server are located in the US, UK, and Europe.
Use a .com / .us / .UK / domain name.
Change your geographic location to US/UK in your google webmaster tools. You will notice you will have an option to target a specific country.
Submit your website to directories that are from the US and Uk. This will help you attract more people from these countries.
Use Google Hot trends and find hot topics for the US and UK.

2. Create content that will attract users from Google Ads

There is a trick that is really effective and that is writing content on topics that appear on Google Ads.

The thing is: Since advertisers are spending more money on certain specific keywords, having content on that keyword will make sure that those high-paying ads appear on your website.

For instance, if you have a website on camping, creating content about camping equipment that has a high CPC will increase your RPM.

So how can you find these keywords?

Well, it’s pretty simple. Head over to my step-by-step guide to help you find keywords that you can target using Google Keyword planner.

Pro Tip: When searching for keywords, make sure that you select the keywords with high CPC.

Final thoughts: Mediavine vs Adthrive: Which Platform Is Better for Publishers?

In short, if your website has less than 50,000 monthly sessions, then Ezoic is your best option. If you are getting more than 50,000 monthly sessions, then Mediavine is your best choice. Now if you can generate 100,000 monthly Pageviews (around 80,000 monthly sessions), then AdThrive is your best option.

I know, that generating traffic for your website is really difficult. Though some SEO hacks can help you get a higher ranking in Google, it will take a lot of time to reach 100,000 monthly pageviews.

That’s why the best option is to use Pinterest as it is the second-best search engine that can help you generate a lot of traffic in less than 6 months.

And to help you with that, here are some fantastic resources that will solve your traffic problems:

If you liked this post please don’t forget to share it as it really helps me get some extra exposure.

Thank you so much for your support.

See you soon!