What’s the difference between RPM and session RPMs (RPS)?

This post was most recently updated on March 11th, 2025

If you’re a publisher, you may be wondering which metric is more important to track: revenue per mille (RPM) or revenue per session (RPS)? Well, wonder no more! As publishers look for ways to understand how their ad inventory is performing, RPM and RPS are two very valuable metrics. In this blog post, we’ll break down the difference between revenue per mile and revenue per session for publishers and give you some tips on how to increase the latter. Stay tuned – it’s about to get nerdy up in here!

Key Metrics Defined

RPM stands for ‘revenue per mille and refers to the average revenue generated per 1000 ad impressions.

 

Calculation: (Total Revenue / Total Ad Impressions) * 1000

RPS (Revenue Per Session): The average revenue generated per user session.

 

Calculation: Total Revenue / Total Sessions

eCPM (effective Cost Per Mille): The ad revenue generated per 1000 ad impressions. This is often what ad networks report on.

 

Calculation: (Total Revenue / Total Ad Impressions) * 1000

Page RPM (Revenue Per Mille Pageviews): The average revenue generated per 1000 pageviews (more relevant for websites than gaming apps).

 

Calculation: (Total Revenue / Total Pageviews) * 1000

Session RPM (Revenue Per Mille Sessions): The average revenue generated per 1000 sessions. This is a crucial metric for gaming apps.

 

Calculation: (Total Revenue / Total Sessions) * 1000

 

Related Read: https://www.monetizemore.com/blog/what-is-rpm-session-page-ad/

What’s the difference between RPM and RPS?

While the acronyms are similar, RPM and RPS represent different ways of looking at your earnings. By understanding the difference between RPM and RPS, you can choose the right metric to track and optimize your monetization strategy effectively.

RPMs focus on earnings per thousand ad impressions. It’s all about how much money you make for every 1000 times an ad is displayed. RPM is a good indicator of the effectiveness of your ad units and the value of your ad inventory. A higher RPM means your ads are generating more revenue per impression.

RPS focused on earnings per user session. It tracks how much revenue you generate on average for each visit or session within your app. RPS provides a more holistic view of your monetization strategy by considering the entire user experience. It encourages you to optimize the entire session, not just individual ad impressions.

Why RPS is often preferred, especially for gaming apps:

RPS encourages you to focus on the overall user experience and how to maximize revenue from each user, not just on displaying as many ads as possible. RPS also offers:

• Holistic view: RPS captures revenue from all sources, including in-app purchases, subscriptions, and ads, giving you a complete picture of your monetization performance.
• Harder to manipulate: While some ad networks might try to inflate RPM by serving low-value ads, RPS is a more direct measure of your actual earnings per user.

How are RPMs and Session RPMs (RPS) related?

Both RPM and Session RPM are essential metrics for understanding and optimizing your app’s monetization performance. While RPM focuses on the efficiency of your ads themselves, Session RPM provides a broader perspective by considering the overall revenue generated per user session.

They both provide insights into how well your app is generating revenue, though they focus on different aspects:

• Revenue-focused: Both metrics ultimately aim to track and improve ad revenue generation.
• Influenced by user engagement: Higher user engagement generally leads to more ad impressions and potentially more in-app purchases, positively affecting both RPM and Session RPM.
• Impacted by ad strategies: Factors like ad frequency, ad placement, and ad format choices can significantly impact both RPM and Session RPM.
• Important for optimization: Both metrics are valuable tools for optimizing your monetization strategy. Analyzing trends in both can help you identify areas for improvement.

How to improve your Session RPMs?

Improving Session RPMs requires a holistic approach that focuses on maximizing revenue from each user session while maintaining a positive user experience. Here’s what you can do:

1. Optimize Ad Strategies

 

• Find the Right Ad Frequency: Experiment with different ad frequencies to find the sweet spot that maximizes revenue without overwhelming users. A/B testing is crucial here.
• Strategic Ad Placement: Place ads in natural breaks within your game, where they are less intrusive and more likely to be seen. Consider rewarded video ads or interstitial ads at transition points.
• Diversify Ad Formats: Don’t rely solely on one ad format. Explore a variety of formats, such as rewarded video ads, interstitial ads, native ads, and banner ads, to find what works best for your audience and game.
• Optimize for High-Value Users: Utilize ad mediation platforms to serve ads from multiple networks and maximize your ad revenue. Implement user segmentation to show personalized ads to different user groups.

2. Optimize In-App Purchases (IAPs)

 

• Offer Valuable IAPs: Design IAPs that enhance the gameplay experience and provide real value to players. Consider offering different price points and packages to cater to various spending habits.
• Promote IAPs Effectively: Strategically place IAP offers within your game and use compelling visuals and descriptions to entice players.
• Run Special Offers and Promotions: Offer limited-time discounts or bundles to encourage players to make purchases.

What you should do now?

Always keep yourself updated on RPM and RPS trends. If you’re already partnered with MonetizeMore, you can analyze these metrics in the Profit Attribution Report. RPM and session RPMs are the snapshot to your daily ad inventory performance. If you haven’t signed up for Pubguru Header Bidding yet, you are missing out on taking your ad revenue to the moon.

 Get started here. Let’s talk

Frequently Asked Questions

What is page RPM?

The page RPM is the rate an advertiser must pay for every thousand ad impressions viewed per page and is calculated by dividing your estimated ad earnings by total number of pageviews with the result multiplied by 1,000.

Are RPS and session RPMs the same?

No, RPS and Session RPM are not the same. While they both measure revenue per session, Session RPM multiplies the result by 1000, similar to RPM and eCPM.

What is session RPM?

Session RPM shows the site’s ad earnings per visitor and gives you a snapshot of overall site performance.You can calculate session RPM by dividing your earnings by total user sessions multiplied by 1,000.