Monetizing Games On Facebook

The Web Games on Facebook and Facebook Gameroom platforms are no longer available for new submissions. This documentation is intended solely for developers with existing games. To learn more, read our blog post.

Monetization is one of the most important feature that developers think about when building their games. Facebook offers a world class platform that allows developers to accept payments inside their games in a fast and easy way while players can feel secure making transactions with the trust that the Facebook brand brings. Facebook takes steps to ensure the payment experience is safe, secure and trustworthy.

In-App Purchases

The easiest and most straight -forward way to start monetizing your game is by offering in-app purchases. The Facebook Payments platform enables game developers to leverage payment mechanisms, like credit cards, mobile carrier billing and PayPal, to sell items to people worldwide. Facebook Payments for games allows you to explicitly set prices for all of 50+ supported currencies, allowing you to implement a pricing strategy tailored to regional markets, as well as creating a native feeling user experience internationally.

Moreover, Facebook Payments system offers a set of additional payments business models to complement traditional social gaming one-time purchases:

Subscriptions

With subscriptions, you can establish a recurring revenue stream and offer updated content or premium experiences for a weekly or monthly fee and new subscribers can be enticed with a free trial. Game developers offering subscriptions have grown incremental revenue and increased engagement in their games.

Mobile Payments

In certain regions of the world, mobile carrier billing, either direct to the payer's phone bill, or via SMS are the most common form of payment mechanism. It is valuable to optimize the payment flow for these regions. Specific features built for mobile payments help you optimize your pricing and payment experience for people who want to charge purchases to their mobile phone bill.

Ads For Virtual Goods

With desktop ads for virtual goods, you can display offers for virtual goods to your players, directly on Facebook. These unique image and video ads are shown on the Feed or the right-hand column for a pre-defined list of people who play your game or use your app, inviting them to buy a virtual item or currency. By clicking specific calls to action, like Buy Now or Get Offer, people can buy content and get redirected to your game after they complete the purchase.

Advertising

Advertising is another great way to monetize your players. Facebook allows developers to work with different advertising providers to generate revenue for your game:

Ads

To better serve your monetization needs while developing your game, below is a list of companies that provide advertising services on Facebook Platform. Advertising Providers on this list have all signed thePlatform Terms for Advertising Providers and are bound by all Facebook policies. Developers must only use services from companies that appear on this list.

These providers are not approved by nor affiliated with Facebook and, therefore, it is your responsibility as the developer to ensure compliance with Facebook's Advertising Guidelines even though the companies on this list have agreed to the policies as well.

Offerwalls

Facebook Payments enables players to earn in-app currency by completing engaging advertiser offers. By integrating this feature, developers gain access to an additional revenue channel targeted towards people who are not yet willing to pay for virtual currency.

Facebook has partnered with TrialPay to provide developers with the following implementation types:

Offerwall. This implementation enables your app to open a dialog containing an interactive list of compelling advertiser offers. Learn more about TrialPay’s offers here.
TrialPay's DealSpot. This implementation enables your app to spotlight one offer in-game. Learn more about TrialPay’s DealSpot here.