2024 Was A Breakout Year for DTC - Here Are Our Highlights

I couldn’t be prouder of our team. What we’ve accomplished in 2024 has been remarkable - building the DTC platform trusted by over 1/3 of the top grossing publishers, scaling our platform to $200M in transactions, and having some fun along the way. 

As I wrote in our Manifesto, when we launched Appcharge we were sure of one thing: we were going to bring positive change to the mobile games ecosystem by helping publishers own their audience, and by doing it right.

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Almost two years later, I’m confident in saying we’ve achieved that goal already, and we’re only getting started. Our $26 million series A round is testament to this and will allow us to scale our obsession of launching world class monetization and payment products for leading publishers. 

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But while we look ahead to the future, with the year coming to a close I wanted to also reflect on our achievements from the past 12 months, highlighting the key product updates on the Appcharge platform. 

New web store features launched

We continuously added features over the year to help our partners maximize their web store revenue and retention. These include:

Post purchase offer

This feature enables publishers to show a pop-up with an irresistible offer immediately after a player completes a purchase. This tactic has boosted our publishers’ revenue significantly - up to 12% in some cases.

Time-limited offers

Time-limited deals, accompanied with countdown timers, are a tried and tested method for increasing web store revenue. In addition, this feature allows publishers to batch schedule offers in advance, instead of scheduling offers one by one. This enables them to align their web store offers with their internal calendar and scheduling logic and saves time.    

Password-Less Login

We’re obsessed with making web store experiences that delight players. Removing any friction from the login process is a key part of this, which is why we added password-less login. Within 3 seconds and just 2 taps, players can load their profiles and check their in-game currency balance — making this the fastest & easiest way to log into the store.

Daily Bonus

Our daily bonus feature is helping our partners increase both revenue and retention. A customizable interstitial pop-up that players receive upon opening the web store, it rewards them with a game resource such as in-game currency. Right after the player claims their reward, a timer appears on the pop-up showing that the next reward can be unlocked on the next calendar day.

Offer Availability Controls

If a player loves a certain offer, why limit them to a certain amount once they’ve maxed out? This feature, which was requested by one of our partners, lets publishers set the number of times players can redeem an offer [such as twice a day], and then select a time and date for replenishing it. Since releasing this feature, we’ve received great feedback and seen a notable increase in repeat purchases. 

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These features are just a snapshot of the innovation happening at Appcharge. Every addition comes from deep collaboration with our partners and a shared commitment to growing their businesses.

Strengthening our payments solution

We made numerous improvements to our checkout solution, focused on perfecting the user experience and delivering market-leading conversion rates for our partners. These include: 

New Payment Methods

Can your Polish players pay with Blik? How about your Brazilian players with Pix?

We make sure publishers always make players feel seen by providing their preferred payment methods. I’m proud of our payments team who worked tirelessly to add a wide range of APMs to the web store checkout. For example, we recently added Venmo as a payment method for U.S. users, and it has already processed a significant number of transactions for our partners.

Coupons 

Discount coupons have shown themselves to be a powerful tactic for driving web store traffic and conversions for our partners. The most effective way to leverage these is using online communities and VIP account managers to share coupons with players. 

New mobile checkout SDK

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Several publishers we work with requested a solution to support their sideloading distribution strategies. This is another very interesting layer in the DTC ecosystem, allowing publishers to distribute their games directly to players, outside the iOS or Android ecosystems. 

Our development team got to work, and built a first class SDK that allows publishers to integrate a native in-app payments flow in their game for Unity, iOS, Android and Cocos.

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What features does it offer?

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• Fully customizable checkout look & feel 
• 80 currencies, 500 alternative payment methods
• Player price & currency localization 
• Real-time financial data connected to your system, and analytics in your Appcharge dashboard
• Full Merchant of Record coverage

Learn more in our docs.

What to expect in 2025

We’re always looking for new ways to help our current and future partners grow with the expanding DTC economy.

As I reflect on the past year, I’m reminded of the opening words of this article: we set out to bring positive change to the mobile games ecosystem. The journey isn’t over, and 2025 promises to be even more exciting.

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With an ambitious product roadmap and a team of mobile gaming veterans that continues to exceed expectations, we’re ready to scale new heights together. Thank you for being a part of our story, and here’s to another successful year for the industry 🦄