Terminal Defense Monetization
Learn proven monetization strategies for indie games including ice-breaker purchases, premium currency tiers, and strategic bundling to maximize player spending without compromising experience.
By RUN.team · June 25, 2026
Hi! I’m Mark, and I made a game on RUN called Terminal Defense; a retro ascii-style tower defense game with idle and incremental gameplay.
I’ve made many games, including a bunch of mobile games, and these are some common monetization strategies that I use. Every game is different of course, but these strategies should be useful as a starting point.
It’s worth noting that in general, developers tend to underprice their in-app purchases. The prices in this guide should be a good starting point for what works/sells, but of course every game and genre is different. When in doubt, check out some (successful/popular!) games that are a comp for yours, and see what they offer for in-app purchases, and how much they cost.
Bundles: sell bundles that contain multiple bonuses, as well as some premium currency. In general, make the price of the bundle not much more expensive than the equivalent premium currency pack would be, so that this looks like a smart purchase (which it is!).
Example here, these bundles cost 600 RB, and include 250 gems, and just 250 gems on its own costs 400 RB…so you get a stat boost and a unique thing like 3x speed unlocked, all for 200 RB. Awesome!
Surfacing of in-app purchase offers to draw attention to them. At first this would offer an ice-breaker purchase (see further in the document for examples), later this offers one of the other in-app purchases that has not been purchased yet.
Normally I would start showing this after some of the initial tutorial/core loop has been shown/explained (in my experience people are unlikely to purchase before then)
Ice-breaker purchases: cheap purchase(s) to encourage players to spend. Someone that spends once will likely spend again (hence the name “ice-breaker”).
Note how it’s a different-colored item in the shop, and has a limited-time to purchase (it disappears after that). You can have multiple of these, so that if someone doesn’t purchase it, you show them a different one, or show them the same one multiple times, etc. Annoying? Yes. Does it work? Also yes!
Also note the cheap price (this is 100 RB, or roughly $1 USD)
Depth of spend: offer multiple items, and consider hiding/gating one or more IAPs until others have been purchased. This one, for example, is locked until the player has purchased the bundle that includes 3x speed (speed up the main gameplay by 3x), and it costs a lot more at 1400 RB (someone that unlocked this bundle is someone that likes the game and is likely to buy more). This bundle should include awesome things!
Premium currency packs: you should have these, and have things to spend them on. In Terminal Defense you can spend them on unlocking cards (provide permanent stat bonuses) and relics (new buildings with special functionality).
These are pretty standard, the ones below are a good template. Six tiers, more “free” currency with higher-priced tiers. Show the extra that you get on each one to entice people to buy the bigger ones. The pricing is very intentional and while you can do whatever you want in your game, I’d use this as a good starting point.
Price points:
- 400 RB, 250 premium currency
- 800 RB, 600 premium currency, 20% bonus
- 1600 RB, 1500 premium currency, 50% bonus
- 2400 RB, 2500 premium currency, 67% bonus
- 4000 RB, 5000 premium currency, 100% bonus
- 8000 RB, 12,500 premium currency, 150% bonus
Something I’m not doing in Terminal Defense (yet!), is offering a one-time special deal on the first premium currency pack purchased. This is generally done in one of two ways:
- Give a discounted cost for the first currency pack purchased
- Give additional extra currency for the first currency pack purchased (often 2x as much). For example, if the player purchased the third premium currency pack for 1600 RB, we could give them 3,000 premium currency instead of 1,500. After that it goes back to normal amounts for all packs.
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