The main AdSense alternatives are Mediavine, Raptive, Ezoic and Media.net for general display advertising, Carbon Ads and EthicalAds for developer and design audiences, and direct sponsorships you sell yourself. For a community or membership site, the last option often fits best, because most of your valuable pages sit behind a login and your members came for each other, not for banners. This guide checks each network against its own pages and tells you where each one is the better pick.
Network details here were read from each company’s own site in October 2026. Requirements change often, so confirm anything that affects your plans on the network’s own application page before you apply.
In this guide
- Why community sites look for AdSense alternatives, and why ads work differently there
- What each network says about who can join, in one table
- Mediavine, Raptive, Ezoic and Media.net, one by one
- Carbon Ads and EthicalAds for developer and design communities
- Direct sponsorships, and where WB Ad Manager fits
- Logged-in members, privacy and consent
- How to choose, step by step
- Questions people ask
Why do community sites look for AdSense alternatives?
Most people look for an alternative because AdSense and a community do not fit together neatly. A forum or membership site is mostly user-written content, mostly behind a sign-in, and visited by the same people many times a week. Ad networks were built for the opposite: a large public audience that arrives from search, reads one page and leaves.
There are three practical pressures. First, Google’s AdSense policies make you responsible for what members write. Google’s help page on user-generated content says publishers are responsible for moderating these features, and that if user comments break policy, Google removes ads from that page, or from the whole site if the violations are widespread. On a busy forum, that is a standing job, not a one-off setup task. Our community moderation guide covers how to run it.
Second, consent. If you serve personalised ads to visitors in the EEA or the UK through Google’s publisher products, Google’s help centre says a certified consent management platform that works with the IAB TCF is required, and has been since 16 January 2024. That means a cookie banner, and a banner is part of what members see every time they arrive.
Third, the people reading your site are not an anonymous crowd. They are members. They notice when a banner covers the thing they came to do, and they remember it. A bad ad costs you more on a community than on a recipe blog, since the community lives on repeat visits.
None of this means ads never work on a community site. It means the choice of network, and where you place ads, matters more than it does elsewhere.
What do the main ad networks say about who can join?
Each network publishes its own entry rules, and they differ a lot. The table lists only what the network’s own pages say, as of October 2026. A blank in the “stated” column means the pages I read did not give a figure.
| Network | What it is aimed at | Traffic or entry rule it states | Privacy or consent note it states |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mediavine | Content publishers; two programs, a full program and a self-supported one called Journey | Journey: at least 1,000 sessions from Tier 1 countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia) in 30 days. Full program: a minimum annual ad revenue figure, original content, clean human traffic, good standing with Google AdSense and AdExchange. | Not stated on the requirements page. |
| Raptive | Creators, through a selective network with an application | No traffic figure on its public pages. It lists creator levels named Insider, Platinum, Platinum Elite and Luminary without thresholds. | Not stated publicly. |
| Ezoic | Websites and apps in an AdSense-supported language | Sites are generally required to have 250,000+ monthly active users. Smaller sites may be eligible for an Incubator Program. | Sites must comply with Google’s policies. |
| Media.net | Publishers, through a sell-side platform offering display, native and video demand | No requirements or traffic figures on its public pages. Links to an Inventory Policy and an Ad Quality Policy. | Links to a Privacy Policy; no summary on its public pages. |
| Carbon Ads | A hand-picked network of tech and design sites | Manual review of each submitted site. No traffic figure on its public pages. | Not stated publicly. |
| EthicalAds | Developer-focused sites | Looks for developer-focused sites with 50k+ pageviews per month. Approval is invite-only. | Says it targets ads from site content, with no tracking required and no third-party scripts or pixels. |
| Direct sponsorships | Any site with an audience a business wants to reach | No network rules. You set the terms. | No third-party ad scripts by default, so your own privacy policy covers it. |
Two things stand out. Only Mediavine’s Journey program and Ezoic give you a number that a small community can compare against, and Ezoic’s number is far above what most communities reach. For everyone else, you apply and wait.
Is Mediavine a good AdSense alternative for a community site?
Mediavine is a strong choice for a content-heavy public site, and a harder fit for a mostly private community. It is a display ad management company. Its homepage describes a network of 20,000+ publishers and 114M+ monthly visitors, and it runs two programs.
The first is the full program. Its requirements page asks for original, audience-first content, clean, human, brand-safe traffic, good standing with Google AdSense and AdExchange, a reader experience that supports premium advertising, and a minimum level of annual ad revenue. The second is Journey by Mediavine, a self-supported program. Its requirement is at least 1,000 sessions from Tier 1 countries in a 30-day period, plus the same original-content rule and an acceptance of Mediavine’s content quality and traffic standards, which the page does not define.
The requirements page does not say anything about forums or user-generated content. If your community is mostly public threads that rank in search, ask Mediavine directly before you apply. If it is mostly members-only, a traffic threshold counted in sessions will be hard to reach, because logged-in pages are not what bring in new visitors.
Better pick when: you run a public blog or guide section alongside the community, a good share of your visitors come from search in the countries Mediavine lists, and you accept a managed ad layout on those public pages.
Is Raptive a good AdSense alternative for a community site?
Raptive is a selective option for creators, and it is the least transparent of the group on its public pages. Raptive describes its creator network as “a selective network of diverse creators across categories”, and applications go through an “Apply now” form.
I could not find a traffic figure on its public pages. Its creator levels page lists Insider, Platinum, Platinum Elite and Luminary, with no thresholds shown. A blog headline on its homepage refers to “creators who meet Raptive quality standards”, and the standards are not defined there. So the honest answer is: apply and see, and ask what they expect for a site where most pages need a login.
Better pick when: you are an individual creator with a public site and a following, you would rather hand ad work to a partner, and you are happy to be reviewed before you are accepted.
Is Ezoic a good AdSense alternative for a community site?
Ezoic fits a large public site and is hard to enter with a small one. Its help centre says sites are generally required to have 250,000+ monthly active users, that all sites must be written in an AdSense-supported language, and that the only universal requirement for your site type is the ability to include JavaScript in your site’s code. Sites that began monetising with Ezoic before 19 February 2026 may be grandfathered if they keep using it continuously.
Smaller sites may be eligible for the Ezoic Incubator Program if they are growing toward full eligibility. Ezoic also says all sites must comply with Google’s policies and avoid invalid clicks, copied or auto-generated content, keyword stuffing, and gambling, adult or counterfeit material. Its homepage lists five ad formats: in-content, sticky video, anchor, rewarded and interstitial.
Look closely at that list if you run a community. Anchor and interstitial formats sit on top of the page, and a member who is typing a reply will feel them. Our piece on popups and sticky ads that convert without killing UX explains how to judge that trade.
Better pick when: your community has a large public audience of 250,000 or more monthly active users, and you want one company to handle ad layout and testing.
Is Media.net a good AdSense alternative for a community site?
Media.net is a mainstream display option with the least public detail. It presents itself as a sell-side platform and says it offers display, native and video demand, plus a managed header bidding platform built on Prebid. Its homepage promises “advertising budgets available only to Media.net publishers”, which is its claim about its own demand.
The pages I read gave no traffic minimum, no geography or language limit and no summary of content rules. They link to an Inventory Policy and an Ad Quality Policy, which you should read before you apply. If your community covers sensitive topics, that is the first document to open.
Better pick when: you want a second display source next to something else, and your policies and topics pass its inventory rules. Read them first, because that is where any restriction on user-written pages would be.
Are Carbon Ads and EthicalAds worth it for a developer or design community?
Yes, if your members are developers or designers, and almost never otherwise. Both networks are small and curated, and both describe a restrained approach to ad placement.
Carbon Ads
Carbon calls its network “350+ hand-picked tech sites”. Its homepage groups them as Frontend and Frameworks, Developer Tools and Infra, Design and Creative, and AI and Emerging. Publishers submit a site through a form, and Carbon’s team “manually reviews your projects and assigns relevant categories”. It describes its formats as “non-intrusive ad formats that maintain your blog’s aesthetic and user experience”. Its public pages state no traffic minimum. Read the Placement Policy before you apply.
EthicalAds
EthicalAds is run for developer-focused sites. Its publisher page says it is looking for developer-focused sites with 50k+ pageviews per month, and the application form marks “Less than 50,000” as “Not a fit yet”. It says approval is invite-only with no contract to sign. On privacy, it says it targets ads based on your site content, with no tracking required, and that it never loads third-party scripts or pixels. It also says the ad should be the only ad on the page (your own promotions are allowed), should appear above the fold on first visit, and should not sit inside the main content.
That privacy claim is the interesting one for a community. A site that avoids a cookie banner for ad purposes has one less reason to show members a consent prompt. Check with your own lawyer or advisor whether that holds for your site as a whole, because your analytics and other plugins may still need consent.
Better pick when: you run a forum or Q&A site for programmers, designers or technical founders and want a small, relevant ad.
Should a community sell direct sponsorships instead of using a network?
For a small or mid-sized community, often yes. A direct sponsorship is an agreement with a business that wants your members, and you set the placement, the dates and the terms. There is no third-party ad script, no auction and no entry threshold. The cost is that you have to find the sponsor and send the invoice.
This works best when your community has a clear subject. A local running club, a niche software forum or a coaching group is easy to explain to a sponsor in one sentence. A broad general-interest forum is harder to sell directly, and a network may suit it better.
Our guide on how to sell ad space on your WordPress community site walks through packages, outreach and reporting. Most sponsors want three things from you: a clear description of who your members are, an agreed placement, and a simple report at the end of the run.
Where does WB Ad Manager fit?
WB Ad Manager is a Wbcom plugin, so we make it, and you should weigh that. Its site at wbadmanager.com says it has 16+ placement hooks, including before and after content, a sidebar widget, header and footer bars, and BuddyPress feeds. It lists five ad types: image, rich content, HTML or JavaScript code, AdSense, and email capture.
The sponsorship features are the reason to look at it for a community. The site says you can sell sidebar, in-article and header inventory to sponsors directly. It says AdSense and a sponsor can share one slot, weighted by a 1 to 10 priority, and that you can schedule the sponsor’s dates so AdSense keeps the slot before and after. It says tracking is server-side, counting “real impressions plus clicks, not pixel-counted”. An advertiser portal, A/B testing and a classifieds marketplace are listed as extras that need a paid licence, so check the product page for what applies to your site.
That shared-slot idea matters. You do not have to choose between AdSense and sponsors. You can keep a network as a fallback in a slot and put a sponsor on top when you sell one. For a comparison with other tools, including Advanced Ads and AdRotate, read the best WordPress ad management plugins.
Better pick than a network when: your audience is specific, your traffic is below the thresholds above, and you would rather talk to two or three sponsors than join a programme with automated demand.
Should logged-in members see fewer ads?
Because members are the people you are trying to keep, and they are also the least useful audience for most ad networks. A member already pays you in attention, and often in money. A banner between a member and their next message adds friction for little return.
There is also a measurement point. Display networks value pages that new visitors land on from search. A logged-in feed page, a private group or a direct message thread is not that. Showing ads there adds little for advertisers and risks the policy problem we covered above, where member-written text is your responsibility.
A sensible default looks like this:
- Logged-out visitors on public pages: ads are fine, if the layout stays stable. Public threads, articles and directory pages are the pages that bring new people in.
- Logged-in members: no network ads in the feed, messages, profile or settings. A single sponsor message in a low-key spot is the most I would try.
- Paying members: no ads at all. This is a real benefit to put on your membership page.
How you hide ads for signed-in users depends on your plugin or network. In WordPress it comes down to a check on whether the visitor is logged in, and most ad plugins have a setting for it. Check what your plugin offers before you promise it to members.
If you sell memberships, this connects directly to your pricing. See how to charge for a paid community with Stripe and monetising your online community with subscriptions, courses and paid groups. For many communities, memberships earn more per member than ads can, and “ad-free” is easy to explain as a feature.
What do privacy and consent mean for ads on a community site?
Any ad that uses cookies or identifiers to personalise what a visitor sees usually needs consent in many countries, and your community’s members are people who gave you their data in a sign-up form. That raises the bar for what they expect from you. Rules differ by country, so check your local rules, or ask a lawyer, before you rely on any setup described here.
Here is what the sources said. Google’s help page says a certified CMP that integrates with the IAB TCF is required for personalised ads in the EEA and the UK from 16 January 2024, for AdSense, Ad Manager and AdMob. It adds that traffic from a non-certified CMP may still receive non-personalised or limited ads, where supported. EthicalAds says it needs no cookie banner for its ads and loads no third-party scripts or pixels. Direct sponsorship, served from your own site, loads no ad network code at all.
The trade is simple. Network demand is wider, and it needs a consent banner and a policy. Direct and contextual ads are narrower, and they are lighter on privacy. Whichever you pick, do three things:
- List every ad and tracking script on the site. Include analytics, social embeds and ad tags. To confirm it worked, open your browser’s network tab on a public page and a logged-in page and compare the third-party requests.
- Write down what each one collects. Put the result in your privacy policy in plain English.
- Tell members what changes for them. If members will see fewer ads or none, say so. It is a selling point.
How do you choose an AdSense alternative, step by step?
Start from your audience and your traffic, not from a list of networks. Work through these steps in order and stop when you have a clear answer.
Step 1: Split your pages into public and private
Count how many pages a logged-out visitor can reach, and how many monthly visits those get. Use your analytics, not a guess. To confirm it worked, you should be able to say what share of your traffic lands on public pages.
Step 2: Match your public traffic to the entry rules
Compare your numbers with the table above. If you are below 1,000 Tier 1 sessions a month, no network in this guide will fit and direct sponsorship is your main option. If you are in the tens of thousands, the developer networks and Journey by Mediavine may be in reach. If you are in the hundreds of thousands, Ezoic’s published number comes into range. To confirm it worked, write the network you could join today and the one you could join in a year.
Step 3: Decide what members will see
Write the rule from the earlier section: which pages show ads, to whom, and which tiers see none. To confirm it worked, a test account with each membership level should see exactly what you wrote.
Step 4: Read the policy pages of your top two choices
Read the content policy, the inventory policy and the privacy terms, not just the landing page. Pay attention to user-written content and to topics your members discuss. To confirm it worked, you should be able to answer: would my busiest thread pass this policy?
Step 5: Try one slot on one public page type
Do not roll ads across the whole site on day one. Pick one page type, such as public thread pages, and run one placement for a few weeks. Watch your own signals: do members post less, do bounce and return visits change, do people complain? To confirm it worked, compare the same weeks before and after.
Step 6: Offer one sponsor slot in parallel
Write a one-page sponsor pack: who your members are, where the slot sits, how long it runs and what you will report. Send it to three businesses that already serve your members. To confirm it worked, you have at least one reply, even a no, that tells you what they care about.
What does your theme have to do with ads?
Your theme decides where an ad can sit without breaking the layout. A community theme with clear sidebars, header areas and widget zones gives you predictable slots, and a bad layout turns every ad into a shift or an overlap. If your members use phones, test every slot at phone width before launch.
Reign is a WordPress community theme with five header layouts, colour tokens and dark mode, and no code needed to change them. It styles BuddyNext, BuddyPress, BuddyBoss Platform, PeepSo and the in-house Wbcom plugins, including WB Ad Manager. Dark mode matters for ads too: a bright banner on a dark layout is the first thing a member notices. Our Reign performance guide covers the measuring side, since third-party ad scripts add weight to every page that loads them.
If your community runs on BuddyNext, a feed with a well-placed sponsored post can feel like part of the site. BuddyNext has an activity feed, Spaces that can be open, private or secret, and native Stripe membership tiers, which gives you the ad-free membership offer described earlier. You can click around a working example in the BuddyNext live demo.
When should you not run ads at all?
You should skip ads when your community is small, private, or sells membership as its main product. An ad-free promise is a stronger offer than a few ad units, and every ad you add makes that offer weaker. If you run a paid group of fifty people, a network application is a waste of time. Charge the fifty, serve them well and see where the site is in a year.
Also skip ads when your community discusses health, money, legal or other sensitive topics and you have not read the network’s content rules. A mismatch can lead to ads removed from pages or a refused application, and you will not find out until after you have done the work. For member retention ideas that do not need ads, see how to launch an online community and reach your first 100 members and why building on rented land is a mistake.
Which WordPress forum setups work well with ads?
Any forum with public, indexable threads can carry ads on those pages. Private forums and Q&A behind a sign-in should not. If you are still picking forum software, our comparison of the best WordPress forum plugins and the guide to bbPress alternatives for WordPress forums will help you decide, and Jetonomy is the Wbcom option for forums and Q&A. Pick the forum for how your members talk first, then fit the ad plan around the public pages it produces.
If you run geo-specific communities, targeting by region can help a sponsor see why the slot is worth buying. Our piece on geo-targeted ads for multi-region community sites covers that setup. And if what you really want is a bigger email list, build your email list with smart capture ads on Reign may be a better use of the same slot.
Questions people ask
What are the best Google AdSense alternatives?
It depends on your traffic and audience. Mediavine (through its Journey program), Raptive, Ezoic and Media.net are the broad display options. Carbon Ads and EthicalAds suit developer and design audiences. Direct sponsorships suit small and mid-sized communities with a clear subject. Compare each one’s entry rules before you apply.
What is the best ad network for forums?
No network stated forum-specific rules on its public pages. The right network depends on who reads your forum. A developer forum may suit EthicalAds or Carbon Ads. A large public forum may fit Ezoic if it reaches the 250,000 monthly active user level. Almost any network will expect you to moderate user content, since Google already does.
Can I use ads and still offer an ad-free membership?
Yes. Show ads on public pages to logged-out visitors, and switch them off for members who pay. This works well as a membership benefit, and it keeps ad income from public traffic while protecting the member experience. Confirm the setting in your ad plugin and test it with a member account.
Do ads on a community site need a cookie banner?
Often, if the ads use cookies or identifiers to personalise. Google says a certified consent management platform is required for personalised ads in the EEA and UK. Contextual or direct ads that load no third-party scripts avoid that, but your other tools may still need consent. Check your local rules.
Are direct sponsorships better than ad networks?
For many small and niche communities, yes, because there is no entry threshold, no third-party script and you control the placement. Networks win on scale and on not having to find buyers. Many sites do both, with a network as the fallback in a slot and a sponsor on top when sold.
Reign is the theme behind the setups in this guide. It gives a community site predictable places for sponsors, a layout that holds up on phones and a dark mode that treats ads fairly. See the Reign theme page for features and demos, then decide how much advertising your members would welcome.