Mediavine Review and Income Report

If you’ve been reading CCCH for a few years, I’m sure you’ve noticed the display ads that are on my site. I’ll be honest: I resisted ads for YEARS! I really didn’t want to put ads on my site because I’ve been on one too many blogs with terrible user experiences because of the display ads. There are a few that go WAY overboard with the number of ads and the pop-ups.

I ended up adding display ads because it got to a point where I couldn’t keep losing money on running this site, as much as I love to do it. I wanted the ads to have as little impact on the user experience as possible. Thanks to the ads (and Mediavine specifically), 2024 was the first year CCCH was profitable!

This blog post may or may not be interesting to you if you aren’t a blogger (and some bloggers may not care, either, ha), but now that I’ve been with my ad network, Mediavine, for a little over a year, I wanted to share my honest thoughts on and experience with Mediavine as well as share how much I’ve earned in my first year with Mediavine.

I read all the blog posts and listened to all the podcasts I could when I first started on Mediavine to learn how much others had earned, so I wanted to contribute and help fellow bloggers who may be curious!

READ NEXT: 10 Years of Blogging

Mediavine Review

Before I switched to Mediavine, CCCH was a part of the SheMedia ad network, which I joined in January 2022. The entire time I was on SheMedia (early 2022 to early 2024), I made around $3,250. It felt incredible to be making that extra money in addition to affiliate income.

While I was with SheMedia, I didn’t have any in-content ads; I was running only sidebar ads and sticky ads at the footer of each page. That decreased my earning potential a lot, and my RPMs (more on those below) ranged from $5 to $8 (that’s how much I was paid per 1,000 views on average). My average RPMs actually dropped with each year I was on SheMedia.

In late 2023, my blog traffic increased enough that I met the threshold to apply for Mediavine! Mediavine was never a goal of mine when I started blogging and even when I started with ads, but I knew it was one of the best ad networks, and I learned that most full-time bloggers were able to do it full-time because of their display ad earnings with Mediavine (or Raptive, which is another premium ad network that requires more traffic).

I decided to apply for the heck of it and was accepted! That was the first time I felt like I kind of “made it” as a blogger. I notified SheMedia of my desire to switch, and I had to wait 60 days before I could make it official. In mid-February 2024, I started with Mediavine!

Jump to my Mediavine income report.

Mediavine Application Timeline

I crossed the required session threshold in November 2023 and applied for Mediavine on Friday, December 1. As soon as I submitted the application, I got an email telling me to grant Mediavine access to my Google Analytics. I had a couple of hiccups with that but received an email on the 2nd (a Saturday) confirming receipt of my application.

I received preliminary approval on Monday, December 11, and they set up an account for me on the Mediavine dashboard. I was tasked with adding some code to my site and to a file that was being fully managed by SheMedia at the time. It was at that point that I let SheMedia know about my intention to seek Mediavine approval. They were not thrilled about adding Mediavine’s code to the file but added it for me since I couldn’t.

There was quite a bit of back and forth between Mediavine’s onboarding support and myself (they were extremely helpful and kind), but we figured it all out eventually and Google confirmed that I was in good standing. I was officially approved on December 19, 2023, 18 days after I applied. I notified SheMedia the same day about my intention to end my contract.

Because SheMedia requires 60-day notice to cancel, I couldn’t start the Mediavine ads until February 19, 2024. I deleted the SheMedia code mere hours before my Mediavine ads were activated. (Both networks require exclusivity, so I couldn’t have both running at the same time.) Of note, you do NOT sign an annual contract with Mediavine like you do with SheMedia.

Setting Up Ads with Mediavine

There were a few tasks I needed to do leading up to and on the day of my Mediavine launch. Luckily, their onboarding support staff is wonderful at listing out everything you need to do, and they are quick to answer any questions or fix any issues that arise. They require launch to be on a weekday so they are available to provide support. (I launched on a work holiday so I could focus all day on my blog if necessary.)

Setting up the ads involved updating my privacy policy, removing the SheMedia code from everywhere on my site, and adding new code and other things in the backend. It was actually pretty seamless. On the Mediavine dashboard, you’re able to select which ads you want activated, the density of in-content ads, and which unpaid public service announcements you want displayed, in any, if an ad impression goes unfilled.

If you aren’t bound by a contract with your current ad network (or not running ads on your site at all), most blogs newly approved by Mediavine launch their ads within a week of receiving the official approval email.

Mediavine FAQ

What is Mediavine?

Mediavine is a premium, full-service ad network that serves a variety of display advertisements on blogs like mine. They focus on content creators that create high-quality and original content on their blogs and that receive diversified traffic. They aim for the best user experience for readers while maximizing earnings for the creators. I also appreciate their efforts to demonetize blogs with low-quality AI content. Read more on their website!

In March 2024, Mediavine announced Journey by Mediavine, which is more of a “starter” ad network for growing blogs that receive less traffic. I highly recommend looking into this ad network if you don’t yet meet the sessions requirement for Mediavine (more on that next)! Check out their website.

How many sessions do you need for Mediavine?

Mediavine requires that a website have at least 50,000 sessions (not page views, but sessions, which are typically lower than page views because you can have multiple page views in one session) in the previous 30 days. I recommend applying as soon as you hit that threshold!

Journey by Mediavine only requires 10,000 sessions in the previous 30 days, so it’s a wonderful option for newer blogs. I’ve noticed that some bloggers on Journey are making just as much if not more than bloggers on Mediavine for around the same number of page views. (Of course, every blogger’s earnings will vary because it depends on a lot of factors—more on that next.)

How much does Mediavine pay per 1,000 views?

RPM (revenue per mille, or revenue per 1,000 views) is generally higher on Mediavine than other ad networks, which is how people earn good money, but RPM varies day-to-day and seasonally. RPMs are highest during the holiday season and at the end of Q2 (June), and they’re lowest at the beginning of a new year/Q1 and the beginning of Q3 (July).

RPM also depends on the traffic source (Google and Pinterest are about equal for me, but some creators see higher RPMs with one versus the other), what countries people are reading from (advertisers pay more for US traffic), and the blog post itself (longer posts = more ads = more money).

From what I’ve read, it seems like most Mediavine blogs have an average RPM of $20 to $40, but I’ve also experienced way lower RPMs (around $10 at the start of the year—ouch!), and I’ve seen creators that see RPMs above $100 (the dream!).

Mediavine pays their creators on a Net-65 schedule, which means you are paid 65 days after the month ends (for instance, January earnings are paid out in early April).

Is Mediavine worth it?

In my short time with Mediavine, I find it to be absolutely worth it. I may consider Raptive if I ever have the traffic for that ad network (100k monthly page views is still my “scary” blogging goal and I’ve yet to reach it), but I’m super thrilled and grateful to be a part of Mediavine. I’ve earned way more than I ever thought I would, and their customer service is so helpful.

If Journey by Mediavine had been around a few years ago when I first added ads, I likely would have heavily considered it over SheMedia. I think it’s easier for Journey blogs to be accepted by Mediavine once they hit the sessions requirement because they’re already in the family!

Mediavine Income Report

Let’s get into the fun part: How much I earned with Mediavine over my first year! I devoured Mediavine income reports when I started with them, and I’m happy to share my own numbers in the interest of transparency.

Here are the caveats: I use the lowest possible in-content ad density (far lower than what is recommended by Mediavine) on desktop and mobile, I set the minimum ad spacing to three paragraphs (higher than recommended), I did not enable high-paying controversial ads, and RPMs vary wildly and depend on a number of factors (some of which I mentioned above). My RPMs are definitely affected by my low ad density.

This past year was also a tough one for my traffic, as the numbers fluctuated wildly from month to month due to volatility with both Google and Pinterest, which are my two highest sources of traffic. One of my Pinterest pins went somewhat viral in July 2024 (then died in August), and I typically see my highest months of traffic during the holiday season.

Below is a graph that shows my Mediavine earnings for each month. Not surprisingly, February 2024 was the lowest earning month because I was only with Mediavine for ten days of the month, but I was still thrilled because I made more with Mediavine than I did with SheMedia that month!

July 2024 was my highest earning month at $1,622 (with the Net-65 payment schedule, I received these earnings in October). I saw a nice traffic bump last November, but things have been nosediving since, so in February 2025 I only earned $646. (It feels silly to say “only” when I was previously earning so much less with SheMedia!)

In total, I made $8,453 with Mediavine in 2024, and I’m already over $5,000 for 2025 with seven months of earnings still to go. My highest earning day so far was $68.97 back on November 24, 2024.

Now let’s look at my average RPMs by month! February 2024 had the lowest average RPMs, but it’s because I only had my Mediavine ads live for ten days, and RPMs tend to be lower when you start as advertisers learn about your site and traffic.

You probably noticed that the RPM graph below doesn’t match up with the earnings graph, and that’s because of the traffic fluctuations. That said, the graph really shows the seasonality of RPMs and how they are lowest at the start of Q1 and Q3 and highest near the end of Q2 and Q4. My highest RPM day was October 18, 2024, when I saw an RPM of $35.15. I’ve had 15 days with RPMs at or above $30 since I started on Mediavine.

Below is a pie chart that illustrates how my earnings vary by type of ad. Universal Player is the video that pops up in the corner, in-content are the ads served within the content of each blog post (and like I mentioned above, I have mine set to “very low” ad density with three-paragraph minimum separation), adhesion are the sticky ads on the footer of each page, sidebar sticky ads “stick” on the side if you read a blog post on the desktop site, and sidebar ads are another ad in the sidebar that don’t follow you as you scroll.

Most of my ad earnings come from the Universal Player followed by the in-content and adhesion ads. The sidebar ads earn the least because on mobile, the sidebar is served at the end of a blog post, and most readers get all the information they need and don’t scroll all the way to the bottom.

I hope this was helpful and/or interesting! Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions.

All in all, I’m thrilled to be a part of the Mediavine family, and I’m excited to see how much I can earn in the years to come! (Fingers crossed Google and Pinterest will be kind to me, ha…)

Thank you so much, as always, for reading and for your support! It’s because of you that I continue to find joy in blogging after all these years.

Jump to my Mediavine review.

Photography by Wendy Lizama