Mobile Game User Acquisition Agencies Compared

A user acquisition (UA) agency buys players for your game through ad platforms such as Meta, Google, TikTok, Apple Ads and the in-game ad networks. The first question to settle is whether your budget can give that agency enough data to work with, before you weigh any case study. Two platform rules set that floor. Meta says an ad set usually leaves its learning phase (the period after launch or a major edit when delivery is still being tested and results are less stable) after about 50 results in the week following its last significant edit (Meta Business Help). Google says an App campaign using target return on ad spend (target ROAS, a bid strategy that aims for a set ratio of revenue to cost) needs at least 10 conversions every day, or 300 in 30 days (Google Ads Help).

Below those volumes, a Meta ad set may stay in learning longer, and a Google App campaign cannot meet the stated requirement for target ROAS, whichever agency runs it. So check what your budget can feed before you compare agencies.

Seven agencies and what they publish about themselves

We started from the seven agencies on AppAgent’s 2026 list of game UA agencies, which ranks AppAgent first, and added Admiral Media, which publishes a competing list that ranks itself first, and ourselves. We kept those that buy paid media for games as a main service. That left out Zorka.Agency, which leads with influencer marketing for games, and Matej Lancaric, an individual UA consultant. A consultant like that fits a studio that already has a buyer and needs senior judgment on channels and launch planning. We read each included agency’s own site on October 20, 2026. Strataigize publishes this comparison and sells UA work, so we have a commercial interest. Agencies appear in alphabetical order, and the table covers only what each one says about itself. We did not test anyone’s delivery, and a service on a website may not be in the quote you receive.

Two of the six other agencies state a threshold, and none publishes its own management fee. AppAgent’s threshold covers spending on growth or creatives, which its page does not define further, while RocketShip HQ’s and ours are advertising spend, so ask AppAgent what it counts before comparing the two. Six of the seven agencies on AppAgent’s list are based in Europe: it gives Prague, Barcelona, London, Paris, Limassol and Bratislava as bases for six of its seven picks and Tel Aviv for the seventh, and notes that AppAgent also has a US entity (AppAgent). Admiral Media gives Dubai as its headquarters on its own list, and we are based in Vancouver. For a US or Canadian studio, ask which hours the named buyer works and how quickly a paused campaign gets restarted.

Where each one fits

Addict Mobile suits a studio that wants paid, creative and creator video from one supplier and is comfortable receiving a scoped proposal instead of a price list. Its site says first signals such as install cost and conversion rate appear within the first weeks, with results building over two to three months. Budget for that full period before you judge it.

Admiral Media suits a studio with an existing game that needs several paid channels and steady creative output. Its fee FAQ says the fee is quoted against a written scope after an account review, with no long lock-in. Ask for the fee basis in writing before the strategy call, because retainer and percentage-of-spend models behave differently as you scale.

AppAgent works only on games and states its qualification plainly: a strategic engagement for studios with launch and monetization experience. Its strategy phase can end with you running the plan in-house, which is useful if you have buyers but lack a plan.

Miri Growth pairs UA with creative work, listing motion design under a “Creative Advantage” heading, across a wide channel list that includes connected TV and the Moloco and Liftoff networks. It publishes no threshold or fee, so ask for both early.

RocketShip HQ puts creative volume first and offers three shapes: creative for your buyers, buying for your creative team, or consulting. Its $50,000 floor is the highest published in this group, and the advisory option is the route below it.

Strataigize runs UA, ASO and creative testing as one program. That fits a studio whose problem crosses the ad, the store listing and the revenue signal its campaigns optimize toward. It fits less well when only one of those is broken and your team already owns the rest. There, a specialist or our fixed-price 30-day sprint (an ASO overhaul or a creative-testing rebuild) is the smaller commitment, against the retainer’s 3-month initial term.

yellowHEAD sells paid UA alongside ASO and SEO to apps and brands generally, with game publishers among its listed clients. Ask how many people on the proposed team work on games now.

Check whether your budget can feed a revenue-optimized campaign

Platforms optimize toward the event you choose. For a game, the valuable event is usually a purchase or ad revenue, and purchases are rare in a new player’s first days. That is where the platform thresholds bite.

Here is the arithmetic with invented inputs, so you can replace them with your own. Assume a $5.00 cost per install and that 2% of new players make a purchase inside the platform’s optimization window. Both numbers are illustrative assumptions, not benchmarks.

Meta’s figure applies to each ad set. Split the same budget across more ad sets, countries or creative tests and each one gets less signal. If your numbers put a revenue-optimized campaign out of reach, an agency cannot fix that with effort. The proposal should then say which earlier in-game event it will optimize toward, how it checks that event against later revenue, and when it expects to move up to purchase optimization.

Google adds a technical condition. For App campaigns, the events you bid on and send values with should come from the Firebase SDK, Google’s app analytics kit (Google Ads Help). Ask whether that is installed and passing purchase values before you pay for a target ROAS plan.

Why iOS results arrive late, and what to ask about it

On iPhone, ad networks receive Apple’s own install attribution through SKAdNetwork, which reports conversions in privacy-limited messages called postbacks. Apple’s documentation sets three conversion windows, counted from the player’s first launch: days 0 to 2, days 3 to 7, and days 8 to 35. The first postback is sent 24 to 48 hours after its window ends, and the second and third 24 to 144 hours after theirs (Apple Developer). Apple’s newer AdAttributionKit framework also provides three conversion windows (Apple Developer).

Apple says a winning ad can produce up to three postbacks, subject to eligibility conditions. When the second one is sent and its value was not locked early, it reaches the ad network between day 8 and day 13 after first launch. The third, on the same terms, arrives between day 36 and day 41. An app can lock a conversion value to get a postback sooner, at the cost of ignoring later updates in that window. So unless the game locks its conversion values early, a Monday report of “day 7 ROAS” for last week’s iOS installs cannot yet include the second SKAdNetwork postbacks. Ask whether those numbers are modeled, taken from other data in your mobile measurement partner (MMP, the attribution tool such as Adjust or AppsFlyer), or both. Our explainer on what an MMP does covers that layer.

Ask each agency three things. How will the game’s in-app events be mapped to the conversion values Apple reports, so purchases and ad revenue show up? Which iOS numbers in its weekly report are observed, and which are modeled? When it cuts or scales an iOS campaign, which data had already arrived?

How the fee is set, and what goes in the contract

Since none of the six other agencies publishes its own management fee, you will compare quotes. Two of them publish pricing guides that describe the market, which are their claims, not price lists, and the guides do not agree. AppAgent’s guide to game agency pricing puts most growth retainers at $8,000 to $30,000 or more a month and says agencies often require about $25,000 a month in media spend (AppAgent). Its general app guide gives $3,000 to $25,000 a month for UA retainers (AppAgent). For fees charged as a share of spend, AppAgent’s game guide and Admiral Media both give 10% to 20% of ad spend (Admiral Media), while AppAgent’s app guide gives 5% to 15%. Ask which basis a quote uses and whether it carries a minimum fee.

A percentage of spend pays the agency more when you spend more, whether or not the extra spend earns back. A retainer pays the same either way. Neither model makes the agency right. What protects you is a contract that states:

• The fee basis, currency and any minimum fee, kept separate from the media budget you pay the platforms.
• That the ad accounts, the MMP and the creative files are in your company’s name, with the agency given access.
• The event each campaign optimizes toward and the payback window (the days it should take new players’ revenue to return what they cost) you will judge it on.
• The number of new creatives a month, who makes them, and whether production is in the fee.
• The notice period, and what the agency hands over when it ends.

On our side, every escalation of spend follows evidence from the step before it. That is a rule about our own work, and it is also a fair question to put to any agency you interview.

Where we fit, and the evidence we can show

Our growth retainer runs user acquisition, ASO, and the creative loop as one program: $10,000 to $18,000 USD per month, month to month after the first 3 months, with ad spend separate and billed by the platforms directly. That sits in the lower half of the game retainer range AppAgent’s guide describes. A studio that needs only one channel managed should still compare it with a single-channel quote or a fixed sprint.

The result we can show for a game is a client’s own report. Crush Crush, from Sad Panda Studios, is a client. Its June 2026 paid-attributed players (26,207 installs on US$24,447 of ad spend) had returned 136.1% of that spend in modeled net revenue by day 90. That passed the 130% paid return targeted for day 365. The figure counts only players Adjust attributed to paid campaigns, with revenue through October 11, 2026. Attribution is not proof of causal lift, and one cohort is not a forecast for your game.

A decision rule you can apply

Work out your monthly ad budget and the share of new players who buy within a week. Run the table above with your own cost per install. If one Meta ad set cannot reach about 50 purchases a week, hire for creative testing and earlier-event optimization, from a consultant such as an individual UA adviser, an agency’s advisory tier or a fixed sprint, and keep the monthly fee small. If you can feed purchase optimization on at least one platform and your problem crosses ads, store listing and the revenue signal campaigns optimize toward, a managed program is worth pricing. Ask every shortlisted agency for a written fee basis, account ownership, its iOS reporting method and the payback window it will be judged on, then compare the answers line by line.