Tapjoy — What It Is, Rewards and Monetization Platform

What Is Tapjoy?

Tapjoy is a monetization platform founded in 2007 in San Francisco. It is a pioneer of the reward advertising model, where users receive rewards for completing targeted actions. In 2023, Tapjoy was acquired by ironsrc (separate from IronSource), strengthening its position in the pay-per-action advertising segment.

The main difference between Tapjoy and AppLovin and IronSource lies in the payment model. Where classic networks pay per thousand impressions (CPM), Tapjoy pays per action: app install, form fill, subscription. This makes Tapjoy attractive to advertisers who want guaranteed quality traffic.

According to Tapjoy’s own Benchmark Report 2025, users acquired through offerwall show 40% higher retention on day 30 after install compared to organic users, confirming the high quality of traffic from reward platforms.

Tapjoy serves over 500 million unique users monthly worldwide and partners with leading game publishers including Electronic Arts, Zynga and Glu Mobile. The platform is available in 190 countries, making it a global monetization solution. Unlike ad networks that passively serve ads, Tapjoy requires active user action, creating a fundamentally different interaction pattern: users perceive the offerwall not as advertising but as a tool to earn in-game rewards without real money.

How the Tapjoy Reward Model Works

The Tapjoy reward model is built on three participants: the developer (publisher), the advertiser and the user. The developer integrates the Tapjoy SDK and activates the offerwall. The user sees a list of tasks, selects a task, completes it and receives virtual currency. The advertiser pays for the completed action, and the developer receives a share of the revenue.

Virtual Currency

Virtual Currency is the central element of the Tapjoy ecosystem. The developer sets up their own currency (coins, crystals, gems) and defines exchange rates: how much currency the user receives for installing an app (e.g., 500 coins), for a subscription (2000 coins), for a survey (100 coins). Tapjoy automatically converts the advertiser’s payment into virtual currency equivalents at the specified rate.

Pay-Per-Action

Pay-Per-Action (PPA) is a model where the advertiser pays only for conversions: install (CPI), registration, purchase. Unlike the CPM model where revenue is generated from impressions, PPA requires quality creative and targeting from the advertiser, while the publisher receives guaranteed revenue only when a user actually completes an action.

// Tapjoy SDK Initialization
class GameApp : Application() {
    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()

        // Setup and Initialization
        Tapjoy.connect(this, "YOUR_SDK_KEY",
            object : TapjoyConnectListener {
            override fun onConnectSuccess() {
                println("Tapjoy connected")
            }
        })
    }
}

// Awarding virtual currency to user
fun creditUser(currencyAmount: Int) {
    val currentBalance = Tapjoy.getVirtualCurrencyBalance()
    Tapjoy.awardVirtualCurrency(currencyAmount) { success, _ ->
        if (success) {
            println("Awarded $currencyAmount coins")
        }
    }
}

Offerwall as a Key Product

Offerwall is Tapjoy’s flagship product, an in-game screen displaying a list of tasks from advertisers. The offerwall appears as a separate screen within the app, accessible from the menu, store, or by tapping “Get Free”. The offerwall design can be customized to match the app’s style: color scheme, fonts, element layout.

Types of Offers

Tapjoy supports several types of tasks: app installs (the most popular type, up to 70% of offerwall revenue), service subscriptions (high payout, low conversion), website registrations, survey completions, video views. Each task has its own payout in virtual currency, which is displayed to the user before starting the action.

The most important offerwall metric is the conversion rate, i.e., the share of users who selected a task and successfully completed it. Tapjoy uses machine learning to select tasks most relevant to each user: gamers see game install tasks, users from the US and Europe see high-payout tasks from premium advertisers. The algorithm also takes into account the history of completed tasks and avoids repetition, so users never see the same task twice. This increases the overall offerwall conversion and keeps users in the “task — reward — new task” cycle.

Tapjoy Exchange

Tapjoy Exchange is a marketplace where advertisers post tasks with specified payouts and targeting (GEO, platform, device type). Tapjoy’s algorithms automatically match relevant tasks to each audience: users from Tier-1 countries (USA, UK, Japan) see high-payout tasks, others see lower-payout but higher-conversion tasks. This approach guarantees maximum monetization for each user cohort.

Integrating the Tapjoy SDK into Your App

Integrating the Tapjoy SDK requires minimal code thanks to a unified API for all features. The SDK can be installed via Maven Central, CocoaPods or manually. After initialization, the SDK automatically syncs the offerwall, awards currency and updates the balance when connected to the internet.

// build.gradle (app)
dependencies {
    implementation("com.tapjoy:tapjoy:13.4.0")
}

// Displaying offerwall
fun showOfferwall(activity: Activity) {
    val offerwall = TapjoyOfferwall()
    offerwall.show(activity, object : OfferwallListener {
        override fun onOfferwallOpen() {
            println("Offerwall opened")
        }
        override fun onOfferwallClose() {
            println("Offerwall closed")
            refreshUserBalance()
        }
    })
}

// Checking virtual currency balance
fun refreshUserBalance() {
    Tapjoy.getVirtualCurrencyData()
        .getBalance { balance ->
            println("User balance: $balance")
        }
}

An important feature of the Tapjoy SDK is automatic handling of disconnected states. If a user completes a task without internet, the SDK saves the data locally and sends it to the server upon the next connection. The developer does not need to implement queue and retry logic.

Tapjoy also provides a Placement Builder tool for customizing the offerwall appearance. The developer can customize the title, subtitle, button colors, background images and fonts through a web interface without updating the SDK. Placements are automatically synced across all user devices without releasing a new app version. This capability allows A/B testing the offerwall design: launch two design variants on different audience segments and, after a week, choose the one showing higher task conversion. Test results are displayed in the Tapjoy Analytics panel as day-by-day charts broken down by country and device type. Placements also support targeting by app version, OS and country.

Tapjoy vs Other Monetization Platforms

Tapjoy occupies a unique niche in the monetization market. Unlike AppLovin and IronSource, which focus on programmatic impressions with a CPM model, Tapjoy operates on a PPA model through offerwall. This creates fundamentally different revenue dynamics: CPM networks provide stable passive income, Tapjoy provides pulsing income from active user actions.

The choice between Tapjoy and CPM platforms depends on the app type. For free-to-play games with a virtual economy, Tapjoy offerwall provides an additional monetization channel that does not overlap with ad impressions. For apps without built-in currency, Tapjoy is ineffective because users have no incentive to complete tasks.

The best monetization strategy is a combination of Tapjoy with CPM networks: Tapjoy offerwall provides pulsing revenue from active users, while CPM networks (AppLovin, IronSource, AdMob) provide stable passive revenue from all users. Developers often place Tapjoy offerwall as a second monetization layer: banners run constantly, interstitials appear during breaks, rewarded video from CPM networks plays on user request, and Tapjoy offerwall serves as an option for users who want to earn virtual currency without real money. This four-tier monetization strategy maximizes ARPU and LTV without overwhelming users with ads, while preserving a positive user experience.