Popunder vs push ads in 2026: head-to-head comparison of cost, conversion, vertical-fit, and which to pick for your offer

Cost structure

Popunder runs CPM. Published rate-card floors range from £0.50 on adsy.tech (the only honest published floor I've found) through £1–£2 on Adsterra and PropellerAds for Tier-2, up to £5–£15 on Tier-1 premium-publisher popunder inventory. Auction-clearing prices sit 15–40% above the published floor in most networks — the gap is the "padding" I've documented in parallel-buy testing.

Push runs CPC primarily, with CPM available as a secondary pricing model. Tier-1 push CPCs sit at £0.04–£0.15 depending on subscriber recency, GEO and vertical. Translated to CPM-equivalent at typical push CTRs (2–6%), that's £2.50–£10 effective CPM — meaningfully more expensive than popunder on impression-equivalent terms. The reason push commands the premium is the subscriber-acquisition cost: a push subscriber-list costs the network £0.20–£1.50 per subscriber to build (depending on GEO and lead-quality), and that cost has to clear before the network is profitable.

The honest comparison is at conversion-cost-per-acquisition, not at impression or click cost. For an iGaming sportsbook FTD offer in Tier-2 LATAM, popunder typical CPA in 2026 sits at £6–£18; push equivalent sits at £8–£25. Popunder wins on absolute cost, push wins on FTD quality (better day-7 retention, fewer chargebacks). The format choice depends on which side of that tradeoff matters more for your offer.

Conversion characteristics

Popunder converts on impulse. The format opens a full-page interstitial — there is no headline, no CTA copy, no creative variation. The user sees the landing page and either engages or doesn't. This is why popunder works for sweepstakes (impulse), iGaming first-deposit (impulse), dating registration (impulse) and fails for SaaS trials (consideration-required), mortgage lead-gen (high-trust required) and e-commerce retargeting (creative context required).

Push converts on copy and timing. The format delivers a headline, a body line, an icon and a CTA. The conversion path is push → click → landing page → action. This format-shape favours offers where ad copy does work — finance lead-gen, e-commerce retargeting against a known SKU, SaaS trial sign-ups with a clear pain-promise headline, mortgage rate-watch lead-gen (specifically the rate-change-triggered push flow that mortgage affiliates have built since 2024).

The asymmetric conversion-quality story is real. Push leads are generally higher quality than popunder leads on day-30 retention metrics, because the user took an additional decision (the click) and because the audience was pre-qualified by opt-in. Popunder leads are higher volume at lower quality on day-30, because the audience selection is essentially random across the publisher's traffic mix. For verticals where day-30 retention matters (subscription, SaaS, recurring-billing iGaming), push has a structural advantage. For verticals where the conversion is the value (single-payment offers, lead-gen with no retention requirement), popunder's volume advantage wins.

Vertical fit

Scale and GEO depth

Popunder is the larger format by total impression volume. PropellerAds clears more popunder impressions in a day than the entire push-format industry clears in a week. The GEO depth is also wider on popunder — the format runs at honest unit economics in essentially every country Google and Meta don't dominate, including Tier-3 markets where push subscriber-list construction never reached critical mass.

Push is the more concentrated format by scale. Tier-1 push subscriber lists are large, valuable, and shrinking — opt-out rates exceed opt-in rates in most mature push subscriber pools, which is why PropellerAds, RichAds and Adsterra have all invested in subscriber reacquisition since 2023. Tier-2 push is healthier; Tier-3 push is thin. If you need Tier-3 reach (Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines) the format-choice is popunder by default.

Scale ceiling is meaningful for advertisers spending £25k+/month. Push at that budget often saturates the available subscriber list in a GEO+vertical pair within two weeks, and the advertiser has to either widen GEO or wait for subscriber-list refresh. Popunder at the same budget rarely hits a supply ceiling at a single network — the impression base is large enough that bid pressure, not supply scarcity, becomes the binding constraint.

Regulatory exposure

Push has a GDPR opt-in requirement that popunder structurally avoids. Every push subscriber must give consent before the network can deliver notifications; the consent capture, storage, and revocation flow is a compliance overhead the network carries. The networks with the cleanest consent-management posture (PropellerAds, Adsterra) charge the premium that follows from running an opt-in business.

Popunder has the inverse profile — no opt-in, but heavier intrusive-ad regulatory exposure in jurisdictions that legislate ad intrusion (the EU's Digital Services Act has language about manipulative ad patterns; some US states are following). The exposure hasn't materialised in enforcement yet, but the legal risk surface is non-zero.

For regulated verticals (mortgage in the US under CFPB, mortgage in the UK under FCA, financial-product advertising under EU MiFID II), push has a more workable compliance pathway because the consented-list construction maps onto the regulator's framework. Popunder in regulated verticals requires extra legal review I generally recommend advertisers skip — the format-vertical fit isn't there.

Where each format wins — and where it loses

Wirecutter-style: the named winners with the buyer profile attached.

Two anti-recommendations

Which networks run both formats well

Six networks in our 12-network coverage set run both popunder and push on the same panel: PropellerAds, Adsterra, RichAds, HilltopAds, Mondiad and adsy.tech. The advantage of one-panel-two-formats is operational — single sub-ID space, one S2S postback, one billing relationship. The disadvantage is that no single network leads on both formats. PropellerAds is best-in-class on Tier-1 push and merely strong on popunder; adsy.tech is structurally honest on popunder economics and competent on push. The honest mid-tier buyer runs at least two networks even when one panel could theoretically serve everything.

Specialists: Clickadu and ExoClick on adult-popunder; RichAds on push specifically; Mobidea on mobile-affiliate flow (covers both formats but lens is mobile-CPI). The ad-format dedicated landing pages (in the related-reading section) carry the full format-specific rankings.

How I built this comparison

Three sources of evidence, weighted in this order:

1. Parallel-buy testing. A collaborator and I ran the same iGaming sportsbook offer in Tier-2 LATAM across popunder and push on PropellerAds, Adsterra, RichAds, HilltopAds and adsy.tech between Q4 2024 and Q2 2026. Identical bid strategy, identical creative (where push allowed creative variation), identical dayparting. Spend per format-network was £1,200 over fourteen days. The format-level CPA differences in the article body are pulled from this dataset.
2. Panel walkthroughs across six networks. Format surfacing in the campaign-create flow, sub-ID granularity for format-level reporting, S2S postback macro coverage.
3. Operator-honesty survey with eight affiliates running both formats. Median spend £8k–£35k a month, mix of iGaming, sweepstakes, dating and finance. Their consensus on format-vertical fit matched the parallel-buy data in seven of eight cases.

What I deliberately did not do: defer to network blogs claiming "push outperforms popunder by 38%" (or vice versa) without a methodology paragraph — the trade press is full of these and they are usually from networks selling the format they claim is winning.

FAQ

Popunder vs push — which has higher CPM in Tier-1 GEOs?

Push, by a meaningful margin. PropellerAds' published Tier-1 push CPMs sit at £3.50–£12 in 2026 depending on subscriber recency and GEO; popunder Tier-1 sits at £0.80–£3. The cost difference reflects the subscriber-list construction cost — push runs on opted-in audiences that the network paid to acquire — while popunder runs on browser-tab opens that any monetised publisher already has.

Which converts better, popunder or push?

Push has the higher CTR (typically 2–8% on fresh subscribers) but popunder has the larger absolute volume of conversion events because the impression base is so much larger. For impulse-friction offers (sweepstakes, dating, finance lead-gen) popunder wins on absolute conversions per pound spent. For higher-consideration offers where ad copy matters (SaaS trials, mortgage lead-gen, e-commerce retargeting), push wins on conversion quality.

Which is better for iGaming?

Both run. Popunder dominates Tier-2 and Tier-3 LATAM iGaming because the CPM economics work at scale; push dominates Tier-1 iGaming retargeting because the subscriber-list mechanics favour repeat exposure. The honest answer is that mid-tier iGaming operators run both formats in parallel — popunder for cold prospecting, push for warm retargeting.

Which format has more inventory in 2026?

Popunder, by an order of magnitude. PropellerAds alone clears 12 billion+ popunder impressions a day at peak. Push subscriber lists across the major networks (PropellerAds, RichAds, Adsterra, HilltopAds) sit in the 1–2 billion subscribers range collectively — large, but a fraction of the popunder reach.

How does cookie deprecation affect each format?

Popunder is almost untouched — the format runs on browser-tab opens, not on the cookie graph. Push is more affected because subscriber retargeting and lookalike modelling lean on identity signals. Networks that built first-party-data clean rooms (PropellerAds with SmartTag, Adsterra with the Social Bar ID layer) preserved more push targeting than networks that didn't. Google's 22 July 2024 reversal on Chrome cookie deprecation reduced the urgency on both sides; it didn't reverse the directional shift.

Can I run both formats from the same network?

Yes. PropellerAds, Adsterra, RichAds, HilltopAds, Mondiad and adsy.tech all serve both formats on the same panel, with shared sub-ID and postback infrastructure. The advantage of one-panel-two-formats is operational (single integration, one billing relationship); the disadvantage is that no single network is best-in-class at both. PropellerAds is best-in-class on Tier-1 push and merely strong on popunder. adsy.tech is structurally honest on popunder economics and competent on push.

Which format is more fraud-prone?

Both have fraud. Popunder fraud is mostly bot-impression inflation at the long-tail publisher level; push fraud is more often subscriber-list pollution (purchased lists, stale opt-ins, double-opted-in-to-anything-that-moved subscribers). The 2025 affiliate-fraud baseline of ~9% of total spend lost to fraud applies to both. Networks with documented fraud-block disclosure (PropellerAds' weekly fraud-block percentage; adsy.tech's per-publisher visibility) are the honest comparison floor.

Related reading

• → Best ad networks for affiliates in 2026 — pan-vertical ranking
• → Best ad networks for mobile CPI in 2026
• → Best ad networks for SaaS affiliates
• → Best ad networks for real-estate and mortgage affiliates