What Is an MMP? What It Does and What It Costs

A mobile measurement partner (MMP) is a third party that decides which ad source gets credit for an app install or an in-app action. It does that by collecting a signal from your app's SDK and a matching signal from each ad network, then reconciling the two independently of any single network's own reporting. MMPs price on volume, either at a per-conversion rate or a monthly fee with an included allowance, and then a negotiated contract above that. As of October 2026, published entry points run from $0.05 per conversion to a $2,000-per-month floor on enterprise tiers.

That is the short answer. The part people actually need before they sign is how the pricing works, because no two MMPs quote it the same way.

What an MMP actually does

The job that matters is arbitration.

Run a campaign on Meta and another on Google and both will report an install. Both are telling the truth as far as their own data goes: each one showed an ad to a device and that device installed your app. If you add those two numbers, your install total is wrong. The MMP exists to receive both claims, match them against the SDK event from the device, and award the install to one source using a rule you configure, such as last click within a set window.

Everything else an MMP does follows from owning that position. Because it sees every network's claim and every device event, it can also flag install fraud, where a network claims an install it had no part in. It can send postbacks to your backend and to the ad networks so the networks can optimize against the outcome you care about. And it can hold the reporting layer that normalizes Meta's, Google's and TikTok's numbers into one set of metrics.

An MMP is not a deep linking tool, though most of them bundle deep linking. The measurement is the product. The links are how the measurement reaches the device.

Why apps ended up needing a referee

For most of the last decade the alternative was to trust each network's dashboard. That works only while you buy from one network. The moment you buy from two, the sum of the parts exceeds the whole, and the gap is not small. Double-counting is common, because attribution windows overlap by design.

There is a second reason. Ad networks grade their own homework. A network that reports its own conversions has no incentive to tell you a campaign failed. An independent measurement layer is the only number that is not supplied by a party with an interest in the outcome.

That is why the category exists and why it survived Apple's privacy changes. What changed after iOS 14.5 in April 2021 was how much signal is available, not who is trusted to do the reconciling.

What an MMP costs

Most major MMPs publish an entry point and negotiate everything above it. Branch publishes no numbers at all. These are the published entry points, checked in October 2026.

Two things stand out in that table. The first is that the free tiers are not the same offer.

Kochava's is a $0 plan capped at 10,000 conversions a month. Adjust's is 1,500 conversions a month for the first year. AppsFlyer describes its Zero plan as free but "not suitable for apps with paid activities", so it will not serve as your measurement layer once you start buying media. Singular's gives you 15,000 paid conversions before anything is charged.

The second is that Adjust publishes Base in monthly conversions and Core and Enterprise in annual ones. That is a unit mismatch on their own pricing page, and it makes the tiers hard to compare at a glance. Convert before you compare. Kochava has a smaller version of the same problem: its free and Foundation tiers are metered in conversions and its enterprise tier in MAU, so those three are not directly comparable either.

The three ways MMPs price

Reading those five pages, the pricing falls into three shapes.

Per conversion. AppsFlyer at $0.07 and Singular at $0.05 charge for each conversion, with a free allowance in front. A conversion is usually an install on the paid path, though some plans let you define it as a specific in-app event. This model scales linearly with growth, which makes the forecast simple and the bill unpredictable if a campaign outperforms.

Platform fee with included volume. Kochava publishes a floor of $500/month for 33,000 conversions, and $2,000/month for the enterprise tier at 200,000 MAU. You are buying a capacity band, not a meter. This is easier to budget and costs more than per-conversion pricing when you are small.

Negotiated. Branch publishes no numbers at all. Adjust's Core and Enterprise, AppsFlyer's Enterprise and Singular's Enterprise all require a quote. Above the entry tiers, price depends on your conversion volume, your contract length and how many products you take.

Note what they do not charge for. Adjust lists "unlimited organic installs, impressions, and clicks" among its attribution features, and AppsFlyer states that installs it does not attribute are not counted as conversions and are free. Measurement is billed on the paid path. If most of your installs are organic, the headline rate matters less than the allowance.

A worked example at 150,000 MAU

Take an app with 150,000 monthly active users and roughly 130,000 conversions a month. The conversion count is the assumption that drives everything, so treat it as a placeholder and substitute your own.

• AppsFlyer at $0.07 per conversion: about $9,100/month
• Singular at $0.05 per conversion: about $6,500/month
• Kochava: 130,000 conversions is nearly four times the Foundation allowance of 33,000, so this lands on Enterprise, from $2,000/month
• Adjust and Branch: negotiated, so no published number to model

Those two per-conversion figures are before the free allowances. AppsFlyer includes 12,000 conversions in year one and Singular includes 15,000, which brings the first-year numbers to about $8,260 and $5,750.

The two metered rates are 1.4x apart, which is the smaller gap. The larger one is between the pricing shapes: Kochava's published enterprise floor of $2,000/month is under a quarter of what AppsFlyer's metered rate would bill. Kochava's actual quote at this volume is not published and could sit higher. That is a difference in what you are buying, not only in price, and it is why you price from quotes rather than from the rate card.

What changed after Apple's ATT

Nothing about the pricing model changed. The volume assumptions under it did.

When Apple required apps to ask permission before tracking users across other apps and sites, the identifier that advertisers used to match a click to an install became unavailable for every user who declined. Apple's SKAdNetwork was built to give back aggregate attribution without the identifier, and MMPs integrated it so their customers could see it alongside everything else.

The practical effect on your bill is that "conversions" became a more contested and more modeled number. Ask any vendor which events count as a conversion on the plan you are being quoted, and ask how they handle conversions they can only model rather than observe. The answer changes the effective rate more than the headline per-conversion price does.

When you don't need an MMP

An MMP earns its cost when you buy paid media across more than one network and need a neutral number to arbitrate between them. If that describes you, the pricing above is the decision you are making.

It does not describe every app. If your growth comes from referrals, organic sharing, affiliates, QR codes, email or creators, there are no competing networks to referee, so the arbitration job has nothing to do. What you need instead is a link layer that routes users to the right screen, tracks the click, and connects the install or signup back to the link that caused it. That is a smaller, cheaper problem, and it is the one ChottuLink's Deep Link plan is built for — starting free, with no per-conversion billing.

We should be direct about that boundary: the Deep Link plan targets organic growth, referrals and affiliates, not paid ads on Meta, Google, TikTok or Instagram. If you are running paid social at scale, you want an MMP and we are not one. If you are working out which side of that line you are on, see how to track app installs without paying MMP prices.

How to decide

Work through these in order.

Write down which networks you buy from and how much of your install volume is paid. One network and mostly organic means you are buying capacity you will not use.

Get the free tier allowances in writing. A 10,000-conversion free plan and a 1,500-conversion one are different products at the same price.

Ask what counts as a conversion on your plan. Install, first open, or a named in-app event.

Ask for the price at double your current volume. Per-conversion pricing is linear, platform fees are not, and the answer tells you which shape you are actually buying.

Then compare the quote against the cost of the problem. If you are spending a few hundred dollars a month on media, a $500/month floor is most of your budget.

If most of your installs are organic and you are not running paid social across networks, a deep linking platform covers your measurement needs at a fraction of the cost. ChottuLink's Deep Link plan starts free.

FAQ

Is an MMP the same as an attribution tool?

An attribution tool usually measures links and campaigns you control. An MMP measures claims from ad networks you do not control and settles disputes between them. The overlap is real, which is why the two are often confused.

Do I need an MMP for organic growth?

No. With no competing networks to arbitrate, the core job does not apply. A deep linking platform with link attribution covers the measurement you need.

What is the cheapest way to track app installs for organic growth?

A dedicated deep linking platform. ChottuLink's Deep Link plan handles install attribution for organic, referral, and affiliate installs — with no per-conversion fees and no MMP contract. The cost difference versus a $500/month MMP floor is significant for apps where paid media is not the primary acquisition channel.

Why do MMPs not publish their prices?

Because above the entry tiers the price is negotiated on conversion volume, contract length and product mix. The published tiers are the on-ramp, not the price list.

What is a conversion in MMP pricing?

It varies by vendor and plan. On AppsFlyer's Growth plan it is a conversion billed at $0.07 once the welcome package is used. Adjust bills on conversions with organic installs unlimited. Confirm the definition on the plan you are quoted, because it sets your effective rate.

Can I start free and upgrade later?

All five vendors above offer a free tier or trial, but they differ in what the free tier allows. AppsFlyer's Zero plan excludes paid activities entirely, so it will not carry you through your first paid campaign.

Related reading

Do you need a mobile measurement partner? compares an MMP with a deep linking platform. What is mobile attribution? covers the mechanics underneath it.

The bottom line

An MMP is a neutral referee for paid install attribution, and you pay for it by volume: $0.05 to $0.07 per conversion on the published per-conversion plans, or a $500 to $2,000 monthly floor on the platform-fee plans, with everything above negotiated. If you buy paid media across several networks, that is a fair price for a number you can trust. If your growth is organic, referral or affiliate, you are paying for arbitration you will never use.