Announcement: New Corona Professional Bundle; retiring Corona Ads

Getting Started Announcements
#1

Corona Ads was initiated earlier this year as an alternative to limited ad-based monetization options at the time. Since its conception, we’ve added numerous monetization options to the Corona Marketplace that we believe are strong solutions for Corona developers — these include popular networks like AppLovin, mediation providers like Appodeal, and child-friendly providers like KIDOZ and SuperAwesome, making Corona the leader in easy-to-implement monetization solutions.

In addition to these monetization plugins — almost 20 in total — we are excited to announce the new Corona Professional Bundle for developers who wish to harness the power of other industry-leading ad networks.

The Corona Professional Bundle is offered at $995/year — less than $85/month — and gives you access to:

  • AdMob plugin (updated)
  • Chartboost plugin (updated)
  • AdColony plugin (updated)
  • Splash Screen Control plugin

With the three monetization options offered in this bundle, it’s important to note:

  • There is no revenue share with Corona. You keep 100% of your ad revenue.
  • You set up your own account with the ad network(s) and control your settings.
  • These are standalone plugins and are not bound to Corona Ads.

The new Corona Professional Bundle is now available in the Corona Marketplace. After purchasing, the plugins above will be instantly available for activation in your developer account.

In addition to being offered as part of the Corona Professional Bundle, AdMob, Chartboost and AdColony are also available individually at $495/year each, and the Splash Screen Control plugin remains available for $99/year.

Our other monetization plugins will remain free for you to use, just as they were originally designed.

Important:

  • The updated versions of these monetization plugins require daily build 2016.3005 or later. We encourage AdMob users to begin updating as soon as possible, but if you need time to migrate to the new plugin or find an alternative solution, use a build older than 2016.3005.
  • Due to technical limitations, the changes to Chartboost and AdColony are effective immediately and also require updating to 2016.3005 or later. In exchange, if you integrated Chartboost or AdColony while they were offered via Corona Ads and you earned over $10.00 in combined ad revenue, you will be able to use these updated versions free-of-charge.

Retiring Corona Ads

In light of the changes above, and with a new focus on continual upkeep of the most popular monetization plugins, Corona Ads will be retired as a product and plugin by January 31, 2017. Developers currently using Corona Ads to monetize their apps will need to use alternative monetization options. As of today, we are no longer accepting new registrations for Corona Ads.

In summary

In the spirit of Corona itself, we want to continue offering a wide variety of monetization options, all cross-platform and simple to integrate (no native coding required). We believe that our current monetization plugins let you utilize an ideal blend of networks and solutions to fit your studio, business, or personal needs.

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#2

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/66767-from-the-blog-introducing-doubleclick-ad-exchange/

I’m confused. So, you are ditching the AdMob plugin in January 1st, 2017 and if we want to use the most popular ad service AdMob, we need to buy Pro bundle. Is that right?

Edit: I’m getting more confused since you guys decided to include a paid AdMob plugin with a price of $495/year! That’s basically cutting out the newcomers, don’t you think?

#3

Consider the old post non-relevant. This new post supersedes the old post, so forget everything in the old one. 

Going forward if you want to use AdMob, you will either have to buy that plugin separately or you can get it as a bundle with Chartboost and AdColony. All three, whether purchased individually or as part of the bundle, will yield 100% ad revenue share to you, the developer (none to Corona). You will also gain full control over the provider’s respective portal, settings, etc.

Rob

#4

Just to confirm on this. If we do not buy the Admob plugin subscription, we will not be able to use it anymore?  Or it will not be available only for the later build.

My personal feedback on this. Thanks Corona team for considering offering Admob plugin as a paid option instead of forcing us to use Corona Ads.  But the price is ridiculously HIGH…  $495 per year.  Are you guys really serious about this? $99 per year sounds more reasonable and that is if you guys are willing to upgrade it to support native ads.

#5

Another year, another business model. For all our sakes I hope they eventually stumble on one that works.

This feels to me to be a tax on successful developers that will put off those hobbyists who have yet to strike it lucky.

#6

honestly, I accept this change with the year payment.

But if I was to put myself in a newcomer’s shoes, may I suggest that there should be a free model as well as this paid model.  

Free Model: You could take a rev share up until a certain revenue limit (cough… old corona pro) or cut out certain features.  I assume admob v2 will be deprecated soon and the newcomer who can’t afford the 1k or $495 would be limited to the ad networks in which they could choose from. Corona wouldn’t lose out on other revenue streams from those hobbyists/newcomers if done right.

Now writing that model leads me to ask… what happens when the year is up, somehow we forget to pay, and we have apps on the market with these plugins? do the ads turn off or does this apply only on the build level?

#7

I’ve stated in my previous post with an edit but I would like to talk more about it.

AdMob is the industry standard provided by Google and you are making it $495/year which will cut off all your newcomers. From now on, most of your newcomers will ditch the platform as soon as they see you are charging that much for AdMob. Also, it’s been some time that I’m trying to understand your attitude towards AdMob. It seems that you don’t want your developers to take advantage of AdMob. Can someone from Corona team shed a light on that?

We have an idiom here in Turkey: “Ölümü gösterip sıtmaya razı etmek” or as Google translates it “Show death and settle for malaria”. That’s what you guys are doing at the moment. First, you are telling us that you are ditching the plugin and after pages of discussion, you are like “ok ok, we listen to you guys. we are not ditching the plugin but as you are willing to pay, we are making it ridiculously expensive”. That’s not how you treat your customers.

Also, what’s with making Corona Ads mandatory for AdMob first and completely retiring it 10 days later? I’m familiar with the Lean Startup methodologies but don’t you think that’s just a bit too much? It just seems to me that you guys are running amok which is not giving me a sense of security for the future of the platform. Probably your business is what’s at stake here but I’m pretty sure you guys know that developers will leave at the first moment possible if you start taking the feeling of security away from them, leading to an accelerated demise.

(I’m a long time -not the most profitable for you- Corona developer. All those 4+ years, I tried to convince people that they are missing out on a great platform but I’m not so sure about that for some time now. I can’t convince people to migrate when you are constantly changing your mind and everything. I’m not trying to be grim but you should know we are really struggling to keep our businesses intact when you keep making those radical changes.)

#8

@noriega, This is at the build level. If you let your subscription lapse, you won’t be able to build and update the app using that paid plugin. For any new developers coming to Corona, we offer over 15 other ad plugins that don’t cost them anything to use… and when they are successful, they can upgrade to one of these pro plugins.

Rob

#9

@noriega,

Truthfully, we don’t have any desire to cut/limit features based on your subscription level. We want the Corona platform to be one where you can create the apps you dream of creating, without core limitations, while also offering a wide variety of ad monetization choices if/when you want to monetize: flat-rate with no revenue share, allowing you to earn as much as you possibly can, or completely free up-front with revenue share taken only when you earn ad revenue. We believe these new options offer a reasonable path for any studio, business, or hobbyist to adopt Corona at a comfortable level and then grow/monetize as their business grows as well.

Best regards,

Brent

#10

I for one completely support this. Corona is a business, and we own business. you cant expect corona to give away everything for free or close to it. I use Corona more than i use Adobe suit in my business yet i pay for adobe, so i am happy to pay for their services if that means updated plugins/support on things such as admob. this now gives me the option to continue and know my upfront costs.

I simply see it as a option of pro subscription (Which is essentially what we had back in the day) and free subscription. there is choice. for people starting out, the option is there to use the free model solution, and it wont harm them. for higher earning devs, we pay for the tools we use. yet don’t loose so much revenue via rev share. Im happy to support corona with them supporting us. not to mention now giving us options.

#11

Unity has a few Admob plugins in their asset store, ranging from $20-40 for a one time cost. That is what the asset store should be for. Integrating third party SDK into the core engine. The way this is priced now is as though Corona created Admob thus requesting a premium price for it.

My question to Corona Team if someone were to submit a Admob Plugin to the asset store now at a similar price of $20-$40, will you guys reject the submission because it compete with your “business model”?

#12

I welcome these new changes. I’ll gladly pay up front and have no revenue share. I agree that it may be steep for new developers, but for anyone who is treating apps as a business, the $1k per year will easily pay for itself. 

I do think Corona will reject any outside developers that attempt to make their own plugin for cheaper and offer it on the marketplace.

Edit: What if I already paid $100 for the splash screen control but want to get this new bundle that includes it. Any credit?

#13

@Falcon777, it’s basically a different business model with a different approach:

A. Buy a third-party AdMob plugin (in Unity) which may or may not be maintained by the author going forward. In the meantime, if you’re a hobbyist, you might use Unity Personal until you require more powerful features, at which point you could then choose to pay for Unity Plus/Pro ($420-$1500).

B. Use Corona and, if you’re just starting out or don’t want to pay for a pro ad plugin, develop for free, using any number of free ad providers under the revenue share model. If/when you’re ready to harness the power of AdMob, Chartboost, or AdColony, purchase the desired plugin but enjoy using Corona (core engine) for free, instead of an annual fee.

#14

@naveen_pcs,

Yes, for those who already purchased the Splash Screen Control plugin and then purchase the Corona Professional Bundle, we will credit you back $99 since you already bought the Splash Screen Control plugin.

Brent

#15

“In general, monetization plugins packaged around a particular service provider is not allowed. If you are the said service provider and are interested in providing a Corona Plugin for your service, we would love to work with you. Please contact ads@coronalabs.com for more information.” https://marketplace.coronalabs.com/submission-guidelines#corona_plugins

#16

My only question is, for now you have those certain ad plugins as pro and the rest as free. But at any time, seemingly spur of the moment, you may decide, this or that free plug in you will now charge for.  Again, the same problem is happening that you guys made with the splash screen plug-in, you are making the future of developing with corona sdk totally unpredictable for developers and in turn will drive away many devs whole prefer a more stable payment environment. Might be a good idea to at least figure out what you plan to do in terms of charging for things at the beginning of each year so devs can expect them instead of just jumping out of the blue with new payments as and when you see fit.

#17

Just wanted to give credit where credit is due and say thank you guys for listening to us. We don’t always agree with your decisions, but historically speaking you guys have done a great job listening to us and pivoting in a new direction. I’m absolutely thrilled that corona ads has gone away and ads are on a flat fee now. Is there any plans to convert the other plugins to the same flat model (applovin)?

Thanks again for listening to our concerns in the other thread. 

Edit: P.S. Thanks for doing it before the new year as well so we can enjoy that extra little tax break :smiley:

#18

AdMob, Chartboost, or AdColony do not guarantee higher revenue so why are you classifying those as “pro” as compared to other ad providers. I believe they are simply more commonly used by developers which makes them a good candidate for monetisation by Corona.

 

#19

First of all, I’d like to thank those who have supported Corona all these years and have worked with as we find a balance in our ecosystem that creates a sustainable platform business.  Though it may not always seem like it, we do consider the feedback that comes our way as well as the discussion that occurs in these forums.

Secondly, I want to thank our team (especially Ingemar who has been hacking tirelessly to get this collection of plugins together as a high priority) for coordinating around this release.  I’ve worked with a lot of groups over the years and the Corona team really really loves working on this product and doing its best to serve the community.  My job is to keep the lights on but their tenacity and dedication is what makes everything tick.

Finally, it’s important to know that we aren’t trying to rob developers by charging the prices we do.  A single plugin at $495/year is less than $50/month.  Yes it’s paid annually but the primary reason for that is because we discourage the idea that a developer buy for one month, release their app and then cancel the subscription.  We are considering a monthly plan with a 12-month commitment.  If you’re not interested in paying for the Corona Professional Bundle, there are many other monetization options to choose from to boot up your game with until you hit a volume of impressions before you believe it worth the money and commitment to buy the Corona Professional Bundle.

#20

Hi Roj

Thanks for posting here. I agree there is a need to create sustainable ecosystem.  I have been with Corona for about 5-6 years and over the years have been advocating to developers around me to give the platform a try. There isn’t a need to create awareness via splash screen to end-users who are largely not developers.

I hope you can also understand most of here are hobbyists and indie developers that are trying to make ends meet with the ad revenue. The life span of games / apps are generally short with the strong competition out there. Users who download our apps may uninstall them within minutes or hours. Thus we cannot expect consistent ad revenue even with Admob so it is a challenge for us to commit to even a year of subscription at such high cost.

I hope you can consider revising the plugin subscription to something much more affordable like USD99 per year and hopefully including the removal of the splash screen.