Kickstart Exchange: free advertising for indie app developers

How it works

Views are the currency

Showing a Kickstart Exchange ad in your app earns your account one point, and an appearance of your app in someone else’s costs two.

All new members start with 200 points for free, so you immediately start benefiting as soon as your app goes live.

Quality

What shows up in your app

Built from real listings

Cards use the app’s current App Store listing: icon, name, subtitle, and developer name, linked straight to its store page.

Verified and reviewed

Every developer proves they own each app’s listed website, and a human approves every app before it serves.

Matched to your app

Your app only ever shows apps with a content rating at or below its own, and only ones built for the device they would appear on.

Reportable by anyone

Users can report any ad from the card itself, with no account needed, and a human reads every report.

Your controls

You decide what gets shown

Category matching

Choose which app categories can have adverts shown in your app, and also where your app should appear.

Excluded terms

List up to 20 words or phrases. Apps matching any of them in their name or subtitle never appear in your app.

Daily analytics

Ads shown, impressions, clicks, and click-through rate for each app every day, including which apps yours appeared in.

Four steps

From joining to serving

1
Sign up for free

Create your Kickstart Exchange account – it's completely free.
2
Add your app

Register your apps on your account. A human manually reviews every app.
3
Add our SDK

Place ExchangeBannerAdView wherever it suits your layout, using your free API key.
4
Show two, earn one

Every two ads your app shows earn one ad for your app in someone else’s.

Privacy

We match apps, not people

An ad request carries your app key and your bundle identifier – nothing else.

The SDK never collects advertising identifiers or tracks users or devices.
Statistics are counted per app, never per person.
Ad artwork is served by Kickstart Exchange itself, so apps make no third-party requests.
The SDK is open source, so you can check every claim yourself.

Read the privacy notice

import KickstartExchange
import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {
    var body: some View {
        ExchangeBannerAdView(appKey: "kx_live_…")
    }
}

The SDK

One view, no dependencies

The KickstartExchange package supports iOS 18 or later on iPhone and iPad, is MIT licensed, and depends on nothing. The card handles the App Store link, ad information, and reporting by itself.

If paying customers shouldn’t see ads, wrap the view in the entitlement check you already have.

Join Kickstart Exchange Read the guide

FAQ

Common questions

What does it cost?

Nothing. There are no payments anywhere in Kickstart Exchange: apps earn views by showing ads, and that balance is the only currency.

When does my app start appearing?

Once your app is approved and showing ads, it banks a point for each one, and two points buy one view elsewhere. Every new account gets 200 free points, which gives you 100 free views from the moment your app goes live.

Can a competitor appear in my app?

You can rule that out with excluded terms. Add up to 20 words or phrases in your dashboard, and any app matching one in its name or subtitle is filtered from your slots.

Which apps can join?

Kickstart Exchange is open to all iOS and iPadOS apps with a verifiable website on their App Store listing. Apps marked Made for Kids are not accepted, and nothing rated above your app will ever show inside it.

What are house ads?

Kickstart Exchange lets you run adverts for your own apps, known as house ads. You can set a percentage, for example saying that half the adverts should be for your own stuff, with the other half being open to the exchange. House ads cost nothing to run, but earn nothing too.

Can users pay to remove ads?

You get to decide when adverts are shown, so adding a "Remove adverts" in-app purchase is easy to do – and also a great idea!

What does the SDK require?

iOS 18 or later and SwiftUI. It has no dependencies, builds with Xcode 26, and is MIT licensed.

What does the SDK collect?

Ad requests carry an app key and bundle identifier. Impressions and clicks are recorded against apps, and the SDK never touches advertising identifiers or anything that could identify a user or device – it's 100% private.

What does an advert show?

Our adverts show data drawn directly from App Store Connect, so you can be certain it has been through App Review. Specifically, we show the app's icon, title, and subtitle, and tapping the advert opens directly in the App Store. The developer's name is shown on the advert's information screen.

Beyond that, we also:

Clearly label each advert as Sponsored App.
Explain why you are seeing the advert. In Kickstart Exchange, adverts are targeted only by app category.
Let users report adverts that are inappropriate, misleading, or otherwise violate our policies.

Can I customize the ad?

Kickstart Exchange ads have a specific design in order to fulfil App Review and legal requirements. They support light mode and dark mode, but otherwise should not be customized.

What happens when an ad is reported?

The report form offers fixed reasons and asks for no contact details. A human reviews each report and can pause or remove any app from the pool.

How do you prevent abuse?

All apps must already be approved through Apple's App Review process, and we also manually review every developer who is joining. Beyond that, we have a number of heuristics in place to stop people abusing the exchange – we want to make sure it's a safe and trusted environment for everyone.

Developers found to be violating our policies will be removed from the program and have any outstanding points removed.

Does Kickstart Exchange require the Kickstart app?

No. Kickstart Exchange is free for every indie developer, whether or not you use Kickstart.

That said, Kickstart Exchange gets your app seen, and Kickstart helps with everything else: it's a Mac app that walks you through marketing your app step by step, from App Store page to launch and beyond. If you want more people to find your work, Kickstart is the perfect companion to Exchange.

Put your app in front of people who already love indie apps

Kickstart Exchange is free to use and takes minutes to deploy.

Join for free Read the guide

Free advertising for indie app developers.

Unwrap: Learn Swift