CrazyGames Developer Guide: Publish and Earn (2026)
Last updated: July 2026.
To publish on CrazyGames, you upload an HTML5 or Unity WebGL build through the developer portal, the QA team reviews it (feedback usually lands in 1 to 2 days), and your game goes live in one of two stages. Basic Launch puts it on the site without any SDK work so CrazyGames can measure how players respond. If it holds attention, you're invited to Full Launch, where you integrate the CrazyGames SDK and start earning. There's no fee to publish and no exclusivity requirement, so you can run the same game on Steam, mobile, or a rival portal at the same time.
You earn through a revenue share on ads served by the SDK (video and banner), plus in-game purchases for invited games through Xsolla. CrazyGames doesn't publish the exact split, but it pays out monthly through Tipalti once your balance clears a €100 minimum, and it targets payment by the 10th of the following month. Earnings track higher in English-speaking Tier 1 markets like the US, UK, and Australia, because that's where ad demand is strongest and where most of the platform's audience sits.
Quick Reference
| Submission model | Self-serve upload via the developer portal, then human QA review |
| Cost to publish | Free, no exclusivity required |
| Review time | Feedback usually 1 to 2 days; updates often same working day |
| Launch stages | Basic Launch (no SDK, no monetization) → Full Launch (SDK required, earns) |
| Monetization | Ad revenue share (SDK video + banner); in-game purchases via Xsolla (invite-only) |
| Revenue split | Not in the main docs; 2026 jam terms list 60% ads / 70% IAP to developers |
| Payout threshold | €100 minimum, paid monthly via Tipalti (wire, ACH, PayPal) |
| Build limits | Initial load ≤ 50MB, total ≤ 250MB, ≤ 1,500 files |
| Audience | PEGI 12 / age 13+ |
Why CrazyGames
CrazyGames is one of the biggest browser-game portals on the web. The company's developer portal now claims over 50 million monthly players, concentrated in Tier 1 markets, up from the 35 million monthly active users independently reported in early 2025 across a catalog of roughly 4,000 games. That's a large, ready-made audience you don't have to acquire yourself, which is the whole appeal of a portal versus launching cold on your own domain.
The pitch to developers is straightforward. You bring a web-playable game, CrazyGames brings the traffic and the ad stack, and you split the ad revenue. The platform leans hard on supporting small and solo developers, and it doesn't lock you in. Because there's no exclusivity clause, CrazyGames is usually a distribution channel you add rather than a bet you make.
How Publishing Works
You start in the developer portal, where you set up your account, complete your payment details, and upload a build. The portal includes a Quality Assurance Tool that runs your game exactly as it would appear on CrazyGames, so you can test SDK calls and catch problems before a human ever looks at it. Set up your payout method before you submit, because CrazyGames asks for that first.
From there it's a review, not an instant publish. The QA team plays your game, checks it against the requirements, and sends back a round of feedback. Developers report that feedback typically arrives within 1 to 2 days, often with screenshots pointing at what to fix, and the notes cover both must-fix issues and suggestions for improvement. Once you've addressed the blockers, preparing the game for release takes roughly another two days. Updates to an already-live game move faster, usually processed within the same working day.
Basic Launch, Then Full Launch
CrazyGames uses a two-stage launch. At Basic Launch, your game goes live with no customization required. The SDK is optional and monetization is off. This is a soft-launch window (developers describe it as roughly two weeks) where the platform watches real engagement: average playtime, how many visitors convert into actually playing, and retention. If your game hits the benchmarks, you're invited to Full Launch.
Full Launch is where the money starts. You integrate the SDK properly, meet the full set of integration and QA requirements, and the game lands directly in gameplay with monetization enabled. The gate between the two stages is the point of the model. CrazyGames would rather give a game a fair trial with live players than approve on promise alone, which is why polish and a strong first session matter more here than a long feature list.
Build Limits and Technical Requirements
Your build has hard limits: the initial download must be 50MB or less, the total size 250MB or less (50MB if you skip the SDK), and the whole thing must stay under 1,500 files. Games target a 16:9 responsive iframe and must be legible at a devicePixelRatio of 1. Physics has to stay consistent across refresh rates like 144Hz and 165Hz, which trips up a surprising number of engines that tie movement to frame rate instead of delta time. CrazyGames is a site for players aged 13 and up, so your game has to be PEGI 12 compliant.
The CrazyGames SDK
The SDK is how your game talks to the platform, and it's mandatory for Full Launch. It handles ads, user accounts, cloud saves, invites, leaderboards, and purchases. Only ads served through the SDK are allowed, which is the core rule of the whole revenue model.
On ads, you get two kinds of video ad. Midgame ads fire at natural breaks, like when a player dies or finishes a level, and rewarded ads are requested by the player in exchange for something in-game. The requirements are strict: ads can't interrupt active gameplay or surprise the player, the game must pause and block input while an ad runs, and your audio has to mute for the ad and unmute when it ends. There are banner ads too. Beyond ads, the SDK gives you cloud data storage so progress follows a player across devices, user authentication tied to their CrazyGames account, and friend invites and social features for multiplayer, which the platform has been pushing since it added social features around its 35-million-user milestone.
The SDK supports HTML5, Unity, GameMaker, Construct 3, Godot, and Cocos directly, with partner extensions for GDevelop, Defold, and Wonderland Engine. CrazyGames has live games built in Unity, Defold, Godot, Phaser, PlayCanvas, Construct, Pixi.js, and BabylonJS, so the engine you pick matters far less than whether it exports a clean, fast web build. Hands-on SDK support and individualized advice on ad placement kick in once your games clear 50,000 combined plays.
In-Game Purchases
In-game purchases exist, but they're invite-only. CrazyGames runs IAP through Xsolla as the payments provider, and purchases are always handled through the CrazyGames Xsolla account so they link back to the player's CrazyGames user ID automatically. This rolled out more widely through 2025. Xsolla and Defold shipped a dedicated SDK in June 2025 that lets Defold web games on CrazyGames add purchases without the manual API plumbing. Practically, IAP isn't something you plan your launch around. Get invited by performing well on ads first, then layer purchases on top.
How You Get Paid
CrazyGames doesn't publish a revenue split in its main developer docs, so be wary of guides that quote a hard percentage as official. The closest thing to an official figure is the terms CrazyGames published for its 2026 GameMaker web jam, which list developers keeping 60% of in-game advertising revenue and 70% of in-game purchase revenue. The developer portal lets you track revenue per game. What CrazyGames documents fully is the payout mechanics, and those are concrete.
Payments run monthly through Tipalti once your balance reaches the €100 minimum. If you don't clear €100 in a given month, the balance rolls over to the next. Tipalti supports wire transfer, direct deposit/ACH, eCheck, and PayPal, with availability depending on your country. The formal terms are NET 60, but CrazyGames says it currently aims to pay sooner, typically by the 10th of the following month. Expect FX fees when converting currencies and possible intermediary bank fees outside CrazyGames' control. Your earnings depend on play volume, retention, and where your players are, so the same game earns very differently with a US audience than with a low-CPM one.
What Performs on CrazyGames
The catalog skews toward .io-style multiplayer, quick-session action, casual puzzle, racing, and shooters, the kinds of games that hook someone in the first ten seconds and survive being played in a browser tab between other things. Because the Basic Launch gate measures playtime and retention, games that front-load their fun do well and games that need a five-minute tutorial before anything happens tend to stall. The SDK's social and invite features reward games with any multiplayer or shareable hook, which is why so many breakout browser hits are built around playing with or against other people.
Common Rejection Reasons
The fastest way to get rejected is to submit something unoriginal. CrazyGames explicitly screens for clones, reskins, and asset flips, and your game shouldn't be easily confused with another by name or iconography. The second most common problem is polish. One developer wrote up getting a game rejected in about two hours with the note that it "looks like a prototype," and complained the feedback was thin compared to some rival portals. That's a fair warning: the bar is a finished-feeling game, not a jam build, and the feedback you get can be terse.
Technical failures round out the list. Games that load slowly, stutter, crash, or throw errors get bounced, as do builds with graphical defects like compression artifacts, inconsistent art styles, physics that breaks on high-refresh-rate monitors, or controls that ignore common keyboard layouts. Text that isn't legible at standard resolution or on the 16:9 iframe is another frequent miss. None of these are exotic, but they're exactly the things that are easy to skip when you're rushing to submit.
Where Cinevva Fits
If you're staring at that "must feel finished, not like a prototype" bar and don't have a build yet, this is where a tool like Cinevva helps. You describe the game you want and Cinevva builds a playable 3D web game in your browser, then exports it as a self-contained HTML5 build. That gives you something to iterate on and take through the CrazyGames QA tool, rather than starting from an empty engine project. It won't clear the originality and polish bar for you, but it collapses the distance between an idea and a first playable, which is the slowest part of getting to a submission.
Common Questions
How much does CrazyGames pay developers?
CrazyGames doesn't publish a revenue split in its main developer docs. The closest official datapoint is its 2026 GameMaker web jam terms, which list developers keeping 60% of ad revenue and 70% of purchase revenue. You earn a share of the ad revenue your game generates through the SDK, tracked per game in the developer portal, plus in-game purchases if you're invited. Payouts run monthly via Tipalti once you clear a €100 balance, and actual earnings depend heavily on play volume, retention, and how much of your audience sits in high-CPM markets like the US and UK.
How long does CrazyGames take to review a game?
Developers typically hear back within 1 to 2 days of submitting, often with screenshots showing what needs fixing. After you address the blockers, preparing the game for release takes roughly another two days. Updates to a game that's already live are faster and usually get processed within the same working day. The bigger time cost is the Basic Launch window, a soft-launch period of about two weeks where CrazyGames measures real engagement before inviting you to Full Launch.
Do I have to make my game exclusive to CrazyGames?
No. CrazyGames does not require exclusivity, so you can publish the same game on Steam, mobile app stores, itch.io, or competing portals like Poki at the same time and still earn revenue share on CrazyGames. That makes it a low-risk channel to add to a multi-platform launch rather than a decision that ties up your game.
What kind of games work best on CrazyGames?
Fast-loading, instantly-fun browser games win here. The platform's launch gate measures playtime and retention, so .io multiplayer games, quick-session action, casual puzzles, racing, and shooters that hook players in the first ten seconds tend to pass and grow. Games that need a long tutorial before the fun starts, or that load slowly, struggle. The SDK's invite and social features also give multiplayer and shareable games an extra edge.
What are the build size limits for CrazyGames?
Your initial download has to be 50MB or less, your total build 250MB or less (or 50MB if you don't integrate the SDK), and the whole thing must stay under 1,500 files. Games run in a responsive 16:9 iframe and must be readable at a devicePixelRatio of 1. Keeping the first load small matters most, since a slow start hurts the conversion and retention metrics that decide whether you reach Full Launch.
Can I sell in-game purchases on CrazyGames?
Yes, but it's invite-only. In-game purchases run through Xsolla, handled via CrazyGames' own Xsolla account so every purchase links to the player's CrazyGames ID automatically. You generally get invited after your game performs well on ad monetization, so plan to launch on ads first and add purchases later rather than building your whole economy around IAP from day one.
Build a playable 3D game from one sentence and export a self-contained HTML5 build for the CrazyGames QA tool.
Related
- How to Publish a Web Game — the full menu of portals and platforms for browser games
- Publish Your Game on Poki — the other big browser-game portal, compared side by side
- Web Game Monetization — how ad revenue share, IAP, and rewarded video actually pay out
- Launch Your Game on itch.io — the open, no-gatekeeping alternative where you set your own terms
- Promote an Indie Game With No Budget — driving your own traffic when the portal isn't enough
- Ship a Web Game That Loads Fast — hitting the 50MB initial-load limit CrazyGames enforces
- Build a Multiplayer Browser Game — the .io-style hook that performs best on CrazyGames