"Raptive pays more than Mediavine — friends switched and earnings jumped"

"Raptive pays more than Mediavine — friends switched and earnings jumped"

Steelman: Raptive's higher traffic floor (100k vs 50k sessions) means it onboards more established sites, and bigger sites do tend to monetize better.

That's the trap — it's selection, not the network. You're comparing the networks while comparing two different tiers of publisher.

🚩 Hidden variable: the eligibility threshold pre-sorts the sample. Raptive's average publisher is simply further along the growth curve than Mediavine's average. The network didn't make them earn more; the bar to get in did.

To compare the networks you'd need the same site, same month, same traffic mix — which almost nobody has, because you can't run both at once.

Not saying Raptive is worse — saying "my friend's site earns more on it" compares publishers, not platforms.