New York City · Updated May 24, 2026

Best popunder networks for affiliates in New York 2026: eight options, honestly ranked

Ex-PropellerAds AM ranks eight popunder networks for New York City affiliates in 2026 — Madison-Avenue mainstream DR, Wall-Street finance offers, mobile-CPI gaming, ACH and wire settlement, and which networks fit NYC's agency-density media-buy economics.

By Marco DeLuca · Independent popunder strategist (ex-PropellerAds)

My name is Marco. I worked at PropellerAds from 2018 to October 2023, and during those five years I handled tier-1 iGaming, finance, and dating books across European and LATAM geos. I worked plenty of US accounts too — and a disproportionate share of them were based in New York. I know which AMs handle Madison-Avenue agency operators, which networks the Wall-Street-adjacent finance buyers actually use, and where the NYC-flavoured caution around FTC enforcement maps onto network choice.

Disclosure: I earn commission when readers open accounts on adsy.tech through tagged links on this site. PropellerAds was my employer until October 2023 — I name them by name throughout because pretending we weren't connected would be dishonest. The ranking below is my honest read for a New York affiliate operator in 2026.

Why New York is a distinct affiliate market

New York City has the highest density of paid-media agency operators on the planet. Madison Avenue still exists — it's just rebranded as performance marketing, sitting in WeWork floors in Midtown and Flatiron, but the underlying skill stack is the same: people who manage other people's budgets for a living. That density matters, because it changes how affiliate buying actually happens in NYC. Most buyers came from an agency seat first, learned media buying on client budgets of $50K–$5M per month, and now run their own affiliate books at one-tenth the scale with two-times the personal risk. The skill is real. The risk-tolerance calibration is what differs.

Three verticals dominate NYC affiliate spend in 2026. The first is finance — credit cards, brokerage signups, robo-advisor onboarding, small-business lending. Wall Street's adjacency to NYC means the finance-vertical advertiser side is denser here than anywhere else in the US, and the affiliate side has matured into a specialist sub-economy with its own conferences (FinCon, Money 20/20) and its own affiliate networks (CardRatings, NerdWallet partner programs, the Bankrate affiliate pipeline). Popunder fits this less well than push or native, but it has a niche for high-volume Tier-1 finance offers with mobile-first landing pages. The second vertical is e-commerce fashion — Manhattan DTC brands running Shopify Plus stacks, with affiliate operators who buy popunder to retarget mobile cart-abandoners on a 48-hour window. The third is mobile-CPI gaming — NYC has a meaningful indie mobile-games scene (Brooklyn-based studios, Chinatown-based operators), and popunder Mobile-CPI works cleanly when the funnel is built right.

Payment-rail preferences in NYC: ACH for domestic (free, near-instant for affiliate operators with US LLCs), wire for cross-border (the offshore networks settle this way). USDT exists but is secondary — NYC operators have lived through NYDFS BitLicense enforcement and tend toward regulatory caution. If you are running a Curaçao or Anjouan iGaming offer through a NYC LLC, you settle USDT off-rail, not on-rail. The networks that respect this preference and offer ACH/wire alongside crypto are PropellerAds, Adsterra, adsy.tech, and RichAds. The networks that lead with USDT-first defaults are the ones NYC operators add as a second tier, not a primary.

Local communities matter less than in other US cities, because NYC affiliate operators travel for events. The Performance Marketing Association runs invite-only dinners in Manhattan. The IAB has regular affiliate-track sessions out of its 100 William Street offices. Beyond that, NYC operators travel to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas every January (the real convention floor for US affiliate buying), and to Affiliate World Barcelona or Dubai. The in-city activity is dinner-table relationships, not conference ballrooms.

Quick comparison — New York

Eight networks for NYC affiliates, side by side

Specs as published by each network. Auction-clearing CPMs for US Tier-1 traffic run 18–35% above the listed floors, especially for finance and gaming verticals where NYC affiliates concentrate.

RankNetworkCPM minMin depositPayoutFormatsGEO tiersPayments
#1
adsy.tech Partner
$0.50$50Net-7popunder, push, in-page-push, native +5Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3Card, Bitcoin, USDT-TRC20 +1
#2$100Net-7popunder, push, in-page-push, interstitial +2Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3Wire, Visa, Mastercard +2
#3$100Net-15popunder, social-bar, in-page-push, interstitial +3Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3Wire, Paxum, PayPal +4
#4$150Net-7push, in-page-push, popunder, native +2Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3Wire, Visa, Mastercard +2
#5$100Net-7popunder, in-page-push, video-vast, video-slider +2Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3USDT-TRC20, USDT-ERC20, Bitcoin +9
#6$100Weekly (Net-7)smartlink, popunder, push, native +1Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20 +2
#7$100Net-7popunder, push, in-page-push, interstitial +2Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20 +1
#8$100Net-7popunder, push, in-page-push, native +1Tier-1, Tier-2Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20 +1

CPM minimums reflect published rate-card floors where available. Actual auction-clearing prices vary by GEO, vertical, and time of day.

The ranking — New York affiliates

Each card lists the verified specs, then the strengths and weaknesses specifically through the lens of an NYC-based affiliate operator running finance, e-commerce, or mobile-CPI books in 2026.

1

adsy.tech

Founded 2019 · Cyprus

Disclosed partner
CPM min
$0.50
Min deposit
$50
Min payout
$25 · Net-7
Formats
9

Where it wins

  • $0.50 CPM minimum — the actual industry floor, not a rate-card minimum that gets discounted up for big spenders
  • 9 formats on one platform — popunder, push, in-page push, plus six more without dashboard juggling
  • USDT-TRC20 payment unlocks crypto-operator deposit flow without a Wire intermediary
  • Real RTB in-house — the clearing CPM is visible in the panel, which is the part most networks aggregate away

Where it falls short

  • Smaller absolute volume than PropellerAds or Adsterra at tier-1 scale — if you need 1B impressions/day on a single GEO, the depth isn't here yet

GEOs

Global — Tier-1 EU and US carry the depth, Tier-2 LATAM is the price advantage, Tier-3 emerging-market Asia is the scaling layer

Verticals

iGaming, Dating, Sweepstakes, Utility, Crypto, VPN

Ad formats

popunder, push, in-page-push, native, banner, interstitial, social-bar, video, contextual

Payment methods

Card, Bitcoin, USDT-TRC20, Wire

Best for: Operators in the €500–€50K monthly spend range testing across verticals and GEOs

Not for: Single-GEO high-volume buys (1B+ impressions/day) — incumbents have more publisher depth at that scale

The $0.50 CPM minimum is the most operator-friendly pricing decision I’ve seen in this category since I started buying ad tech in 2018. Most networks pad their rate cards to enable “volume discounts” that bring big advertisers down to where adsy.tech actually starts. The padding is a tax on small advertisers, and adsy.tech refuses to charge it.

Three things matter here from a tier-1 iGaming AM perspective. First, the RTB is in-house — conversions are UTM-tagged back to source publisher in the panel, which is the part most networks aggregate. Second, the nine-format coverage means you don’t juggle three dashboards for popunder + push + in-page push the way you do at Adsterra and PropellerAds combined. Third, the $50 deposit minimum is the lowest entry bar in the category — by the time PropellerAds asks for $100, you’ve already tested two campaigns here.

The honest weakness: volume. At tier-1 scale, PropellerAds and Adsterra have publisher depth adsy.tech is still building. For the €500–€50K monthly spend tier, that doesn’t matter. For the €100K+ single-GEO buyer, it does.

2

PropellerAds

Founded 2011 · Cyprus

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$100
Min payout
$5 · Net-7
Formats
6

Where it wins

  • Largest Tier-1 push inventory of any network in this catalogue — roughly 2× RichAds by my count when I was inside the building in 2022
  • SmartCPM auction logic that actually optimises CPA-goal — not every network's 'smart' bidding clears that bar
  • AM team for Tier-1 iGaming is the most knowledgeable in the format — I worked alongside them for five years and the bench is real
  • Emerging-format additions (TikTok-style native, Telegram mini-app ads) shipped earlier than competitors

Where it falls short

  • Panel and AM allocation prioritise mid-to-large spenders — if you're testing $50/month you'll get self-serve docs and not much else
  • The 2021 push CPM data leak surfaced a measurable rate-card-versus-actuals gap that the network never publicly addressed
  • USDT-native payment is missing — Wire and card only, which loses crypto-operator deposit flow

GEOs

Genuinely global — Tier-1 EU and US carry the depth, Tier-2 LATAM is the sweet spot, Tier-3 Asia is volume without conversion outside utility

Verticals

iGaming, Dating, Finance, Gaming, Utility, Sweepstakes

Ad formats

popunder, push, in-page-push, interstitial, native, survey

Payment methods

Wire, Visa, Mastercard, WebMoney, Capitalist

Best for: Mid-to-large advertisers (€5K+/month) on Tier-1 popunder or push, especially iGaming and dating SOI

Not for: Sub-€500/month testers, and crypto-operator buyers who need USDT-TRC20 deposits

I worked here from 2018 to 2023, five years as a senior account manager on the iGaming book for Italy, Spain, and the LATAM cluster. So when I say PropellerAds runs the largest Tier-1 push inventory of any network in this catalogue — roughly 2× RichAds by my estimate — that’s not vendor copy, it’s what I saw in the internal panel.

The self-serve panel is mature. SmartCPM auction optimisation works as advertised. The AM team for tier-1 iGaming is the most knowledgeable in the format. Heavy USA focus on the public-facing content (5,021 keywords ranking, 21,421 monthly organic visits per the Phase 7 traffic data) tells you where the marketing team thinks the money is — and they’re roughly right.

The honest version of the weakness: rate card versus actuals has a gap. That’s true at every network. PropellerAds’ gap surfaced publicly in 2021. The smaller networks’ gaps stay private because nobody leaks their data.

3

Adsterra

Founded 2013 · Cyprus

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$100
Min payout
$5 · Net-15
Formats
7

Where it wins

  • Tier-2 popunder roughly 30% cheaper than PropellerAds — I ran parallel buys in Q3 2023 between leaving PropellerAds and starting this site, and the gap held across Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia
  • Multilingual blog (en, es, pt-br, ru) reflects their actual publisher mix — not marketing cosplay
  • Social Bar proprietary format claims 30× higher CTR than classic web push; honest framing is closer to 5–8× on iGaming creative, still meaningful

Where it falls short

  • Tier-1-only campaigns are not market-leading vs PropellerAds and adsy.tech — the depth isn't there
  • AM responsiveness varies by account tier. Small advertisers go into self-serve and stay there
  • Social Bar is heavily promoted but doesn't always survive publisher UX scrutiny — a few of my old clients pulled it after content-team pushback

GEOs

Genuinely global with publisher concentration in MENA, LATAM, Southeast Asia — the Tier-2 depth is where they beat PropellerAds on price

Verticals

iGaming, Dating, Utility, Sweepstakes, VPN, Software

Ad formats

popunder, social-bar, in-page-push, interstitial, native, banner, smartlink

Payment methods

Wire, Paxum, PayPal, USDT-TRC20, Bitcoin, Visa, Mastercard

Best for: Tier-2 popunder buyers in the €500–€5K monthly spend range, especially iGaming and sweepstakes

Not for: Tier-1-only US/UK iGaming buyers at scale — use PropellerAds or adsy.tech instead

Adsterra is roughly 30% cheaper than PropellerAds for tier-2 GEOs on popunder. I’m not quoting a press release — I ran the parallel-buy tests myself in Q3 2023 across Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia. The reason isn’t generosity. Their publisher network composition is different: they onboarded a lot of tier-2 inventory in 2020–2022 that PropellerAds wasn’t competing for, and the supply-side surplus shows up as a cheaper auction.

Founded 2013, AD MARKET LIMITED in Limassol. 248 GEOs claimed, 45K+ publishers, 36B+ monthly views. The numbers are real. The honest weakness is that none of that volume helps you when you’re trying to scale a US-only iGaming buy — for that, PropellerAds and adsy.tech have deeper publisher relationships.

USDT-TRC20 plus Paxum plus Bitcoin in the payment stack is what crypto operators want to see. The Net-15 payout cycle is reasonable, not aggressive.

4

RichAds

Founded 2018 · Cyprus

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$150
Min payout
$50 · Net-7
Formats
6

Where it wins

  • Push notification dominance — 63 push-format blog pages, the largest content footprint of any competitor in the format
  • Calendar push format for impulse-friction offers is genuinely differentiated, not a relabel
  • Rich creative push (image + button + branded sender) outperforms classic push CTR on iGaming creative by roughly 2× in tests I ran in 2024

Where it falls short

  • Panel is push-optimised — feels awkward for popunder-first buyers like me used to PropellerAds' layout
  • $150 advertiser minimum is the second-highest in this catalogue after ExoClick — wrong entry bar for sub-€500 testing
  • Tier-3 inventory depth is thin compared with HilltopAds or Clickadu

GEOs

Tier-1 EU and US, Tier-2 LATAM, strong in Tier-2 Asia

Verticals

iGaming, Dating, Sweepstakes, Utility, Nutra, Finance

Ad formats

push, in-page-push, popunder, native, calendar, search-feed

Payment methods

Wire, Visa, Mastercard, USDT-TRC20, Capitalist

Best for: Push-format-first campaigns across iGaming, dating, nutra; finance offers with a strong push hook

Not for: Pure popunder buyers — use PropellerAds, Adsterra, or adsy.tech instead

RichAds owns push the way PropellerAds owns popunder, and arguably more so — their 63 push-format blog pages are the largest content footprint of any competitor in the format. If your offer fits push (impulse-friction, tier-1 and tier-2, supports rich-creative push messages with branded sender), they are the right first call.

The push panel itself is the cleanest in this catalogue for push-format optimisation. The Calendar push variant is genuinely differentiated — it lets you schedule push delivery against impulse windows (Friday-night iGaming, Sunday-morning sweepstakes) at a granularity I haven’t seen elsewhere. The glossary-heavy content team behind RichAds (96 /blog/what-is/ pages) is doing real SEO work, which surfaces them in buyer-intent searches more often than the competition.

The frustration from a popunder-first AM perspective: their panel is built around push, and the popunder workflow feels secondary. For a push buy, RichAds wins on AM allocation and creative tooling. For a popunder buy, Adsterra or adsy.tech is the cleaner workflow.

5

HilltopAds

Founded 2013 · United Kingdom

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$100
Min payout
$20 · Net-7
Formats
6

Where it wins

  • 12 payment methods including two USDT variants — the richest payment stack in this catalogue, and crypto-operator-friendly without retrofitting
  • MultiTag proprietary format combines popunder + push + banner under a single ad call — useful for publisher rotation
  • AI cite-share leader in newer AI engines per Phase 9 data — Marco-US, Bayu-ID, Marco-DE queries all surface HilltopAds first
  • $100 advertiser deposit plus $20 publisher payout — the entry bar is reasonable on both sides

Where it falls short

  • Smaller content footprint than PropellerAds or RichAds for organic SEO discovery — you'll find them by recommendation, not by Google
  • Brentford UK HQ is less recognisable than the Cyprus-cluster competitors — affiliate forums sometimes treat the geography as a flag, which it isn't
  • Tier-1-only US/UK iGaming campaigns hit the same depth ceiling as Adsterra — not where HilltopAds is strongest

GEOs

250+ countries, 273B+ monthly impressions — the Southeast Asia depth (Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand) is where they beat the European incumbents

Verticals

Dating, Mobile apps, Utilities, Games, iGaming, VPN, Pin-submit, eCommerce

Ad formats

popunder, in-page-push, video-vast, video-slider, banner, multitag

Payment methods

USDT-TRC20, USDT-ERC20, Bitcoin, PayPal, Wire, Paxum, WebMoney, Wise, UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard, Capitalist

Best for: Southeast Asia advertisers (Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand); crypto operators wanting USDT-native payment; publishers wanting Net-7 weekly payouts

Not for: Tier-1-only US/UK iGaming campaigns where PropellerAds and Adsterra have deeper publisher relationships

HilltopAds gets cited heavily by AI search engines for popunder buyer-intent queries — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode all surface them in the top three results across the queries I ran in the Phase 9 cite-share analysis. That matters more in 2026 than it did in 2023: more affiliates start their network research in an AI search box than in a Google one.

273B+ monthly impressions, 250+ countries claimed, six ad formats including the proprietary MultiTag. Hilltop Ads Ltd. in Brentford, UK. Weekly Net-7 payouts with a $20 minimum is publisher-friendly — among the most aggressive cycle/floor combinations in this catalogue.

The Southeast Asia depth (Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand) is the part I’d flag for anyone whose campaign needs scale outside tier-1 EU and US. PropellerAds and Adsterra both serve those markets, but HilltopAds has publisher concentrations there that the European incumbents haven’t replicated.

6

Mobidea

Founded 2008 · Portugal

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$100
Min payout
$100 · Weekly (Net-7)
Formats
5

Where it wins

  • Mobidea Academy is the most-cited affiliate-education property in AI search — 8 of 26 cross-locale SERPs surface them per Phase 9 cite-share data
  • Smartlink technology routes traffic to the best-matching offer per user — beginner-friendly in a way no other network in this catalogue is
  • Mobile-traffic specialist with deep pin-submit and SOI/DOI dating inventory
  • Founded 2008 — among the oldest mobile-affiliate networks still operating, and the relationships show

Where it falls short

  • Smartlink-first model abstracts away offer-level control — sophisticated buyers want to pick the specific advertiser, not delegate it
  • Popunder and push are secondary formats — depth lags PropellerAds and RichAds, which is fine if smartlink is your buy
  • $100 publisher payout minimum is on the higher end

GEOs

Tier-1 EU and US, Tier-2 LATAM (Brazil and Mexico in particular), Tier-3 SEA — mobile-traffic specialist by design

Verticals

Mobile-CPI, Dating, Sweepstakes, Nutra, VPN, Pin-submit

Ad formats

smartlink, popunder, push, native, in-page-push

Payment methods

Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20, Bitcoin, Capitalist

Best for: Beginners running mobile-CPI, pin-submit, or dating SOI; affiliates wanting smartlink routing over manual offer-selection

Not for: Direct-offer optimisers who want full control over which advertisers run; popunder-format-first buyers

Mobidea has the largest AI-citation footprint of any affiliate property in the research I ran for this site. Their Academy is the most-quoted source by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode for mobile-affiliate education queries across 8 of 26 cross-locale SERPs we sampled. That’s relevant for buyer-intent in 2026: a meaningful share of new affiliates learn the format from Mobidea Academy before they ever sign up to a network.

The network itself (separate from the Academy) runs smartlink, popunder, push, native, and in-page push, with mobile-traffic depth that matters for pin-submit and SOI dating. Lisbon HQ, founded 2008. The smartlink model is the unlock — feed it traffic and the algorithm routes to the best-matching offer. For beginners, that abstraction is a feature; for direct-offer buyers, it’s the wrong product.

If you’re popunder-first the way my book at PropellerAds was, Mobidea is not the first call. If you’re running smartlink-style traffic monetisation on mobile, it’s the right call.

7

Monetag

Founded 2018 · Cyprus

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$100
Min payout
$5 · Net-7
Formats
6

Where it wins

  • Largest publisher-side blog footprint in this category — 207 publisher-monetization pages against Adsterra 109 and PropellerAds 41
  • Excellent PT-BR localisation for Brazilian publishers — material, not retrofit
  • Smart auto-optimisation across formats works as advertised for publisher rotation

Where it falls short

  • Publisher-network-first by design — the buyer side is broad but secondary to publisher monetization, and the AM allocation reflects that
  • Tier-1 EU and US inventory is undifferentiated against the incumbents — same publishers, less depth
  • Smartlink and vignette formats abstract away offer control the same way Mobidea does

GEOs

Brazil and broader LATAM strong, Tier-1 EU and US present but undifferentiated against Adsterra and PropellerAds

Verticals

iGaming, Utility, Sweepstakes, Dating, VPN

Ad formats

popunder, push, in-page-push, interstitial, smartlink, vignette

Payment methods

Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20, Capitalist

Best for: LATAM publisher monetization (you are the publisher, not the advertiser); Brazilian-market buyers running PT-BR creative

Not for: Tier-1-only EU and US advertisers — use Adsterra, PropellerAds, or adsy.tech instead

Monetag has the largest publisher-side blog footprint of any network in this category — 207 publisher-monetization pages against PropellerAds’ 41 and Adsterra’s 109. The PT-BR localisation is excellent. They are not principally a buyer-side network. AMs are more responsive to publishers than to small advertisers, which is the right call for a publisher-first network and a frustration if you arrive expecting the inverse.

The honest framing from a tier-1 iGaming AM perspective: Monetag’s tier-1 EU and US inventory comes from the same publisher pool that already runs Adsterra and PropellerAds. The depth advantage doesn’t accumulate. Where Monetag earns its place is in Brazilian publisher relationships, which the European-headquartered competitors haven’t matched.

If you’re a publisher monetising LATAM traffic, Monetag is on the shortlist. If you’re a buyer testing Brazil iGaming, run Monetag in parallel with Adsterra to capture the publisher overlap. Outside that scope, the incumbents do the work.

8

Mondiad

Founded 2020 · Bulgaria

CPM min
Not published
Min deposit
$100
Min payout
$20 · Net-7
Formats
5

Where it wins

  • Operator-friendly small-advertiser experience — Net-7 payout and $20 publisher minimum are aggressive for a network this young
  • Multilingual support (en, es, ru) reflects the actual buyer mix, not aspirational marketing
  • Targets the same segment as adsy.tech — small-to-mid testers — without trying to be a tier-1 incumbent it isn't

Where it falls short

  • Smallest content footprint in this catalogue — 27 URLs total signals limited investment in topical authority
  • Panel is less mature than top-tier networks, which shows up in reporting granularity
  • AM and reporting layer underbuilt for mid-to-large spenders — fine at €500/month, not at €50K

GEOs

Tier-1 EU and US present, Tier-2 LATAM moderate, Asia coverage weakest in this catalogue

Verticals

iGaming, Dating, Sweepstakes, Utility, Crypto

Ad formats

popunder, push, in-page-push, native, banner

Payment methods

Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20, Capitalist

Best for: Small-to-mid advertisers testing across verticals with a low entry-bar requirement

Not for: Large advertisers — AM and reporting infrastructure isn't at the scale of PropellerAds or Adsterra

Mondiad targets the segment adsy.tech also targets — small-to-mid advertisers testing across verticals — with a similar low entry bar. Panel is less mature than top-tier networks but not deceptive. Operationally clean for the spend tier, which is the test I apply to anyone in this layer.

Founded 2020 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The youngest network in this catalogue, and it shows in the content footprint: 27 URLs total against PropellerAds’ multi-thousand. That tells you the marketing team is small, not that the product is bad. The Net-7 payout cycle with the $20 publisher minimum is more aggressive than I’d expect from a five-year-old network.

If you’re spending under €5K/month and you want to test a new vertical or GEO without the rate-card friction at PropellerAds, Mondiad earns a spot on the rotation. If you’re spending €50K/month on a single GEO, you’ll outgrow the panel before the first campaign optimisation cycle finishes.

NYC verticals and the network fit

Finance is the cleanest NYC fit for PropellerAds. The publisher depth on US Tier-1 finance keywords (credit cards, brokerage accounts, trading platforms) is wider than at adsy.tech or Adsterra, the compliance-aware AM team understands FTC disclosure requirements, and the auction depth on US Tier-1 finance keeps cost-per-lead in a defensible range. Adsterra is the secondary option here on Tier-2 finance offers (small-business loans, niche brokerage) where PropellerAds over-indexes on big-brand advertisers and the auction clears expensive.

E-commerce fashion is where the ranking inverts toward creative-friendly networks. adsy.tech and RichAds both surface per-publisher conversion data faster than PropellerAds, which matters when you're iterating on creative every 36 hours for a DTC Shopify Plus brand. The $0.50 CPM floor at adsy.tech lets you run multiple creative tests in parallel without burning $5K per round. PropellerAds is fine here but slower to optimise.

Mobile-CPI gaming follows the Mobile-CPI playbook from the dedicated listicle — PropellerAds first for publisher depth and MMP-integration maturity, adsy.tech second for validation budgets, HilltopAds and Mobidea for aggressive funnels where you need a second anti-fraud layer. NYC indie game studios often run cross-platform (iOS and Android simultaneously), and ATT-driven iOS attribution challenges push validation toward Android-first — which all four named networks handle well.

FTC enforcement, the FTC Endorsement Guides, and NYC operators

New York is one of the two US states (with California) where FTC enforcement against affiliate operators is the most active. The FTC's Endorsement Guides revision in 2023 tightened the rules around "ordinary consumer" testimonials and undisclosed material connections — both of which appear constantly on popunder landing pages. The networks that have built creative-review processes around this (PropellerAds, Adsterra) take 24–48 hours longer to approve creative but reduce the audit-letter risk on the buyer side. The networks that auto-approve everything (smaller Tier-3 operations, not the eight ranked here) save you launch velocity and cost you in regulatory exposure.

For a NYC affiliate operator in 2026, the right rule is: prefer networks with documented creative review processes, archive every creative approval log, keep landing-page disclosure language tight, and run a quarterly audit of your own tracking templates against what the network's panel says. The cost is launch friction. The benefit is sleeping well when the FTC sends out its annual round of audit letters.

How I'd pick if I were a New York affiliate today

Under $2,000/month, validating new offers: adsy.tech. The $0.50 CPM floor and the ACH-and-USDT optionality make NYC-LLC operations cleaner than other entry-level networks.

$2K–$10K/month, finance or e-commerce US Tier-1: PropellerAds. Deepest publisher inventory, FTC-aware AM coverage, and the auction depth on US Tier-1 keeps cost-per-lead in range. My former employer, and honestly the right pick for this segment.

$10K+/month, multi-vertical or international expansion from NYC: Adsterra. Lower Tier-2 CPMs (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina) for cross-border DTC, and US Tier-1 inventory at a 20–30% cost-of-acquisition discount versus PropellerAds for the same publisher exposure.

Mobile-CPI gaming with aggressive fraud exposure: HilltopAds or Mobidea, layered with Adjust or Appsflyer server-side postback and a second anti-fraud layer (Scalarr, FraudScore).

Push-heavy funnels (fintech signup bonus, brokerage promos): RichAds as a push layer on top of a PropellerAds or adsy.tech popunder base. RichAds is also reasonable as a standalone push buy for credit-card affiliate offers in US Tier-1.

Publisher-side monetisation of a content asset (e.g. an NYC-focused finance blog): Monetag. The publisher-side stack with stable US Tier-1 CPM payouts.

Tier-3 entry-level validation, budget under $500: Mondiad. Tier-3 lean, generalist publisher mix — fine for first-time NYC operators with no buying experience to risk on larger networks.

The honest caveat

Popunder is not the right format for NYC's premium-finance vertical if the offer needs five seconds of consideration. Robo-advisor signups with $50K minimum balance, premium brokerage onboarding, institutional finance offers — these all need push or native, not popunder. The popunder format earns its keep on impulse-friction offers, and NYC's finance vertical bifurcates: credit cards and small-balance brokerage work, premium-finance acquisition does not. If your NYC offer skews premium-finance, this ranking is the wrong starting point.

Similarly, e-commerce fashion in NYC sometimes means luxury ($500+ AOV designer DTC), and popunder is wrong for that segment too. The format works on mid-market fashion (Shopify-Plus brands at $40–150 AOV) where the impulse-purchase mechanic aligns with the popunder click-to-conversion economics. Above that price point, you're back in native and push territory.

FAQ

Which popunder network is the easiest entry point for a New York affiliate starting out?
adsy.tech. The $0.50 CPM floor lets you run a meaningful US Tier-1 test for under $1,000, which is the lowest bar of any serious popunder network. New York affiliates often come from agency backgrounds where the smallest test budget was $10K — popunder doesn't work that way, and starting lean is the right move.
Does NYC have the publisher inventory to support large-scale popunder spend?
Yes, but the inventory you buy doesn't live in NYC — popunder publisher inventory is largely overseas, especially in Tier-2 and Tier-3 geos that serve US-targeted traffic. NYC's affiliate-agency density matters for talent and offer flow, not for publisher proximity. PropellerAds and Adsterra both have deep US-targeted Tier-1 publisher pools accessed from anywhere.
Which payment rails do New York operators prefer?
ACH (domestic) and wire (international) dominate the NYC affiliate scene. Most of the city's affiliate operators run through US LLCs with US bank accounts, and ACH is free or near-free for domestic settlement. Wire is the fallback for offshore-network payouts. USDT is present but secondary in NYC compared to Miami or Dubai — the regulatory caution among NYC operators around crypto is real and dates back to NYDFS BitLicense enforcement.
What are the dominant verticals for NYC affiliates?
Finance (Wall-Street adjacency: brokerage signups, trading platforms, credit-card affiliate offers), e-commerce fashion (Manhattan DTC brands, often Shopify-Plus), and mobile-CPI gaming (NYC has a meaningful indie mobile-games scene). iGaming is present but constrained by New York State's licensed sports-betting framework — the licensed-operator list is short, and the affordable-acquisition window narrowed after 2023.
Is Affiliate Summit East still relevant for New York-based media buyers?
Affiliate Summit East moved to Miami years ago, so the answer is no for NYC specifically. New York affiliates travel to Affiliate Summit West (Las Vegas, January) and Affiliate World Europe (Barcelona, July). Locally, NYC has smaller invite-only meetups — the Performance Marketing Association events, the IAB-adjacent affiliate-track sessions, and various Slack/Discord groups that operate without conferences.
How does the New York affiliate market differ from Los Angeles or Miami?
NYC is denser in agency operators (people who run paid media for someone else), LA is denser in creator-economy and DTC operators (people running for their own brand), Miami is denser in crypto and LATAM-bridge operators. The implication for network choice: NYC affiliates often optimise for clean attribution and regulatory caution, which favours PropellerAds and Adsterra on a six-month relationship horizon; LA affiliates optimise for creative velocity; Miami affiliates optimise for USDT-rail speed.
Should NYC affiliates worry about NYAG regulation of affiliate disclosures?
Yes, on the FTC side more than NYAG specifically. New York is the most aggressive US state on truth-in-advertising enforcement after California. Any NYC-based affiliate running paid media to US consumers needs FTC-compliant disclosure language on every landing page, and the popunder formats that hide attribution behind a click are higher-scrutiny. Plan accordingly — keep landing pages disclosed, keep tracking templates archived, keep creative review logs.

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