What do publishers want from a hyper-casual prototype?
By 9th House Games ·
Mostly a cheap install and players who come back the next day. Supersonic says its bar is a cost per install (CPI) under $0.35, and Unity's guide for hyper-casual developers says to aim under $0.30 and for day-1 retention of 38% or more on Android.
CPI is what an ad campaign pays for each install of your game. Day-1 retention is the share of new players who open the game again the next day. A publisher looks at both when it tests a prototype.
The numbers, and where each one comes from
| Source | What it says | Dated |
|---|---|---|
| Supersonic | “Supersonic's is a CPI under $0.35.” It says other publishers set their own goals for the same test. | 23 Sep 2020 |
| Unity | “Aim for a CPI under $0.30” for a prototype, and “a D1 retention rate of 38% or higher on Android.” | 14 Nov 2024 |
| a mobilegamer.biz interview with Homa's cofounder | For released games, Homa's cofounder says the target is about 15% and above on day 7. He gives no CPI bar in that interview. | 8 Aug 2023 |
Who runs the test
On the Supersonic page, you submit a game through a questionnaire on its site, and if it approves the game it runs the marketability test itself and reports back. So the bar is something you hand to the publisher to measure, not something you have to measure alone first. Supersonic's page is from 2020, so check that the form still exists.
Homa
Homa has a support page on prototypes (Homa's support page on prototypes). It is a script-only page, and we could not open it on 27 Oct 2026. A search summary showed targets on it, but a number we have not read ourselves does not go on this page. Read it directly before you plan around Homa's bar.
Caveats
These bars are one company's marketing pages and one engine vendor's guide, and they are not the same age. Unity sells tools and ads, it is not a publisher. CPI changes with country, platform and the year. We have no list of what each publisher has actually accepted.
What to do with this
Our own view: before you polish anything, find out what an install of your game costs. A short gameplay video, a small ad campaign and the CPI against $0.30 to $0.35 will tell you more than another week of art. How to test a game idea before spending money goes through the steps.
Sources
- Supersonic, the holy triangle of marketability, retention and monetization (opened 27 Oct 2026)
- Unity, growing hyper-casual games (opened 27 Oct 2026)
- mobilegamer.biz, interview with Homa's cofounder (opened 27 Oct 2026)
- Homa support, prototyping for hyper casual (not opened: needs JavaScript; no number taken from it)
How this page was made. Every number is read from the page linked next to it, opened on 27 Oct 2026. Homa's page could not be opened, so none of its figures are used.
9th House Games is the games studio of 9th House in Bengaluru, run by Rohan Kulkarni. We turn a game idea into a playable test build. If you have a game idea, send it to us.