Almedia, the Berlin company behind the rewards app Freecash, said today that Freecash has paid more than $500 million to users who play games and try apps, and that the business has reached a $1 billion annual revenue run rate. Both figures are company-supplied, and the release does not explain how either was calculated.

In Short

Freecash is an app that pays people small sums for playing games and trying other apps, and the company that runs it says it has now handed out more than $500 million in total. That matters for game makers and app marketers, because it shows how much advertising money now flows through apps that pay users rather than through ordinary ads. The company also says its yearly sales pace is $1 billion, but it does not say which months that pace is based on, so the number is a projection rather than money already earned.

What Almedia disclosed

The release, datelined Berlin on October 15, makes four headline claims. Freecash, described as Almedia's "flagship rewards platform," has passed $500 million in global user payouts. Almedia has reached a $1 billion annual revenue run rate. That run rate is, according to Almedia, three times the $330 million the company generated in 2025. And Almedia says it reached this point without outside capital, at more than $6.8 million in revenue per employee.

Around those numbers sit several user statistics. More than nine million people earn rewards on Freecash each month, according to Almedia. Over one million users have earned more than $100 through the platform. More than 70,000 have earned over $1,000. The company's boilerplate adds that Freecash "connects over 95 million users with games, apps, and brands," though it does not say whether that figure counts registered accounts, active users or something else.

The release also breaks down where the money has gone. Payments have reached users in 217 countries and territories, according to Almedia. The United States accounts for 57.9% of lifetime payout value, followed by Germany at 9.7%, the United Kingdom at 8.2%, Canada at 3.7% and France at 3.2%. Those five markets together represent 82.7% of lifetime payout value. Casual puzzle and word games account for the largest shares of payout activity, with Merge Restaurant, Word Farm Adventure, Word Collect and Office Cat named among the most popular titles.

None of these figures is audited. Almedia GmbH is privately held, publishes no quarterly accounts, and the release attaches no methodology.

How the model works

Freecash sits in a category the mobile industry calls rewarded user acquisition. An advertiser, typically a game studio, pays to acquire players. Instead of spending that budget on an impression or a click, the advertiser pays when a user completes an action inside the game - reaching a level, say, or making a purchase - and Freecash passes part of that payment to the user as a reward. Users cash out through methods such as PayPal, bank transfer, gift cards and cryptocurrency, according to earlier PPC Land reporting.

Almedia frames this as an alternative to conventional advertising. According to the release, the platform gives users "a tangible reason to engage with products they choose to explore," while a recommendation system learns from how users engage with offers and suggests experiences "they are more likely to enjoy," helping advertisers reach users "who are more likely to remain active." The release gives no detail on how that system is built, which signals it uses, or how it decides which offers to show.

The economics depend on retention. A studio running rewarded campaigns is betting that a user who reaches day 30 because of a cash incentive will keep playing, and spending, after the incentive stops. That is why Almedia's chief executive chose two retention metrics for his quote.

"We only grow when our partners do. Superbox saw up to twice the day-30 return on ad spend for Jewels Jungle compared with non-rewarded channels, and Ovivo saw an estimated 16.8% lift in LTV across 24 titles with Almedia Link," said Moritz Holländer, founder and chief executive of Almedia, according to the release. "That increased value is shared with our users, who choose to engage with our advertising, and it's how we've built a business generating more than $6.8 million revenue per employee in 2026."

Both partner results deserve a closer reading. The Superbox figure is phrased as "up to twice" the day-30 ROAS, which describes a ceiling rather than an average, and the comparison group of "non-rewarded channels" is not named. The Ovivo result is described as "estimated" and relates to Almedia Link, which the boilerplate describes as Almedia's monetization product for publishers rather than the Freecash acquisition channel. Neither result comes with a test period, sample size or measurement method.

What the release does not define

Several of the release's central terms are left open, and each affects how the figures can be read.

The run rate

An annualized run rate projects a short period forward across twelve months. Almedia does not say which period. A single strong month multiplied by twelve, a quarter multiplied by four, and a trailing average would each give different results, and the release offers no monthly or quarterly revenue figure from which to work backwards. PPC Land examined the same problem in September, when OpenAI said ChatGPT ads had passed a $1bn run rate without publishing the monthly number behind it.

The comparison with 2025 adds a second layer. The release says the run rate is "three times the $330 million it generated in 2025." That sets a forward projection against a full year of reported revenue. It does not mean Almedia will book $1 billion in calendar 2026. A business that ended the year at a $1 billion pace could have recorded considerably less across the twelve months.

Gross or net

The release does not say whether revenue is counted gross, as the full amount advertisers pay Almedia, or net of what is passed on to users. In a rewarded model the difference is substantial, since a large share of each advertiser payment goes straight back out as rewards. If revenue is gross, the user share is embedded in the $1 billion figure. If it is net, advertiser spend through Freecash would be higher still. Almedia does not give the split.

How payouts are counted

The $500 million figure is described as "global user payouts" and "rewards," with no further definition. The release does not say whether the total measures rewards credited to accounts or cash actually withdrawn, how gift card and cryptocurrency redemptions are valued, or whether it includes payouts from the cashback business Almedia acquired in 2025. It is also lifetime, running back to the company's founding in 2020, so it cannot be compared directly with a single year of revenue.

Revenue per employee

Almedia says it generated "more than $6.8 million revenue per employee in 2026." The release gives neither the revenue figure nor the headcount used. Almedia had more than 160 people in June, according to PPC Land's coverage of its London office opening. At 160 employees, $6.8 million each would equal roughly $1.09 billion, close to the run rate itself, which suggests the calculation may rest on annualized rather than year-to-date revenue. That is an inference; the release does not say.

The market statistics

The release cites several industry figures without naming a source: that awareness and conversion absorb 62.6% of media budgets, "up more than 10% since 2024"; that spending on loyalty and retention has fallen by 29%; that 81% of US consumers try to tune out advertising; and that 52% actively take steps to block it. It is not clear whether "more than 10%" means percentage points or relative growth, and none of the four numbers can be traced from the document.

How the numbers compare with earlier disclosures

PPC Land has tracked Almedia's own figures across several announcements this year, and set side by side they show both rapid growth and some loose edges.

In February, Almedia put registered users at 60 million. By early May, when Freecash had been pulled from both the App Store and Google Play, the company cited more than 70 million registered users and more than $300 million in lifetime payouts. By June, after the iOS app returned on June 17, registered users had passed 80 million, with lifetime payouts still described as more than $300 million. Today's boilerplate says 95 million.

The payout total is the sharper movement. Lifetime payouts were stated as more than $300 million on May 2 and are now more than $500 million on October 15, a gap of 166 days. Because both numbers are floors, the exact increase is unknown. If both were close to precise, the implied average would be above $1.2 million a day. In April, Holländer said Freecash was paying out more than $1 million a day, and the months since include about three weeks in which the app was absent from both major stores and nearly ten weeks off iOS.

The 2025 revenue figure of $330 million is new. Earlier this year, Holländer said Almedia's annual advertising budget exceeded $300 million, and PPC Land noted at the time that this described spending, not revenue. The release states that Almedia "is profitable," without giving a profit figure, a margin or a period.

There is also a small difference in the company's own footprint. Today's boilerplate lists offices in Berlin, New York, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. In June, Almedia described offices in Berlin, London, New York, Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo and Yerevan. The release does not say whether London and Yerevan have closed or were simply left out.

The app store episode

Today's milestone comes six months after the most serious disruption the company has disclosed. Apple removed the Freecash iOS app on April 13 without advance notice, PPC Land reported the following day. Google Play followed the same week. Almedia said both removals followed media coverage it disputed, and Holländer acknowledged that third-party affiliates had created TikTok ads with "exaggerated or misleading claims," which the company says it removed before publishing partner advertising guidelines.

Google Play reinstated the app in early May, and Apple restored it on June 17. Almedia has said its model is permitted under App Store guideline 3.2.2(x), which Apple added in mid-2025 and which covers apps that reward users for actions after an install. Neither Apple nor Google has publicly explained the removals or the reinstatements.

Today's release does not mention the removals. That omission matters for reading the run rate, because if the projection is based on a recent month or quarter, it reflects a period after both apps returned. If it were based on the April-to-June window, it would include a stretch in which new users could not download the native app at all.

Why it matters for marketers

Rewarded platforms have become a mainstream line item in mobile game budgets. AppsFlyer's 2025 Performance Index, covered by PPC Land in December, found rewarded platforms gaining ground in Android gaming, with Freecash among the networks that improved, alongside exmox, Gamelight and Mistplay. Earlier coverage noted the same index found more than a third of leading user acquisition sources were rewarded.

A $1 billion run rate, if it reflects revenue rather than spend, would put Almedia in the same order of magnitude as better-known mobile ad companies. Liftoff, for comparison, reported $491.6 million in revenue for the nine months to September 30, 2025, according to the S-1 filing PPC Land reviewed in January. The comparison is imperfect: Liftoff's figure is audited, historical and public, while Almedia's is a self-reported projection with no stated method.

For game studios, the concentration of payout value is the practical detail. With 57.9% of lifetime payouts going to US users and the top five markets taking 82.7%, the platform's reach is heavily weighted toward high-value Western markets, which are also where acquisition costs run highest. Casual puzzle and word games dominate payout activity, and the release says nothing about how the model performs in other genres or outside games.

For publishers and app developers on the other side, Almedia Link is the less visible part of the business. The Ovivo result is the only figure in the release that relates to it, and it is labelled an estimate.

Questions about incentive quality remain open, too. Rewarded installs have long drawn scrutiny over whether paid users behave like organic ones, and the app store removals this year showed how quickly platform owners can cut off the channel. Advertisers can buy through demand-side platforms, social networks or rewarded apps; what Almedia is asking them to accept is that a user paid to reach day 30 is worth more than one who arrived through an ad they did not choose to see. The release's own evidence for that claim is two partner results, one described as "up to" and the other as "estimated."

Timeline

Summary

Who: Almedia GmbH, the Berlin-based company behind the rewards platform Freecash, and its founder and chief executive Moritz Holländer. Partners Superbox and Ovivo are cited for performance results.

What: Almedia said Freecash has paid out more than $500 million to users and that the company has reached a $1 billion annual revenue run rate, three times its $330 million 2025 revenue. The release does not define the run rate's period, whether revenue is gross or net of payouts, or how payouts are counted.

When: The announcement was made today, October 15, 2026, six months after Apple and Google removed Freecash from their app stores and four months after its return to iOS.

Where: Almedia is based in Berlin. Payouts have reached 217 countries and territories, with the United States accounting for 57.9% of lifetime payout value.

Why: Rewarded platforms are taking a growing share of mobile game acquisition budgets, and Almedia is positioning Freecash as an alternative to conventional ads. The unaudited, partly undefined figures make the scale of that shift hard to verify from the release alone.