Hello, this is Marlerino Group.

Every affiliate marketer aiming for maximum profit has encountered the challenge of choosing a payment model. CPA has long been the most popular, followed by RevShare (RS). However, earning a percentage of players’ losses didn’t suit everyone, leading to experimentation. This gave rise to Hybrid and Spend-models.

Today, most affiliate programs offer multiple payment options. But which one is best? To help you decide, we've prepared a detailed breakdown with insights from our experts, including Maxim, CBDO of Marlerino Group.

CPA model

CPA is a fixed-rate model where advertisers pay for each player's first deposit that meets specific conditions. Payouts vary based on region, traffic quality, and advertiser terms.

The key advantage of CPA is its clear correlation between investment and outcome, making it one of the most popular models among affiliates.

This model is ideal for most media buyers as it is straightforward, transparent, and widely used. It offers quick returns and does not depend on how the acquired traffic performs after entering the product.

Advantages:

• Guaranteed payout. You receive money for bringing in a player.
• High ROI and fast payback. Investments in traffic return much quicker compared to RevShare.
• Transparent math. Easy to calculate costs and profits.‍
• Accessibility. Most advertisers work with CPA, giving you more opportunities to find the best deal.
  

Disadvantages:

• Payment holds and deductions. Most affiliate programs have a 30-day hold period, which can vary. Advertisers may also deduct part of the payouts based on various reasons, often tied to KPIs influenced by the product itself.
• ‍No long-term income. Profits depend solely on acquiring new users, limiting sustainability.

Cases

Case 1: $1,000,000 from Google Ads

Recently, together with our partners from Mostbet Partners, we shared a case study on Turkey with Google PPC. If you missed it, you can read it here.

In short, the case study statistics are as follows:

• Team's ad campaign spend — $1,137,847
• Advertiser's CPA payouts — $2,190,704
• Team's profit — $1,052,857
• Total deposits — $9,670,971
• Advertiser's ROI — 341%
• Team's ROI — 92%

Conclusion:

Although the campaign showed excellent CPA results, the flow analysis indicates that the setup had high potential for long-term monetization. This means that, with maintained high traffic quality and LTV, RevShare or Hybrid models would have been more profitable.

RevShare 

RevShare is a model where the arbitrageur receives a percentage of the profit generated by the product from the player they brought in. In this case, the profit is the difference between the winnings and losses of the players you attracted. Typically, the percentage ranges from 40-50%, but it can sometimes reach up to 70%.

In the context of iGaming offers, this means that the partner receives a share of the losses made by the players on the casino or bookmaker platform. The important caveat here is that if the player wins, the partner does not receive a profit and may even incur losses.

Who is RevShare suitable for? In our opinion, it's the choice for those who:

• Can attract high-quality traffic. Users with high LTV (lifetime value) can bring stable profits for several months or even years.
• Are focused on long-term collaboration. The model provides passive income for as long as the referred players are active. At the same time, success here is influenced not only by the quality of your traffic but also by how well it is handled by the product.

Advantages:

• Independence from traffic source. In most cases, the advertiser doesn't care about your traffic source, as they make payments only after receiving their own profit.‍
• Long-term and passive income. You receive payments as long as the player remains active, without needing to interact with the user.  

Disadvantages: 

• Long payback period. On average, it takes 5–10 months.‍
• Risk of partial profit loss. Player wins can temporarily reduce your earnings.‍
• Dependence on high-quality traffic. The higher the LTV of players, the more you earn.

Experience with RevShare

Case 1: Revenue Lab

From 2018 to 2020, we were driving traffic on a RevShare model with a budget of $200-300k per month. During this period, we faced many challenges, including unreliable partners. However, the situation changed after we started working with Revenue Lab.

For their traffic, we spent $100-150k monthly until January 2020. Even after the traffic stopped, the performance declined, but the revenue remained stable. For the past 4 years, we have consistently received payments of approximately $30k every month, exactly on time and without delays.

Results: 

• Spend: $1,321,747
• Amount received to date: $3,068,894
•  Net profit: $1,747,143, and the base of active players continues to generate income.

Conclusion:

Working with RevShare is an excellent way to create passive income and a powerful tool for long-term monetization. The key is to choose a reliable partner with ambitions and the ability to work in the long term. It's important to keep in mind that achieving such results requires significant investments and patience.

Spend model

The Spend model is a model where the advertiser compensates the traffic costs and pays an additional percentage (30–50%) of the spent budget. The percentage depends on the quality of the traffic: the better the metrics (number of deposits and LTV), the higher the partner’s income.

The Spend model is primarily suited for experienced media buyers with high-quality traffic. The higher the performance metrics, the higher the payout percentage.

The main advantage of the Spend model is the stability and predictability of income. It allows for clear budgeting and strategic planning. For large teams, consistent work within the Spend model can help minimize risks and ensure operational stability.

The main disadvantage is the relatively low margin. The ROI% is lower than in CPA, but this is offset by the stability of the model and income when working with it.

Hybrid

The Hybrid model combines CPA and RevShare: a fixed payment for the first action + a percentage of the player's subsequent activity.

In the Hybrid model, the initial payment, as well as the subsequent percentage, is significantly lower compared to CPA or RevShare. However, due to the model's versatility and its ability to balance short-term and long-term profit, Hybrid remains one of the most effective alternatives to the models mentioned above.

The Hybrid model is generally unavailable to most webmasters and is often only offered to experienced partners with long-term proven traffic quality.

At first glance, Hybrid seems like the golden middle. However, it’s important to understand that the payments on the CPA portion of the Hybrid model are significantly lower than those typically offered by the same products under a standard CPA model. In such cases, buyers risk a much longer return on investment period, which may hinder the team's growth rate.

Despite this, in 2025, the Hybrid model continues to gain popularity, especially among those looking to minimize the risks associated with traditional RevShare while fully leveraging their traffic potential.

Advantages:

• ‍Combination of the advantages of CPA and RevShare. Allows you to earn both payouts for actions and a percentage of ongoing activity.
• ‍Possibility of receiving customized conditions. With large volumes of quality traffic, the model offers high potential for obtaining higher payouts.
• ‍Partial recovery of costs. Even if the attracted players are not very active, some of your advertising expenses are covered by CPA payouts.

Disadvantages:

• Accessibility. Most advertisers work with CPA, giving you more opportunities to find the best deal.‍
• Lower rates compared to individual models. The rates in the hybrid model are usually lower than if you were using CPA or RevShare alone.
• Not available to all webmasters. The hybrid model is offered only to those who can prove high-quality traffic and significant experience in gambling.

When discussing cases of working with hybrid and spend models, while we have drawn some conclusions for ourselves, we have not yet built enough of a base to speak about the long-term effectiveness of these models. The same trend can be seen in our market overall: since these models have only recently emerged, there are almost no publicly available cases. However, we expect this situation to change soon, as we believe both models have good prospects to become more established in the market and be accessible to more advertisers.

Which payment model should you choose?

The choice of model depends on many factors, and first and foremost, on the traffic source you're using. Below is our opinion on which payment model should be prioritized depending on the traffic source you are driving.

CPA

CPA is suitable for most traffic sources. Facebook, In-App, or search ads (Google, in most cases) can all provide large volumes of traffic with a quality level suitable for monetization under CPA.

For HQ (high quality) sources (PPC, SEO, ASO/ASA, native networks like MGid, Taboola), not only CPA but also other models such as RevShare or Hybrid can be used. This is because, unlike Facebook, traffic from these sources typically shows higher quality in the long term.

Revshare

RevShare works best with HQ sources. Good results can also come from Facebook traffic — with one very important condition: you must deeply understand the product and its user retention strategy. Otherwise, the model allows for building long-term relationships with the audience by offering regular bonuses and personalized offers, ensuring a stable income for the media buyer.

Hybrid

The Hybrid model is versatile and suitable for both HQ sources and FB or In-App traffic. It combines the benefits of short-term conversions (CPA) with the opportunity to earn long-term profit (RevShare). It is especially effective in scenarios where balancing direct conversions and audience retention is important.

Spend 

The Spend model works best with high-volume sources like Facebook, Google Ads, or In-App traffic. These sources provide large volumes of clicks and can be used for scaling campaigns, which is important since the Spend model is focused on quick, large expenses with an expectation of return on investment.

Summary

The choice of payment model directly depends on the quality of traffic and the available advertising budget. Traffic quality is determined by the source and its conversion.

Before choosing a model, ask yourself — what goal are you pursuing?

• CPA — quick income and low risks.
• RevShare — long-term profit potential.
• Hybrid — a compromise between CPA and RevShare.
• Spend — guaranteed income with minimal risk, but low ROI.

If you have a limited budget or the traffic quality doesn't guarantee high LTV or profitability, then CPA or hybrid models would be more preferable.

If the traffic source demonstrates high quality and you have a sufficient budget to not require immediate profitability, RevShare can be an effective model for you. High-quality traffic almost guarantees a high level of profitability in the long term, even if the initial costs are significant.

If you need maximum stability (as much as possible in our field) and predictable income, and you have a good volume of traffic, then the spend model would be your choice.

We, for our part, work with all four models simultaneously, as we aim to maximize profit from traffic coming from 5 sources across 80+ geos. From our experience, we understand that there are many variables to assess when aiming to get the highest return from arbitration. That’s why we always strive to choose the best solution for each specific case.

Therefore, we recommend that you carefully analyze your traffic, and depending on your understanding of its quality, volume, and your current business goals (especially in terms of the urgency of recouping investments), choose the model that best suits the combination of factors.

And if you are an experienced buyer or team owner and want your traffic to be monetized as efficiently as possible with exclusive terms from 250+ advertisers worldwide, fill out an application in our HR bot, tell us about yourself, and join Marlerino Group. Tell us about yourself