7 Best Adblock Recovery Software for Publishers in 2023

Admiral is one of the more expansive adblock recovery software on the market and has partnerships with some of the most prominent names in publishing, including CNBC, the Washington Times and the Seattle Times.

Admiral has built a reputation for being particularly effective at recovering lost ad revenue, benefiting from a customizable range of features and implementations. One of which is a suite of analytics that can measure revenue losses from ad blockers as well as the demographics of its users by mobile, desktop and by browser. This software can either restrict access to content entirely or funnel the user into a journey of soft requests.

Also of note is the platform’s ease of integration with a publisher’s site, only requiring that a single javascript tag be inserted in the header before the full range of analytics becomes available.

Admiral bills itself as a visitor relationship management (VRM) platform, meaning that it also offers publishers the chance to optimize when and how custom adblock recovery messages appear to repeat visitors and whether to offer a hard or soft value exchange — either allow ads or pay for a subscription or sign up to a newsletter, etc.

In our stress test Admiral performed above average, effectively intercepting the popular Adblock Plus and AdGuard browser extensions. However, other less popular options managed to slip through its net — though it’s important to note that this will become a recurring pattern throughout the rest of the list.

Admiral’s pricing reflects that above average performance, however. The platform’s All-In-One suite, which includes features such as pay and registration walls, costs $120 per month. However, just the adblock recovery software can be purchased separately and is based on a share of recovered ad revenue.

Adtech solutions provider Zelto has two different adblock recovery software options: Adpushup and Adrecover.

Adpushup is a well-known ad optimization platform that partners with more than 300 publishing partners globally and, while it didn’t perform quite as well as others in the stress test, it does offer a comprehensive list of optimization features.

Adrecover, meanwhile, is a newer addition, having been created by the Adpushup development team and seemingly contains most if not all of Adpushup’s adblock recovery features. This mor focused software solution is used by Spin Magazine, PC Mag and CNet.

Adpushup follows strict adherence to the Acceptable Ads standard, which shows up in the platform in two distinct ways. Firstly, its ad-block revenue recovery software is entirely end-user consulted, which means that instead of outright restricting access to content, it asks users to disable the adblock themselves.

Secondly, the platform only displays ads that it has previously white-listed, which helps to prevent ads from appearing that could hurt brand image and reduce page load time by ensuring ad units are correctly formatted. This ad optimization stacks nicely with automatic ad layout generation to further increase ad placement efficiency. This can be further experimented with in-software A/B testing.

Our stress test showed that Adpushup was capable of intercepting Adblock Plus, while AdGuard and other lesser known options remained unaffected by the software.

While Adpushup has three different tiers for purchasing the software, only the Select and the Premium tiers contain the adblock recovery software. Adpushup hasn’t made its pricing structure publicly available, and the same applies to Adrecover.

Blockthrough, which is owned by ad filtering specialist eyeo, is used on more than 10,000 websites, including sites such as Cafe Media, Prisma Media and Complex.

The software didn’t perform as well as others on this list during the stress test, only being able to whitelist certain ads through Adblock Plus, while AdGuard or other less popular options ignored it. Eyeo is the developer behind Adblock Plus and launched the Acceptable Ads program in 2011, before the independent Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC) eventually took over in 2017.

One of the ways that Blockthrough stands out is through its ease of integration with a publisher’s website. The software needs only one line of javascript in the header of a site to be integrated. Moreover, user compliance data, as well as other types of third-party data, can be onboarded through the software.

Blockthrough also comes with an adblock analytics suite, allowing it to determine how many users with adblock visit a site, how many of them successfully turn off their adblock and the extent of the revenue lost.

Blockthrough doesn’t disclose its pricing structure, though publishers can sign up to a free demonstration through its website.

OptinMonster is a lead generation and multi-use publishing tool that claims to be used on more than 1.2 million sites. The platform is better for small publishers rather than larger organizations and enterprises, owings to its 100,000 page view limit on its highest tier. However, organizations such as Harvard and TripAdvisor still use it.

Out of every other item on this list, OptinMonster has the broadest suite of publisher tools and features. This works as both a benefit and a detriment to the software, as while it is adaptable to many situations, its adblock detection is barer than others.

Some of its other features include subscription management, lead generation, a drag-and-drop campaign builder, advanced targeting rules and eCommerce features.

Optinmonster claims its smart adblock detection feature is able to intercept the AdBlock and AdBlock Plus software to whitelist ads. The platform also claims that the adblock detection loads before any other campaign to reduce resource waste and increase site load times.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t identify a publisher that uses OptinMonster’s Adblock Detection software and, as such, were unable to verify these claims.

In terms of pricing, OptinMonster is one of the cheapest on this list. While there are four tiers — the lowest starting at $16 a month — the adblock software is locked behind the highest tier of $82 per month.

Another ad optimization that has a built-in adblock revenue recovery feature is PubGalaxy, which is used by 2,000 publishers, including the likes of Digiday, The Drum and AdExchange.

Though PubGalaxy’s performance on the stress test was on the lower end of the spectrum, it has a wide range of ad optimization features, making it a good choice for publishers who are looking for additional ad optimization features beyond pure adblock revenue recovery.

PubGalaxy shares a fair few features with other items on this list, such as only needing a single line of code to be integrated. It includes an analytical suite, as well as ad layout optimization, A/B testing and geo-targeting.

The software also includes a few cost-per-mille (CPM) optimization features as well as optimizations to real-time bidding (RTB) auction technologies. PubGalaxy is compatible with Google’s Ad Exchange, open bidding, client-side and server-side prebid header bidding and Amazon TAM & Amazon UAM.

PubGalaxy was only able to effectively intercept Adblock Plus in the stress test. AdGuard and the others continued to function as normal.

Unfortunately, the pricing for PubGalaxy is not as transparent as some other services, requiring publishers to fill out a query form.

Publir is a less well-known ad recovery tool, only appearing on small publisher sites such as Ballotpedia and Untapped New York. Despite also performing well in our stress test, and its strong set of features, there is one aspect that held this software back: its pricing.

Publir has a range of features other than adblock recovery, such as tools for ad optimization and enabling subscription, eCommerce and crowdfunding services. The adblock recovery feature also provides some analytical features to track the effectiveness of the software in recovering revenue.

Also worth highlighting is its AI-based smart rules, which can set the conditions on when the software intercepts users. This allows publishers to adopt more advanced strategies for recovering revenue by separating valuable users that use their domain regularly from the occasional visitors, reducing overall bounceback from the software.

For the stress test, Publir managed to push through ads for users using Adblock Plus, and intercept users using Adguard. Other, less-popular options managed to slip past its detection.

Publir Pro costs 15% of a publisher’s recovered ad revenue. The company offers an enterprise option for larger publishers, requiring interested parties to content the company directly.

UniSignIn is a broad publishing tool that encompasses many different facets of digital publishing, including adblock revenue recovery. It’s used by sites such as AdTonos and Android Guys.

UniSignIn’s holistic approach to digital publishing means that it has an inflated cost compared to other more focused platforms.

Some of the main draws to UniSignIn comes from its data management capabilities, such as first-party data storage and single-sign-on management. The service is also capable of setting up paywalls and other forms of monetization strategies besides ads. It is also capable of audience segmentation, which could be useful for measuring audience engagement and developing publishing strategies.

Another feature worth mentioning is UniSignIn’s “Experience Orchestration Engine”, which publishers can use to change how audiences interact with the site. In practice, it means that publishers can set triggers for when the adblock recovery messages are shown to users, tailoring the experience of the site based on previous interactions with it.

UniSignIn delivered an average performance on the stress test, being able to whitelist ads through Adblock Plus. However, both AdGuard and others were still able to block ads normally.

UniSignIn is one of the most expensive adblock recovery software on this list. It costs £500 (~$625) for a small website and £2,000 (~$2,500) for an independent publisher, though UniSignIn provides an enterprise option as well.