What Are Playtime Offers? Play Games, Earn Rewards

What are playtime offers?

Playtime offers are offerwall offers that reward you for playing a game, not just for installing it. You earn when you reach goals inside the game, such as playing for a set number of minutes, reaching level 10, or coming back on day 3, and each goal usually pays its own reward. The game studio pays for those results because a player who keeps playing is worth far more to it than an install that is deleted after a minute.

If a reward has not arrived, see why a playtime reward goes missing.

How a playtime offer works, step by step

On the wall, a playtime offer is one card with a total reward that opens into a list of steps, each with its own reward and time limit. Behind the card, five things happen:

1. You start the offer. The wall records your click with a unique ID and sends you to the game’s store page.
2. You install and open the game. The game’s tracking tool matches your install to the click you made on the wall. This match is called attribution.
3. You play. The game records your progress: levels, stages, minutes, or days played.
4. The game reports each goal. When you reach a step, the game’s server or its tracking tool sends a message, called a postback, to the network behind the wall: this click completed this step.
5. The site credits you. The network passes the credit on to the site or app you earn on, which converts it into its own coins or points and adds them to your balance.

Every goal runs through steps 4 and 5 on its own, so level 5 today and level 20 next week are two separate credits.

The three kinds of playtime goals

“Playtime offer” is used loosely. Under the label you will find three kinds of goals, often mixed in one offer:

• Progress goals. Reach a level, a stage, a building level, or a rank. These are the most common, because the game’s server already knows when a player levels up.
• Time goals. Play for 30 minutes, or for a total of 5 hours within 14 days.
• Return goals. Open the game on day 3, or play on 5 different days. These pay for retention directly.

How minutes are counted

Time goals are measured in one of two ways, and the difference matters when a reward goes missing:

• Inside the game. The game counts your active play and reports the goal like any other event. This is how offers on most offerwalls work, because the advertiser is the one who measures and confirms the result.
• On the device. Some Android rewards apps count your minutes themselves, using the system’s app usage statistics. Android’s UsageStatsManager documentation says those statistics need the PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS permission, and that the user still has to grant access through the Settings app. If you turn usage access off, an app that counts this way cannot see your minutes.

Time goals are also the easiest to fake, since an idle phone racks up minutes, so many studios count only active play or pay for levels instead.

Playtime offers vs install (CPI) and multi-event offers

For the studio, a playtime offer is a way to pay for engagement instead of installs. A CPI (cost per install) campaign pays once, when the game is installed and opened. A CPE (cost per engagement) campaign pays when a player reaches a goal inside the game. A multi-event offer splits the journey into several goals, each with its own payout. Most playtime offers are multi-event CPE offers built on time, progress, or return goals.

For players, the difference is patience: a playtime offer is worth more in total, but most of the reward sits in later steps that take days or weeks.

How advertisers measure playtime

A studio cannot pay for a result it cannot see, so every playtime step has to exist as a tracked event. Most mobile studios do this with a mobile measurement partner (MMP), the tool that attributes installs to the ad or offer that drove them and records what those players do next.

In-app events

MMPs record goals as in-app events. AppsFlyer’s Android in-app events documentation lists predefined event names for games, including af_level_achieved and af_tutorial_completion. Adjust’s Add events help page describes how each event gets its own token, how an event can be sent from the app’s SDK or from the studio’s server (server-to-server), and how an event can be marked unique so Adjust records it only once per device. A unique “level 10” event is what stops one phone from completing the same step twice after a reinstall.

The studio chooses which events count for the offer and forwards them to the network as postbacks, one per step.

Attribution windows

The install has to be matched to your click before any step can be credited. Adjust’s attribution windows help page gives a default of 7 days between a click and an install for device matching, and says an install outside the window goes to the next qualifying engagement or, if there is none, is counted as organic (checked on October 29, 2026). Studios can change these windows, so they vary by game. What is a conversion window? explains the idea in more depth.

Retention

Studios judge playtime campaigns on what happens next: how many players are still active on day 7 and day 30, and how many spend money. Google gave the reason in a 2017 Android Developers Blog post on incentivized ratings, reviews, and installs: it found that incentivized users generally have lower retention and make fewer in-app purchases than users from other channels. Paying for play instead of installs means studios pay only for players who have shown they will stay. What is retention rate? covers how the numbers are calculated.

Why playtime tracking is delayed

Playtime steps credit more slowly than installs, and the wait is rarely on the site you earn on. The common causes:

• The goal takes time. A “reach level 30” step cannot credit before you reach level 30, and the deep steps of a playtime offer can take weeks by design.
• Progress has to reach the server. If you play offline, your progress may only sync, and the event only fire, when you reconnect.
• Studios send results in batches. Some confirm events every few hours or once a day instead of the moment they happen.
• Checks before confirming. Studios and networks screen events for fraud, such as emulators, scripted play, or repeated devices, before they confirm them.
• Several systems in a row. Game, MMP, network and site each pass the credit on, and a delay at one delays them all.

Once the credit reaches the site, some sites also hold rewards for a period before you can spend or cash them out, to protect against reversals. How long offerwall rewards take explains the two clocks, and reward hold periods explains the second one from the site owner’s side.

Why a playtime reward goes missing

A missing reward usually means the game never connected your play to your click. The usual reasons:

• You were not a new player. Most playtime offers are for new installs only. If the game was on your device or your account before, even months ago, the install may not count.
• The click and the install did not match. A VPN, a strict ad blocker, or a privacy browser can break the link between the wall and the store. So can installing days after the click, outside the attribution window.
• You played on another device. The goal has to happen on the device that installed from the offer. Progress on a tablet does not count for a click made on your phone.
• The time limit ran out. Each step has its own deadline, counted from when you started. Level 20 on day 15 does not pay for a step that said 14 days.
• The wrong counter. Many games have a player level, a stage number, and a building level. The step pays for the one it names.
• You reinstalled or cleared the app’s data. A reinstall can look like a new device or a returning player, and progress made after it may not be matched to your original click.
• The step was reversed. A step can be taken back after it credited, for example when the studio finds fraud or a purchase is refunded.

If a step is overdue, wait until the time the offer gives for confirmation, then report it with a screenshot that shows the goal and the date. Offer not credited? has the full checklist and what to include in a report.

What a fair playtime offer looks like

A good playtime offer is clear before you install, pays along the way, and can be finished by an ordinary player in time. Check for these:

• Exact wording. “Upgrade your Town Hall to level 8” is clear. “Reach level 8” in a game with three different levels is not.
• A time limit on every step, shown before you start, and long enough for normal play.
• An early first step you can reach in your first session, so you know tracking works before you put in hours.
• Rewards that grow with effort. Later steps should pay more, because they take more time.
• Purchase steps clearly marked. A step that needs you to spend money should say so up front, not halfway through.
• No ratings or reviews. Google Play’s User Ratings, Reviews, and Installs policy lists incentivized reviews and ratings as manipulation and tells developers not to offer rewards or incentives for ratings or reviews (checked on October 29, 2026). An offer that asks you to rate the game is breaking the rules.

If an offer misses most of these, skip it. Why users start offers but don’t finish shows that unclear steps and unexpected length are two of the biggest reasons players drop off.

For publishers: showing playtime offers well

Playtime offers are among the highest-value offers your users will see, and they create the most support questions. A few habits help:

• Credit from the server only. Add coins when your server receives a valid signed postback for a step, never because the user says they finished. Store each transaction ID so a repeated postback cannot credit twice; preventing duplicate reward credits shows how.
• Handle reversals. A step can be reversed after it credited, so take the coins back when the reversal postback arrives. Publisher earnings and reversals explains why it happens.
• Set expectations on your earn page. Tell users that deep steps take days or weeks and that a reward appears only after the game confirms it.
• Mind your own app store rules. If your rewards app is on Google Play, the same policy page says developers must not manipulate app placement, including by incentivizing users to install other apps as the app’s main functionality. Give your app its own purpose; incentivized installs and Google Play policy goes through the details.

To put a wall inside your own game, see monetize a mobile game with an offerwall.

Frequently asked questions