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Google Ad Manager alternative: when the free tier ends

Published Sep 23, 2026Facts checked: Sep 22, 2026

Short answer

Stay on Google Ad Manager while you are under its free impression threshold and Google's own demand is most of your revenue: Google lets the free version serve 90 million non-video impressions a month in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, 200 million or 150 million elsewhere depending on the country, and 800,000 video impressions, "without being charged".[17] Consider moving, or adding your own ad server next to it, when you cross that threshold and start paying for impressions under a paid contract,[17] when your data team needs impression-level logs (Data Transfer files cost extra and are purged after 60 days),[3] or when your ad product is decided on your own servers, as in retail media or in-app placements.

On this page

How Google Ad Manager charges

Google Ad Manager is Google's publisher ad server with its exchange built in. Introduced on 27 June 2018, it combined DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange, with Ad Exchange becoming "a feature of Ad Manager rather than a stand-alone product".[4]

It has two account types. The standard one "requires you to sign up for a paid account when you reach a specific impression threshold". Ad Manager 360 "requires you to sign up for a paid account and gives you direct access to Google support and features such as" audience solutions, Data Transfer reporting, impact estimates, header bidding trafficking, publisher provided identifiers, special ad units, teams access and "Advanced features (may involve additional fees)". Google's instruction for 360 is "Contact your account manager".[1]

Google publishes the free thresholds. On the free version, publishers "may serve the following impression thresholds without being charged": 90 million non-video impressions a month in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States; 200 million in a listed set of countries that includes the United Kingdom, Germany, France, India and China; 150 million in all other locations; and 800,000 video impressions a month "regardless of your location". Above them, Google requires publishers "to enter into a paid contract in order to pay for the additional impressions". The rate cards for your region are shown in the billing section when you sign up, and an account that keeps exceeding the free thresholds without a payment method "will be converted to read-only mode, and may ultimately be suspended".[17]

On 360, publishers "enter into a paid contract to serve and pay for impressions, and gain direct access to Google support".[2] Neither help page publishes a price. Third parties describe it. Publift, a publisher monetisation company, describes 360 pricing as "Custom pricing based on ad impressions, revenue share, and premium support".[5] MonetizeMore, another publisher monetisation company, puts the rates for impressions above the free limit at levels "that can be under $0.02 per 1000 impressions".[6] These are third-party figures, not Google's.

Log-level data is a separate line. "Data Transfer report files come at an additional cost." Files are pushed "on an hourly basis", most data arrives "between 5 and 15 hours after the recorded hour", and "Data Transfer files older than 60 days are purged from Ad Manager."[3]

Google Ad Manager vs the alternatives

Google Ad Manager (standard and 360)Another rented ad serverOwn or self-hosted ad server
Code and data ownershipGoogle's software. Impression-level data through Data Transfer, a 360 feature, at extra cost and kept 60 days.[1][3]Kevel describes itself as the data processor and the customer as the data controller; logs are shipped as JSON to your own S3, Snowflake, GCS or Databricks.[7][8] AdButler: log-level data "From $1100/month +$0.01 CPM".[9]Your code and your logs. Revive Adserver is open source, "Free to download, free to use";[10] a custom build is yours under your contract.
Cost modelFree up to the published thresholds, then a paid contract for the additional impressions;[17] 360 is a paid contract.[2]AdButler Essentials from $179 a month for 1M ad requests, Advanced from $2,988 for 50M;[9] Revive hosted from $10 a month for 1 million ad requests to $150 for 15 million, a rate of "$0.01 CPM";[11] Broadstreet Manual from $299 and Automatic from $399 a month;[12] Kevel's home page shows no prices.[7]Hosting, a delivery network, storage and a team. No per-impression fee.
Time to launchAccount sign-up; 360 through an account manager.[1]Broadstreet offers "a migration & implementation plan" off Google Ad Manager.[13]Self-hosted Revive: a download.[10] Custom build: set by scope.
Lock-in: term, notice, migration360 contract terms are not public.Revive hosted: "No long-term commitment", cancel "at any time".[11] AdButler: terms not on its pricing page; Kevel: no public pricing page.None to a vendor.
Customisation360 features; the SOAP API "to build apps that manage inventory, create orders, pull reports, and more", with a REST API in beta.[14]Kevel is API-based; AdButler's API access is a $550-a-month add-on on the Essentials and Standard plans.[7][9]Decisioning, pacing, formats and reporting are yours to change.
Certification and compliancePersonalised ads in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland require a Google-certified consent platform integrated with IAB's TCF; traffic from a non-certified consent platform may get "non-personalized ads or limited ads".[15]Consent rules set by each vendor's terms and by the demand partners it connects.You implement consent handling, data retention and the audit trail yourself.
Latency and scaleNot published. Data Transfer lags 5–15 hours for most data.[3]Kevel ships impression files "approximately once per minute" per ad-serving engine.[8]Sized to your traffic; you choose how fast logs land.
Exit costRetrafficking line items and creatives; archive Data Transfer files before the 60-day purge.[3]Kevel's Data Shipping has no backfill: "We do not offer backfill of prior data."[8]No licence to exit.

Stay on Google Ad Manager if…

  1. 1.You are below the threshold and Google demand pays most of your bills. The free version serves up to the published thresholds "without being charged".[17] If your inventory is mostly sold programmatically through Google, a new ad server adds a serving bill without changing where the demand comes from.
  2. 2.You need the 360 feature set and your volume justifies the contract. Header bidding trafficking, audience solutions and Data Transfer are 360 features.[1] If you use them and the rate works for you, a migration is a large project.
  3. 3.Your team runs its operations inside Google's tools. The API covers inventory, orders and reports,[14] and every internal report and process built on it is a switching cost you would pay first.

Consider leaving Google Ad Manager if…

  1. 1.Symptom: you crossed the threshold and your rate is one you cannot compare in public. Google shows the rate cards for your region when you sign up for billing,[17] 360 is a paid contract,[2] and the 360 pricing descriptions in circulation come from third parties.[5] A cost you cannot compare is a cost you cannot plan.
  2. 2.Symptom: your data team gets hourly files that arrive hours late and disappear after 60 days. That is how Data Transfer works, and it costs extra.[3] If your pricing, forecasting or client reporting needs impression-level data, it has to land in storage you own.
  3. 3.Symptom: your sponsored listings are decided in your app, not in a web page. Retail media and in-app placements are decided server-side from your own catalogue and user data. API-first ad servers, or your own decisioning service, fit that model. Kevel, for example, says its "suite of ad serving APIs powers ad decisioning, campaign management, reporting, and catalog ingestion" for inventory "on-site, in-app, or in-store".[7]

A migration path in four steps

  1. 1.Archive first. Download Data Transfer files before the 60-day purge[3] and export orders, line items, creatives and reports through the API.[14]
  2. 2.Decide the split. Keep Google where its demand earns most, and move direct-sold campaigns, sponsored placements or apps to the new ad server. A hybrid setup can be the end state.
  3. 3.Serve in parallel. Run both ad servers on a share of ad units and reconcile impressions, clicks and revenue daily until the numbers agree within a tolerance you set in advance.
  4. 4.Cut over by ad unit or site. Move traffic in stages, keep a rollback path, then renegotiate or drop the 360 contract.

Broadstreet, one alternative vendor, offers publishers either full-service or guided migration off Google Ad Manager.[13]

What drives the cost of building your own

These are the cost drivers, not a price.

  • Decisioning and pacing. Choosing the ad, capping frequency and spreading delivery across a campaign's flight.
  • Forecasting. Selling direct campaigns needs a forecast of available impressions, which a new ad server has to learn from your own traffic history.
  • Reporting pipeline. Impression-level logs, stored as long as you decide, and the queries on top of them; see event integrity in ad measurement.
  • Header bidding. Prebid Server is open source under Apache-2.0, with a code push as recent as 22 September 2026,[16] so the server side can be self-hosted rather than rented.
  • Creative delivery. A delivery network for images and video.
  • Invalid-traffic filtering and consent handling for every market you serve.
  • Operations. An ad server that stops serving stops revenue, so it needs on-call cover.

A self-hosted open-source server such as Revive covers part of this list at no licence cost,[10] and a custom build covers the rest.

Frequently asked questions

Up to a point. The free version serves up to Google's published impression thresholds "without being charged"; above them, Google requires "a paid contract in order to pay for the additional impressions".[17]

Google publishes it: 90 million non-video impressions a month in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, 200 million in a listed set of countries that includes the United Kingdom, Germany, France, India and China, 150 million in all other locations, and 800,000 video impressions a month regardless of location.[17]

It is a paid contract "to serve and pay for impressions".[2] Google's help pages publish no 360 price; Publift, a third party, describes it as "Custom pricing based on ad impressions, revenue share, and premium support".[5] Treat that as a description, not a quote.

Through Data Transfer, a 360 feature. The files "come at an additional cost", arrive hourly with most data 5 to 15 hours after the recorded hour, and are purged after 60 days.[1][3]

AdButler from $179 a month for 1M ad requests,[9] Revive hosted from $10 a month for 1 million ad requests,[11] and Broadstreet from $299 a month.[12] Kevel's home page shows no prices, and kevel.com/pricing returned HTTP 404 on 2026-09-22.[7] Self-hosted Revive is open source and "Free to download, free to use".[10]

Disclosure: this page is published by amBrain. From amBrain's AdTech services: "DSP development, real-time bidding platforms, and ad exchange engineering." Every vendor fact on this page links to its source. Google Ad Manager and the other product names are trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify the products discussed.

Sources

  1. [1]Google Ad Manager Help, Account types and Ad Manager 360 features. Official documentation · checked Sep 22, 2026
  2. [2]Google Ad Manager Help, Google Ad Manager 360 billing setup. Official documentation · checked Sep 22, 2026
  3. [3]Google Ad Manager Help, Data Transfer reports (cost, hourly delivery, 60-day purge). Official documentation · checked Sep 22, 2026
  4. [4]Wikipedia, Google Ad Manager (2018 merger of DFP and AdX). Third-party source · checked Sep 22, 2026
  5. [5]Publift, What is Google Ad Manager 360 (third party), Feb 27, 2026. Third-party source · checked Sep 22, 2026
  6. [6]MonetizeMore, What To Do If You Reach The Free Impression Limit On Google Ad Manager (third party), Jun 1, 2026. Third-party source · checked Sep 22, 2026
  7. [7]Kevel, Home page (kevel.com/pricing returned HTTP 404 on 2026-09-22). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  8. [8]Kevel developer docs, Data Shipping. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  9. [9]AdButler, Pricing. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  10. [10]Revive Adserver, Home page (Open source and Free; Free to download, free to use). Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  11. [11]Revive Adserver Hosted edition, Pricing. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  12. [12]Broadstreet, Pricing. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  13. [13]Broadstreet, Google Ad Manager alternative. Vendor's own page · checked Sep 22, 2026
  14. [14]Google Ad Manager SOAP API, Get started. Official documentation · checked Sep 22, 2026
  15. [16]GitHub, prebid/prebid-server repository (Apache-2.0; last push checked 2026-09-22). Official documentation · checked Sep 22, 2026
  16. [17]Google Ad Manager Help, Google Ad Manager billing setup (free impression thresholds, paid contract above them, rate cards, read-only mode). Official documentation · checked Sep 22, 2026

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