Alternatives
AdButler alternatives: when the add-ons outgrow the plan
Published Sep 23, 2026
Facts checked: Sep 23, 2026
Short answer
AdButler is a hosted ad server whose plans start at "$179/month for 1M ad requests" and reach "$2988/month for 50M ad requests", with advertiser, user and zone limits per plan. API access, log-level data, targeting and programmatic are priced as add-ons, so a working bill can be several times the plan price.[1] Stay while a plan and a couple of add-ons cover you. Compare Kevel, Revive Adserver, Broadstreet, Epom or your own ad server when the add-ons outgrow the plan, when the advertiser cap decides how many clients you can sign, or when your ad product is decided inside your own app from your own data.
On this page
What AdButler sells and how it charges
AdButler is a hosted ad server for publishers and ad networks. Its pricing page is complete enough to calculate a real bill from, which makes it one of the few ad servers you can compare against a build without a sales call.
The four plans: Essentials "Starts at $179/month for 1M ad requests" with 10 advertisers, 1 user and 10 zones; Standard "Starts at $682/month for 10M ad requests" with 50 advertisers, 5 users and 100 zones; Advanced "Starts at $2988/month for 50M ad requests" with 100 advertisers, 5 users and 1,000 zones; Enterprise is "Contact Us" with unlimited advertisers, users and zones.[1]
Ad formats are not the same on every plan. Essentials lists ad serving for "Display, mobile, and in-app"; video appears from Standard upwards, where the row reads "Display, mobile, video, and in-app".[1]
The add-ons are where a bill grows. API Access is $550 a month and is "Available for: Essentials, Standard" — its panel says AdButler provides it "free of charge for advanced and enterprise plans". Log Level Data is priced by volume, not by plan: "$1100/month + $0.015 CPM" below a billion impressions and "$1100/month + $0.01 CPM" at a billion or more. Basic Targeting is "$275 /month +$0.005 CPM" on all four plans, with Complete Targeting at $1,100 a month plus the same CPM. Programmatic Advertising is "$110 /month + $0.001/thousand bids" on Essentials and Standard, usage-only above them. Enhanced Ads is "$110 /month +$0.01 CPM" on Essentials and Standard and included on Advanced and Enterprise. The Self-Serve Marketplace is "$2200 +3.5% of Generated Revenue", and White Label Domains "From $59 /month".[1]
Two add-on cards and their own detail panels disagree, so read the panel before you budget. The Integration card says "From $500 /month" while its panel lists only "DocuSign for Contract Management $550/month" and "Lingo24 Integration $1100/month"; the Digital OOH card says "From $250 /month +$25 Additional Zone" while its panel lists "10 Zones $275/month + $0.005/CPM" and "50 Zones $825".[1]
The pricing page says nothing about contract term, set-up fees or a free trial.[1] Revive's hosted edition, for comparison, publishes the headings "No long-term commitment" and "No setup fees".[6]
A worked example, as arithmetic on the published list prices rather than a figure AdButler states: a network on Standard serving its 10 million ad requests, all filled, with API access, log-level data and basic targeting, pays $682 for the plan, $550 for the API, $1,100 plus $150 of CPM for log-level data at the below-a-billion rate of $0.015, and $275 plus $50 of CPM for targeting — $2,807 a month, about four times the plan price.[1] The monthly parts do not shrink when traffic dips; the per-thousand parts grow when it rises.
AdButler vs the alternatives vs an own ad server
| Option | Model | Published price | Data and logs | Term and exit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AdButler | Hosted ad server for publishers and networks[1] | $179 a month (1M ad requests) to $2,988 (50M); Enterprise "Contact Us"[1] | Log Level Data from $1,100 a month plus $0.015 CPM below a billion impressions; API access $550 a month on Essentials and Standard[1] | Not stated on the pricing page[1] |
| Kevel | API-based ad-serving infrastructure for building your own ad platform[3] | Not published; the site has no pricing page[3] | Impression, click and conversion logs shipped as JSON to S3, Snowflake, Google Cloud or Databricks; "We do not offer backfill of prior data"[4]. "We're the data processor, you're the data controller"[3] | Not published |
| Revive Adserver | Open-source ad server, self-hosted, plus a hosted edition[5][6] | Self-hosted free; the README licence section offers "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version"[7]. Hosted $10 a month for 1M ad requests up to $150 for 15M, with "One simple, low ad serving rate: $0.01 CPM"[6] | Self-hosted: your installation and your database[7] | Hosted: "No long-term commitment" and "No setup fees"[6] |
| Broadstreet | Hosted ad server for smaller and local publishers[8] | Manual "Starting from $299 /mo.", Automatic "Starting from $399 /mo.", Enterprise "Starting from Call Us"[8] | Not stated on the pricing page[8] | Not stated on the pricing page[8] |
| Epom ad server | White-label ad server hosted by Epom[9][10] | Light $250 a month for 8.5M display and mobile web plus 250K video and HTML5 impressions; Growth $1,000; Pro $2,500[9] | Account data "erased from the Software within thirty (30) days of non-renewal or earlier termination"[10] | Minimum 6 months from the first impression; renews in 12-month periods; either party may terminate for convenience on at least 30 days' notice[10] |
| Your own ad server | Decisioning, pacing and reporting you run | No per-request fee; hosting, a delivery network and a team | Your logs, kept as long as you decide | Your own contracts |
Stay on AdButler if…
- Your traffic fits a plan and you need few add-ons.A flat $179 to $2,988 a month[1] is far less than the cost of a team that could run an ad server for you.
- You sell direct campaigns to a known set of advertisers.If 10, 50 or 100 advertisers per plan[1] is enough for your sales team, the cap never binds.
- You need several formats from one hosted system.Display, mobile, video and in-app from one account on Standard and above[1] would each be a separate piece of work on your own servers.
Consider leaving AdButler if…
- Symptom: the add-on lines are larger than the plan line.API access, log-level data and targeting together cost more than the Standard plan itself in the example above.[1] At that point you are paying for access to your own data and your own automation.
- Symptom: the advertiser cap decides how many clients you can sign.Plans stop at 10, 50 and 100 advertisers below Enterprise,[1] and Epom's comparison page makes the same point: "Capped at 10, 50 or 100 by tier".[2] Growth then means a plan priced on request.
- Symptom: your ad product is decided inside your own app or catalogue.Retail media and sponsored listings are chosen server-side from your own product and user data. When every ad request is billed[1] and decisioning needs your data at request time, an API-first ad server or your own decisioning service fits the shape better.
What to settle before leaving AdButler
| Item | Why it matters | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Historical reports | Epom's migration write-up says: "Export reporting before you cancel; Epom does not import it."[2] The same applies whichever ad server you move to | Export every report you need for billing disputes and client history first |
| API access | Export and bulk changes need the API, a $550-a-month add-on on Essentials and Standard[1] | Keep the add-on active for the whole migration, then cancel it last |
| Log-level data | Priced as an add-on from $1,100 a month plus CPM[1] | Archive the raw logs you are entitled to before the add-on ends |
| Advertisers, campaigns, creatives | Epom describes an "export-transform-import approach" over the REST entity CRUD both platforms expose[2] | Map every campaign setting to the new ad server and check a sample by hand |
| Zones and tags | Pages and apps carry the ad server's tags per zone | "Swap tags one zone at a time", as Epom's write-up puts it,[2] and compare delivery daily |
| Self-serve marketplace | 3.5% of generated revenue goes to AdButler[1] | Settle advertiser balances and move self-serve accounts before switching the marketplace off |
| White-label domains | Custom ad-serving domains are an add-on[1] | Move DNS last, once the new ad server is serving on its own domains |
A migration path in four steps
- Export while the API is on.Reports, logs, advertisers, campaigns, creatives and zone definitions, before the add-on that gives you access is cancelled.[1]
- Rebuild on the new side.Recreate campaigns and zones, connect demand, and test targeting rules against the same sample of requests.
- Serve in parallel.Move a share of zones and reconcile impressions, clicks and revenue daily until the two systems agree within a tolerance you set in advance.
- Cut over by zone, then cancel.Move the rest in stages, switch domains, cancel add-ons, and keep the exports for as long as your contracts require.
What drives the cost of building your own
These are the cost drivers, not a price.
- Decisioning and pacing.Choosing the ad for each request, capping frequency and spreading delivery across a campaign's flight.
- Formats.Display, native, video and audio each have their own markup and tracking.
- Creative delivery.A content delivery network for images and video, and a review step for what advertisers upload.
- Reporting pipeline.Impression and click events counted once, stored as long as you decide and reconciled with demand partners; see event integrity in ad measurement.
- Programmatic demand.Header bidding or an OpenRTB connection when direct sales do not fill the inventory; the build-or-rent decision is in build, license or rent.
- Self-serve.Sign-up, payments, creative approval and balances, if advertisers buy without a sales team.
- Traffic quality.Filtering invalid traffic before it reaches an invoice.
- Operations.An ad server that stops serving stops revenue, so it needs on-call cover.
- What you do not have to build.Revive Adserver's source is available under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later,[7] so part of this list can start from an existing codebase rather than a blank page.
Frequently asked questions
Plans start at "$179/month for 1M ad requests", "$682/month for 10M" and "$2988/month for 50M", with Enterprise on request.[1] Add-ons come on top: API Access $550 a month on Essentials and Standard, Log Level Data from $1,100 a month plus $0.015 CPM below a billion impressions, and Basic Targeting from "$275 /month +$0.005 CPM".[1]
No — it is a separate add-on, priced by volume rather than by plan: "$1100/month + $0.015 CPM" below a billion impressions and "$1100/month + $0.01 CPM" at a billion or more.[1]
Disclosure: this page is published by amBrain. From amBrain's AdTech services: "DSP development, real-time bidding platforms, and ad exchange engineering." The last row of the comparison table is the kind of work amBrain does. Every vendor fact on this page links to its source, and one source, Epom's comparison page, is a competitor of AdButler's and is labelled as such. AdButler, Kevel, Revive Adserver, Broadstreet and Epom are trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify the products discussed.
Sources
- [1]AdButler, Pricing (plan table, plan limits, and the add-on cards with their detail panels). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [2]Epom, Epom vs AdButler (competitor comparison page: advertiser caps and a migration write-up). Third-party source · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [3]Kevel, Home page (API positioning; data-processor and data-controller roles; no pricing page on the site). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [4]Kevel, Data Shipping, developer documentation. Official documentation · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [5]Revive Adserver, Home page. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [6]Revive Adserver Hosted edition, Pricing. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [7]Revive Adserver, Source repository and README (README licence section; GitHub's own licence field reads GPL-2.0). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [8]Broadstreet, Pricing. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [9]Epom, Ad Server Pricing. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 23, 2026
- [10]Epom, Terms of Service. Vendor's published terms · checked Sep 23, 2026
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