Kickstart Exchange: free advertising for indie app developers
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Cross-promotion for Apple platform apps
Free advertising for indie app developers.
Your app shows ads for other indie apps, and every two shown earn one appearance for yours, without tracking people or devices.
Join for free<br>How it works
Unwrap: Learn Swift
Learn to program on your phone
Ad
Get
This is one of several available ad styles.
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.
The standard starting balance is 200 points for free, so you immediately start benefiting as soon as your app goes live.
How points move
Your app shows an ad for Unwrap +1
Your app shows an ad for Slipstream +1
Your app appears inside Unwrap −2
You can also run some percentage of house ads for your own apps, which cost nothing and earn nothing.
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 control of each app through its listed website or App Store promotional text, 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
Sign up for free
Create your Kickstart Exchange account. It's completely free.
Add your app
Register your apps on your account. A human manually reviews every app.
Add our SDK
Place ExchangeBannerAdView wherever it suits your layout, using your API key.
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
Exchange records advert activity for participating apps, not for individual users or devices.
The SDK does not identify or track individual users or devices.
Platform and App Store storefront country are used for compatibility and app-level accounting.
Statistics are counted per app, never per person.
Ad artwork comes from Kickstart Exchange, delivered by Cloudflare – there are no ad network or tracker requests.
The SDK is open source, so you can check every claim yourself.
Read the privacy notice
ContentView.swift<br>Copy
import KickstartExchange<br>import SwiftUI
struct ContentView: View {<br>var body: some View {<br>ExchangeBannerAdView(apiKey: "ks_live_…")
The SDK
One view, no dependencies
The Kickstart SDK package supports iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, tvOS 18, visionOS 2, and watchOS 11 or later. It is MIT licensed and depends on nothing. The card handles the App Store link, ad information, and reporting by itself.
Use it only in a main app binary – Apple's App Review guidelines prohibit you from including it in app extensions, App Clips, widgets, notifications, or similar.
If paying customers shouldn’t see ads, wrap the view in the entitlement check you already have.
Join Kickstart Exchange<br>Read the guide
FAQ
Common questions
What does it cost?
Nothing. Kickstart Exchange is completely free to use: 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. The standard 200-point starting balance 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 apps on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS. Apps marked Made for Kids are not accepted, and nothing rated above your app will ever show inside it.
Does Kickstart Exchange support accessibility?
Yes! Exchange ads have excellent support for VoiceOver, Switch Control, Dynamic Type, and other system accessibility features. They use standard SwiftUI controls with clear accessibility labels and hints.
How do you check I own an app?
The first time you add an app from an App Store developer ID, we give you a short verification code, such as KX-7F4Q2M. Prove it's yours either by...